Valve Pipeline Trains Teens to Make Games

[Cognimancer]

Valve Pipeline Trains Teens to Make Games


Valve's new Pipeline initiative aims to take inexperienced high school students and turn them into the next generation of game developers.

Ever wanted to work at Valve? If you do, good luck: Valve has had enough success that it typically only hires top-notch talent, leaving younger developers with few options. Valve Pipeline is a new project from the company to help those students who want to make games, but haven't really started their professional journey yet. A handful of teenage students will be working at Valve to create a website for aspiring developers, while learning the ropes of basic development from some of the best in the industry.

Pipeline itself seems to be an online guide to getting into the game development industry. At the bare minimum it will include FAQs and a forum for discussing routes into the industry and how to prepare for a career making games. The twist is that the entire site is being built from the ground up by the very people it's targeting - with some help and mentoring from the staff at Valve, of course. Valve has never spent much effort training industry newcomers, so the project is also an experiment on its part to see just what this younger generation can do.

Creating a website is obviously very different from creating a game, but the skills are worth knowing. Whether Valve decides to expand these efforts in the future will probably depend on the performance of this test run. In the meantime you can follow the team's progress at the Pipeline website [http://pipeline.valvesoftware.com/].

Source: Valve [http://pipeline.valvesoftware.com/]

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[Voulan]

So can....can I do it? Or is it a local thing and for teenagers only?

I guess its boring office work for my future.

 

[saintdane05]

"First, you sit down here. THen you masterbate. After doing that for a few years, you start making a game."

 

[Chemical Alia]

When I was in high school, I thought all digital art was done in MS Paint. I wish I had been able to start so early. Just the amount of people I know who are making decent stuff for the Steam Workshop who are under 18 is pretty crazy to me.

 

[FancyNick]

Damn, I wish I had this in high school. Back to normal channels for me. *sigh*

 

[Jetsetneo]

having just recently graduated college with all most prospective video game industry jobs being shot down, I really feel like I could've used something like this back when I was a teenage

 

[Dr.Awkward]

..Yeah, to be honest, it should be open to anyone who desires to make a game, and not be limited to only just teens. I can understand teen-only segments right now, but you know there's some people in their 30s and 50s who would love to take some time to learn game design.

Although I can imagine the tune being mostly heard within the first few weeks is "OH MY FUC@#$@#% STOP CRASHING HAMMER!" If you want these training sessions to work Valve, you've gotta provide tools that are reliable enough to handle a teen's meager competence, and in its current condition, Hammer isn't it.

 

[unstabLized]

YES!!!!

Brb. Going to make Half Life 3 and shower myself in bills.

 

[Kittyhawk]

A cool idea, but I feel it shouldn't be restricted by age. Throw the help open to anyone that's interested. Yes, children are the future, but talent knows no bounds or age.

Anyway, good luck with it Valve. Another positive, that leaves many in the industry sitting on their hands.

 

[The]

This looks too good to be true, but I'll bite. I wonder if it'll be online course style (like Udacity or Coursera) or if it's just going to be tips, FAQs, and showing how things work in the industry.

 

[BushMonstar]

Well, I'm a teenager who lives all of about 30 minutes away from Valve's offices in Bellevue, so this is really cool for me. I actually walked by their offices a couple of hours ago, and I felt like I could see all the steam sales money flowing in.

 

[Jamous]

It's always worth having stuff like this around. I should probably get on teaching myself some more stuff like this...

 

[Thaluikhain]

Heh, spend much of the last year sharing a double room with people doing a much more interesting class on games design. We'd always hear them talk about which direction the zombie hordes should come from, while we were learning stuff that might actually get us a job.

In theory, at least, before they cut down our course to irrelevance.

 

[Kathinka]

it's mostly a PR stunt. currently it's pretty much limited to school friends of gabes son.

 

[Cliff_m85]

Valve: "Ok Timmy, where's your assignment?"
Timmy: "Well, I know the due date was last week, teacher...."
Valve: "And?"
Timmy: "Well, I was just too busy doing other things to finish it. I know you're disappointed... but if you give me, say, five more years to (maybe) finish it you're going to be so impressed. I promise."
Valve: ".... A+. You have learned well, my student."

 

[Strazdas]

I know you like to roll it in that you have more money than places to spend them at Valve, but this is really getting ridiculous.