SAccharing10 said:
I think VALVe doesn't have that many employees yet we see incredible game after game, but the system inwhich the games are developed are unlike any other - nobody has a specific job, everybody contributes to something in their own way and everybody is in a discussion about each part of the game, which is gametested endlessly until release - if more companies did this type of development we'd see less shitty games hitting the market.
Yes this is exactly right, I forget how many people on average work at Valve but they're certainly not a "large" company in relation to the amount of devs working there. I'm all for the smaller and more focused games companies because there's less seperation that way, I've seen some studios that grew so large that it couldn't help but force everyone into their own little groups which sliced communication ten fold.
Where I work, while there obviously is a hierarchy of responsiblity/management, it's not made evident, I won't go into details but suffice to say we all work on the same floor and it keeps everything friendly, there's no sense of that "boss man" sitting in an office by himself giving orders to his groups of minions, we're all one and the same and it really keeps things moving, if an artist needs to speak to a programmer or vice versa, chances are they'll be a few desks apart from each other anyway. I haven't been working their long and I'm one of their newest devs, but I don't feel like it! It's a great atmosphere to work in and I whole heartedly agree with "that" way for games studios to operate.
