Insider Spills Beans on Valve's Bossless Culture

[Extragorey]

No wonder it takes them for freaking ever to do anything; no one's around to tell them to get off their asses and stop playing with themselves

Don't be daft; the employee handbook was also very clear on how people get fired. They do have frequent peer reviews.

 

[Tiamat666]

Valve makes a good creative precedent that in a society of capable and responsible individuals, anarchy is the best form of "organization".

Unfortunately most societies do not consist exclusively of capable and responsible individuals, which is why the rest of us will have to make due with democracy (at best) and be ruled by the dumb, impressionable masses.

Yipiee.

 

[Jumplion]

There's an almost a suspicious amount of content promoting Valve around here lately.

That is because they keep doing a great job and make the rest of the industry look like monsters.

More or less this. People hate on Valve fanboys but they really are the only big developer really getting it right

Pretty much this. Valve has found a proper way to do business. Companies would have you believe that you need a boss babysitting you to do your job, that a producer is needed in a development team even though no one knows exactly what they do. When I see valve doing it right I think about Extra Credits trying to tackle this subject and provide no solutions.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/so-you-want-to-be-a-producer

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/working-conditions

The things that these two video's talk about are completely unnecessary contrary to what publishers would have you believe.

I hope valve continues to get it right.

The thing is, VALVe can afford to have an internal organization like this due to STEAM and their games (but mostly STEAM). The reason why they haven't gone full blown EA is that they've forcibly limited their numbers to keep from getting too big for its britches. For the majority of companies, publishers, producers, etc... bosses and structure are necessary to keep a project on track and within budget constraints. And even crunch time has its place in that system (though the extremely harsh crunch time that we've seen recently is absolutely unacceptable and is a huge flaw with the structured system).

As much as we would love for companies to do this, few publishers are willing to stick to a developer if they take 12 years to deliver a single title as VALVe (TF2) or, say, Blizzard (Diablo 3) have done. It's just not practical.

 

[Zoe Castillo]

--.

 

[knhirt]

There's an almost a suspicious amount of content promoting Valve around here lately.

Tell me about it. I can almost predict the next article:

"Valve employee sneezes in GLORIOUS manner."

I can't resist, because this is very relevant (and glorious):

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

Saying they have no boss(es) is them being hipsters about it, but I regardless appreciate that they trust people to do their jobs without having some yahoo constantly looking over their shoulder and forcing them into weekly meetings about the company's core values and the like.

 

[jamesbrown]

So basically Valve is a working anarchy?

Outside of the US, and by most individuals that self-identify as anarchists, it implies a system of governance, mostly theoretical at a nation state level although there are a few successful historical examples,[5] that goes to lengths to avoid the use of coercion, violence, force and authority, while still producing a productive and desirable society.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy

I was just about to write this .
I don?t count myself an Anarchist but I do find the broad strokes of Anarchy appealing, so to see one of my favored companies working by a similar system is quite a nice feeling .

I see it more democratic than anyhthing, people "vote" with thier work on what projects should get done; Also slightly darwinain because bad projects die, while good projects live

also if you don't do anything, you get fired; so esstially, you're not told to work on one thing; as long as you work, you're fine.

 

[Durai]

We have no leader, but Gabelak Newmane is our Harbinger. We haven't had a true leader since Mikesgramor Harrington.

LOL, this exact reference popped up in my mind the minute I heard "leaderless."

 

[DTWolfwood]

Um i'm just gonna assume whoever sign their paychecks is the boss. Even if you pretend he isn't, when he comes around, you're working

 

[Pinkamena]

The gaming community should start a project, where we try to get a sleeper agent inside Valve. When the time is right, we will activate him. With his charisma and amazing leader abilities, he will get everyone at Valve to work on HL3!

Who's with me?

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Ya know Hali life 2 eps are not all that and I can only think HL3 will be more of the same only shinier. So I think I will pass...

Oh and it would be nice if half the time you don't need to be online to go into offline mode....

 

[catalyst8]

It's not actually an anarchy due to the employee reviews, firing, etc. However, because the means of production are regulated by the employees as a whole it's definitely socialism in action. That surprises me about a company in the US; a nation whose inhabitants are notorious for confusing or even utterly failing to grasp the concepts of liberal, socialist, & communist.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Jason Holtman, Valve's Director of Business Development

So rather than having bosses, they have directors? Sounds reasonable. Especially seeing as the word "boss" is negatively looked at nowadays. That's all Valve are doing, they're trying to take out all the negativity of a business. Just my two 'cents'.

