Valve's Employee Handbook Appears Online

[Sizzle Montyjing]

...
This is the most awesome thing ever.
I dare you too find something more awesome.
[HEADING=2]I dare you.[/HEADING]

 

[EHKOS]

The massage parlor explains why HL3 is taking so long.

A lot of other companies have this kind of thing too, Google for one, another is Naughty Dog.

 

[newdarkcloud]

There's joke in there somewhere about Gabe Newell still being overweight while the facility he works in and is head of has a fully-functional gym available to all employees.
There is, but I won't make it.

Anyway, that seems like one of best places to work at. Pretty chill, while at the same time able to get things done (at and admittedly slow pace, but still).
Perhaps I'll work someplace like that one day. I can dream.

 

[Yopaz]

I guess this structure is part of the reason they have some problems making Half-Life 3. If they get to pick their project you don't want to join the one with the most hype where fans will disappointed for anything short of a cure for cancer.

 

[Wicky_42]

I love that their guide on "how to find out what's going on" is to look to internet rumours XD

 

[draythefingerless]

These guys trully are a beacon, an island away from the mainland.

There's good and bad sides to this style of management. The good side is that if you have good, self-motivated and self-reliant employees, you'll be unstoppable. Things, both good and bad, will just get done infinitely faster than a hierarchical system, which leaves a lot of room to experiment and innovate.

The downside is that all of your employees need to be motivated, passionate and self-reliant, all 3 of which are relatively rare qualities in the work force. I know myself well enough to know I wouldn't be able to function at full capacity in such an environment, simply because I'm a lazy sack of shit and I'm only motivated to work on a project when it poses an interesting intellectual challenge. If I were to end up working there, I'd end up almost certainly never working on any of my own projects, because if I'm left to my own devices nothing ever gets done.

not everyone works at valve . i myself dont know wether or not i would do well. i do require one thing for working and that is work schedules. i need to be told to come to work on monday. it doesnt have to be 9 to 6 precisely every day forever, but just sayin come in the mornin mondays and work is enough. i carefully preserved my childhood because i knew that spark would be needed some day. companies like this show me why.

 

[Cheeseman Muncher]

It's official: Valve is the Wonka Chocolate factory of video game developers.

only that willy got eaten and replaced by Augustus Gloop.

...
This is the most awesome thing ever.
I dare you too find something more awesome.
[HEADING=2]I dare you.[/HEADING]

Spoiler: how about some awesome pair of boobies

You, sir, have earned yourself an internets.


OT: I had a look at this earlier on today. I kind of half-expected it to be filled with thinly veiled half-life 3 references which you had to cobble together in a really overly elaborate way to calculate the release date. But this is cool too. Pretty amazing that they've managed to work as a company without everything descending into a free-for-all.

 

[Baldr]

"Empty Shelf on Fifth Floor?Place we?re planning on putting all those
awards for Ricochet once the gaming world finally catches up with it."

No truer words have every been written down.

 

[Sunrider]

"Empty Shelf on Fifth Floor?Place we?re planning on putting all those
awards for Ricochet once the gaming world finally catches up with it."

No truer words have every been written down.

I was JUST about to point that out. That was probably the funniest part in the whole thing as far as I could tell. Well that, and this:

"Gabe Newell ? Of all the people at this company who aren?t your boss, Gabe is the MOST not your boss, if you get what we?re saying.

 

[Cat of Doom]

Valve releases some pretty good games i guess, I just don't understand why they so revered in the gaming community. Left 4 dead was probably my favorite valve game. I think half life is incredibly "Meh" ,despite everyone telling me its story telling mechanisms are unparalleled, I just can't seem t get invested in any of their dry characters. Don't understand why they get zero flack for things other studios get crucified for like the non-existent fan communication, complete misunderstanding of what episodic games are meant to be, and mass effect 3 has a bad ending, have you played Half life 2( ok its not THAT bad, but I'v replayed ME3 a copule of times, but never bothered with portal once the gimmick wore off and never played HL2 since I finished it back in 05).

And this might seem strange but my number 1 pet peeve with valve games, every character has LOUD FUCKING FOOTSTEPS.

so yeah, can't understand why valve always seems to get a free pass when they... oh yeah right Steam.

 

[Kargathia]

I'm impressed. In order to make these kinds of business practices run - and flourish - one needs a fuckton of confidence, determination, and a veritable collection of demi-gods moonlighting as software developers.

 

[Covarr]

Valve releases some pretty good games i guess, I just don't understand why they so revered in the gaming community.

