Gabe Newell: Valve Would "Disintegrate" Under New Ownership

[Aggieknight]

PRODUCTIVITY ANALYSIS REQUIRED

Games/Employee//Year!

GO!

EA Employees: 7,645

Valve Employees: 293

EA games/year = 984/30 = 32.8
Valve games/year = 29/16 = 1.8125

(Games were simply counted off the wikipedia lists, so include expansion packs and yearly released games and such)

7,645/32.8 = ~233
2.93/1.8125 = ~2

Sorry Valve, you're just renowned for being really, really unproductive.

I think your analysis is simplistic.

Not counting for quality (I mean like...really), are you counting published EA games versus created games?

You also need account for fixed overhead such as HR, finance, etc.

Then I'd suggest you contemplate coming up with a way to account for resources devoted to game development versus resources devoted to other areas...for example Steam (and Origin). Those services don't code and support themselves.

Finally, I'd suggest you come up with a method to scale your numbers based on games per year/development population.

Just my 2 cents.

I think the net/net would be EA produces more games than Valve, but I would be the numbers would be closer.

 

[Sight Unseen]

You have a bit of a numbers error there,sir. If you had done that correctly, you would have gotten 161.65, which is MUCH more respectable.

Also I believe your ratios are messed up. What you calculated here is employees/games/year if I'm looking at it right, and you're also implicitely making assumptions which I don't think are valid. For instance you're assuming that the rate of game release is a constant over their lifespan and also that their employee numbers are a constant. For EA especially I don't think that this holds. If you REALLY wanted to be accurate with this, you'd have to get more data and do some like integration and shit lol.

Yeah I know but that's terribly boring.

I just wanted to allude to Valve Time.

Deliberately (or not) using incorrect math to prove a point is a dangerous game, sir. Especially if the correct math actually refutes your hypothesis completely, which I believe this does, see my edit above.

 

[Danny Ocean]

Deliberately (or not) using incorrect math to prove a point is a dangerous game, sir.

Only if anyone actually cares. I'm surprised so many do. Cheers for fixing it though. I'm going to get back to packing.

 

[Scrythe]

Oh my gods, how have we not seen the signs?

Spoiler

The end times are upon us, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[Falseprophet]

Any analysis of Valve's productivity should account for the fact they now do their own marketing in-house. Also, Steam is their golden goose that needs tending as well. (Yeah, EA has Origin but they only have to worry about one publisher's games on that thing.)

 

[Sight Unseen]

Deliberately (or not) using incorrect math to prove a point is a dangerous game, sir.

Only if anyone actually cares. I'm surprised so many do. Cheers for fixing it though. I'm going to get back to packing.

I'm sorry if I'm being too anal about this, but being a scientist/ engineer (in training), in my field, using incorrect math means your chemical plant explodes, which is never good for anyone. So we have to make sure what we're calculating is actually what we want it to be

 

[Twilight_guy]

Valve: entirely staffed by hipsters who would rather quit then work for 'the man'.

Of wait, I'm supposed to mindless drone on about how great they are because I'm on the escapist and they're the golden child um, ugh... nope, I got nothing.

 

[MetalMagpie]

What I still don't understand is what a "bossless culture" actually is. Does the company really not have a management structure, or is the idea just that managers don't try to boss around the people they manage?

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I dont even see Valve as a game company, they are just a company that run Steam. They have done fuck all in the last few years and live off that one game series Half Life, and even then that only lasted 2 games. I dont count the episodes as they canned ep3....talk about screwing over fans who bought ep 1 and ep2 - thanks for that Valve for not finishing that story.

So EA buys them? Who cares. If these companies were producing good games then EA would never close those companies. People blame EA, but those companies didn't have to accept the buyout and could have remained independent. But they didn't.

 

[l3o2828]

Valve haters can say all they want about them.
But they never released a game that wasn't, in my opinion, atleast great.
While EA spends his time killing the industry slowly.

You might call me a mindless drone, but out of all videogame companies around, Valve is the most respectable and innofensive one.

 

[tautologico]

What I still don't understand is what a "bossless culture" actually is. Does the company really not have a management structure, or is the idea just that managers don't try to boss around the people they manage?

According to the Valve Employee Handbook (pdf [http://newcdn.flamehaus.com/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf]) and what people who worked/works there said, it really is bossless. Not even Gabe Newell says what people should do. Of course they're aware that this is quite unique and not everyone is well equipped to work in such an environment, but it seems to work for them.

 

[Covarr]

They have done fuck all in the last few years and live off that one game series Half Life, and even then that only lasted 2 games.

I'm not sure what your definition of "the last few years" is, but let's say you mean 2008 for the sake of having a number to work with. Here's what they've released in that time.

• 
  [li]A million TF2 updates[/li]
  [li]Left 4 Dead[/li]
  [li]Left 4 Dead 2[/li]
  [li]Alien Swarm[/li]
  [li]Portal 2[/li]
  [li]Counter-Strike: Global Offensive[/li]
  [li]Source Filmmaker[/li]

That's five new games and a machinima tool in four years (soon to be six games, with the coming release of Dota 2). Not to mention, most of those games received quite a few free updates, and many of them are still getting 'em. That's not bad, considering how much smaller they are than the EAs and the Activisions, considering the consistant quality of their output (pretty much all better than the annual CoD and Madden updates), and considering that they DON'T HAVE CRUNCH TIME AND ONLY HAVE VERY LIMITED OVERTIME.

But if you want, you can keep pretending they aren't doing anything.

P.S. Thanks

 

[synobal]

Dear gabe, please take better care of yourself. I wake up each day afraid I'll read a story like this. "Game messiah Gabe Newell was found dead today a top his money pile."

 

[Mullahgrrl]

Their 'bossless' way of doing things kind of reminds me of catalonia during the spanish civil war from what I hear.

They should do great unless they get killed by marxists.

 

[Two-A]

Valve: entirely staffed by hipsters who would rather quit then work for 'the man'.

Of wait, I'm supposed to mindless drone on about how great they are because I'm on the escapist and they're the golden child um, ugh... nope, I got nothing.

Well, if we look at how 'the man' has treated other gaming companies it has bought, I wouldn't blame them.

I don't see anything wrong with thinking your company can manage itself without the help of a publisher, specially if they've proven they can.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Is there a comparison in another industry where there's this kind of difference in corporate structure?

Is it like John Lewis vs. British Home Stores?

Seems like Valve is basically a co-op video game company, while EA is more traditionally structured.

EA does seem to kick out an awful lot more games than valve, but I don't know how much bigger it is.

PRODUCTIVITY ANALYSIS REQUIRED

Games/Employee//Year!

GO!

EA Employees: 7,645

Valve Employees: 293

EA games/year = 984/30 = 32.8
Valve games/year = 29/16 = 1.8125

(Games were simply counted off the wikipedia lists, so include expansion packs and yearly released games and such)

7,645/32.8 = ~233
2.93/1.8125 = ~2

Sorry Valve, you're just renowned for being really, really unproductive.

your forgetting the fact that, it's EA, so 50% of the games released by them are copy/pastes of last years version, 45% are shit anyway, and only 5% are good.

where as all the games Vavle have released, have pretty much been held up as being gifts from on high, plus, they have steam, they can a ford to faff about.

 

[Me55enger]

That picture makes him look like a spectacled, tuskless walrus.

 

[antipunt]

I don't know about the rest of you guys but I came for the beard >_>