 

[Malk_Content]

As much as we would love for companies to do this, few publishers are willing to stick to a developer if they take 12 years to deliver a single title as VALVe (TF2) or, say, Blizzard (Diablo 3) have done. It's just not practical.

With the exception of 2002, Valve have released either a game or expansion to a game every year since 1998. They are more prolific than Blizzard, its just that some titles take longer to make when people aren't as interested in working on them. Which is a good thing, you can tell when a game has had experts working on it who aren't personally interesting in the project. Those games are mechanically often very good but lack proper soul.

 

[Cobalt Lion]

I was actually reading about this in a college course I am taking. It's a somewhat new concept in business management but seems to have some research favoring it in certain situations. As was discussed above, it's not that there is no power structure at all, it just more nebulous. As Holtman states in his article, people tend to emerge and step back as leaders on individual projects.

It seems like the kind of thing that would be interesting to experience, and I'd love to see more research on it.

 

[Jumplion]

As much as we would love for companies to do this, few publishers are willing to stick to a developer if they take 12 years to deliver a single title as VALVe (TF2) or, say, Blizzard (Diablo 3) have done. It's just not practical.

With the exception of 2002, Valve have released either a game or expansion to a game every year since 1998. They are more prolific than Blizzard, its just that some titles take longer to make when people aren't as interested in working on them. Which is a good thing, you can tell when a game has had experts working on it who aren't personally interesting in the project. Those games are mechanically often very good but lack proper soul.

This is an interesting point that people always bring up on VALVe, but I could never really count it personally for the main reason that none of those games are actually VALVe's; they're mods that VALVe picks up the teams for and funds through their own publishing. Really, VALVe hasn't had an original IP since Half Life and, well, that's their only original IP.

I guess the reason why I can't really count the "they release a game every year!" argument is that it'd be like saying that EA is the greatest developer out there since they've published constant streams of good games (Mass Effect series, Battlefield, etc...) when they only published it, they didn't develop it. Likewise, VALVe is really more like a publisher nowadays, just that the developers are within the company itself.

Your opinion on Blizzard's games having "soul" is entirely your own opinion, so I can't agree with you there. I'm not saying that VALVe doesn't produce great games, but my original point of their company structure being unsustainable for the majority of companies still rings true. It also conflicts with the "auteur theory" for games as I do believe that this industry needs more singular authors to bring out styles and themes in games. There's only so much you can truly push and expand on through committee, though I repeat there isn't anything wrong with it.

 

[Vigormortis]

snip

I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. Pure and simple. And frankly, we all know it is.

Valves only real original IP is Half-Life? Well, by that logic, then almost every game series in existence isn't the property of it's parent developer.

I mean, really. How the hell do you think most development studios out there come up with their fresh, new ideas?

I'll tell you. They more often than not get those ideas by either buying the ideas from other parties or hiring fresh new talent who can think of new ideas. Or did you think a handful of industry veterans from the 80's have been thinking up every single new game idea?

This is no different than what Valve does. Except that, besides not only giving the mod teams jobs (which people like you still seem to think is bad, which is beyond me), they also give these new hires free will on what project they want to work on. In most cases, the mod team go about using Valve's resources (money, dev tools, and design talent) to make their dream game. This is what lead to games like Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Dota 2, and Left 4 Dead.

So again, how is it that those are not Valve's games? Were you under the assumption that those games were already in that state and were only purchased by Valve so they could throw their logo on them? Don't kid yourself. Large portions of the development teams in Valve worked tirelessly on those games. For you to say they are not their games is not only disingenuous, it's insulting.

Seriously people, why do we even still argue this? It's unfathomable how anyone can still hold to the idea that Valve only makes Half-Life. (or that they only makes games)

 

[Awexsome]

I appreciate Valve for doing the right thing but they live with luxuries that any developer could use to become the all loved and fan friendly one. I like Valve and their games but their fans often times take Valve's comfortable, and quite frankly unprecedented luxuries for granted when holding them so high.

 

[Doom972]

With lack of official hierarchy, there will always be a non-official one. Sounds like they have a dynamic hierarchy that changes whenever someone takes initiative. Seems effective.