I think it's mostly to do with the fact that they are generally good to their customers. People like it when games are still getting updated two years later, they like it when they can complain about a TF2 weapon being horribly imbalanced and VALV[sup]E[/sup] actually listens, something most companies wouldn't care about. Just look how many games receive a day one patch to finish it because the devs weren't done yet, and then never get touched again unless there's a severe game-breaking bug in there.

Don't understand why they get zero flack for things other studios get crucified for like the non-existent fan communication

They communicate with fans far more than most companies. They have a higher than average rate of answered emails, employees who are actually somewhat active on their forums, etc.

complete misunderstanding of what episodic games are meant to be,

They actually get a lot of flack for this one. Just not enough to offset the public's overall opinion of them.

and mass effect 3 has a bad ending, have you played Half life 2( ok its not THAT bad, but I'v replayed ME3 a copule of times, but never bothered with portal once the gimmick wore off and never played HL2 since I finished it back in 05).

The difference is that HL2's ending wasn't an ending at all, but a cliffhanger. ME3's ending was meant as an actual ending, and it was bad as one.

But mostly it's a combination of consistently above-average games and a great delivery system.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Dryk]

You know Valve may take eons to release stuff but it was always fun.

They are one of the few developers that still belief in making quality.

These two factors are related. They have enough money to take as long as they want while publishing their own games. It's very rare that a game studio will have this luxury.

They're also private, which disqualifies most companies with the funds

 

[MorganL4]

So am I to understand that the reason we DONT have half life 3 is because NO ONE at valve WANTS to work on it? Is that really the case?

You know Valve may take eons to release stuff but it was always fun.

They are one of the few developers that still belief in making quality.

These two factors are related. They have enough money to take as long as they want while publishing their own games. It's very rare that a game studio will have this luxury.

They're also private, which disqualifies most companies with the funds

Only public company I know of that is close to this mentality is Google. Some random guys side project is what we now call Gmail. ( seriously)

 

[Agayek]

not everyone works at valve . i myself dont know wether or not i would do well. i do require one thing for working and that is work schedules. i need to be told to come to work on monday. it doesnt have to be 9 to 6 precisely every day forever, but just sayin come in the mornin mondays and work is enough. i carefully preserved my childhood because i knew that spark would be needed some day. companies like this show me why.

Very true.

I actually work really well without schedules or managerial interference, I just need someone to get me started on a project. Once I get actually working on something (and assuming it's not mind-numbingly boring), I am incredibly productive and (in my biased opinion) rather good at what I do.

It just takes an act of God (or a skilled manager) to get me started.

 

[Cat of Doom]

Don't understand why they get zero flack for things other studios get crucified for like the non-existent fan communication

They communicate with fans far more than most companies. They have a higher than average rate of answered emails, employees who are actually somewhat active on their forums, etc.

They never called me back "sobs".

I have a slightly bias opinion as I'v had bad experiences with the company regarding damaged games and merch. Plus I find their customer service department is almost as unhelpful as the old republic's. Not saying their a bad company, just don't see what makes their games so special, never played team fortress, but I regard most their games, bar left 4 dead, as Meh. For a required taste I suppose.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

So the secret to Valve's success is that they are basically decent people far more evolved than your average capitalist scumbag. Valve is awesome. What else is new?

I want to work at Valve.

 

[Woodsey]

So am I to understand that the reason we DONT have half life 3 is because NO ONE at valve WANTS to work on it? Is that really the case?

Not really, no.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/04/23/gabe-on-ricochet-2-delay-but-he-doesnt-mean-ricochet/

OT: I would like to work there, please.

 

[CatmanStu]

It does sound like a relaxing and enjoyable company to work for but their stress free, work at your pace approach is also the reason why in nearly eight years they have released three online multiplayer only titles, plus two HL2 DLC packs and two Portal titles with about 10-15 hours of content between them, all running on the same (admittedly upgraded) engine.

Don't get me wrong, all of their products are of excellent quality, but I wonder if any other developer could get away with such a drip feed of content.

It's amazing how much good will you can get from a highly reliable and cost effective online distribution service, they must be the only company whos PR has benefitted from the world wide recession.

Would you rather have Valve bring out games in a similar fashion to Activision? Generally a small amount of something good is better than a large quantity of bullshit.

God no! Portal and Portal 2 were wonderful games (Portal 2 would have been my game of the year last year if not for Witcher 2) but Valve aren't some poor little indie developer that need a Kickstarter to get a project going, they're a leviathon in both size and reputation with the funds of an amazingly successful online distribution company behind them, shouldn't we expect a little more from them?

 

[Syzygy23]

That place isn't a place of WORK, or a place where you would hold a JOB, what they describe is HEAVEN!