It was really quite depressing when he recognized the "freemium" importance, and how the sales department must design the game together with the design department. They're facing reality, I guess.
Lost Between Levels Special Edition: Valve
Show Episodes
- March 6, 2013
- Valve Special
- Mar 6, 2013
Shaun visits the house that Half-Life built to meet some of its talented employees and to learn more about the company culture that inspires them.
217 comments
Valve is absolutely unique. The only company that actually seems to care about the gaming community.
1 Like Very interesting! My first thought was that Shaun was going to have to take a cable train car that goes down into some large mountain to get to the Valve entrance where he would be met by a security guard wearing a blue uniform named Barney. My guess is that that particular entrance is for people who have a high security clearance of HL3. Valve made sure Shaun was restricted to certain locations as to not reveal any work-in progress of HL3. You could just feel that as Shaun was listening to the feedback from the Valve employee's he wanted to just scream out "please for the love of budda, give me any scoop on HL3. Just nod your head up and down would be a wonderful sign of acknowledgement"!
Loved what Valve has done in the past, present, and look forward to what's next in the future. Especially an HL3 future! =)
1 Like Valve is the best . That's all I can say . I have nothing but Respect for Gabe Newell , all I can do is to support their awesome products forever and praise steam . Thanks Gabe .
I did not see in the interview an explanation for why they have rolled their desks away from their signature half-life series for so long. Even if the team is thoroughly jaded on half-life, the fans have been clamoring for more for too long. A top-down corporation would have been on half-life 9 by now, granted, but having none since hl2 episode 2 is too extreme in the other direction.
1 Like Hard to explain valve's success? How hard is it to understand that by listening and understanding your customers, they're more likely to purchase your goods and services?
2 Like That is interesting how they manage to keep grabbing self-directed people. I wish I could be like that, but I'm a slow starter. I don't start working well until I start defining the project well and see ideas coming together, but once I get an idea of the final product, I can really start to take off. The uncertainty of being unmanaged and starting up a project on my own are enough to stop me from even being able to start without help. I am trying to expand my capabilities but the highly systematic confines of mild autism are difficult to overcome.
Woah. I'd always thought Valve was a special company, but now I've got a new appreciation of just how special. Such a business model shouldn't work, but they've got it to. Bravo!
1 Like these guys have a great business model... they just do games because they like doing games and they're not rushed by a publisher to finish a game - they only release when they're satisfied with what they created. great article
Wow this is an awesome work model for a company, no managers, no titles, no definitive roles as employees, just get to work on what your best at, if you fail pick yourself up and prove your worth it, awesome... it also explains (unfortunately) why HL3 isnt done yet.
Give me a break man, HL3 isn't delayed because of a lack of focus. Valve has been EXTREMELY busy expanding every aspect of it's business (Steam Community/Workshop, "Steam Box," etc). But it's not delayed because of a lack of time/manpower either. Gabe Newell, and Valve in general, are very particular about timing. Half-Life sets the bar with each new installment, that's a historical fact. The only way to ensure they can raise the bar again is by aiming for next generation. What's so hard to understand about that? Yes 6-7 years is a long time to wait, but at least it's not 12! (Think Starcraft/Diablo)
3 Like @demstarfish diverse also means what they did previously, and a couple were from different countries(did you not notice the accents?) Diversity doesn't just apply to race and gender.
2 Like Really excellent report. So many interesting points raised. Thinking about the music and sound in Portal 2 - what a definitive part of the game they were. I really liked the focus of questions on practical aspects of the company structure and was pleased to see that Valve were giving such frank answers; where other companies would have gone for much cheesier self-promotion, I thought these interviews were quite candid.
1 Like Valve needs to get off their lazy asses and make a HL 2 EP 3, HL 3, or admit they have run out of ideas, they have been side stepping HL with side projects like Left4Dead, and Portal yet no word about their flagship game. HL 2 EP 2 came out in 2007 and they ended it with a cliff hanger that was to be picked up with HL 2 EP 3 yet that game never got made nor have they done ANYTHING with the HL series since then. HL 2 only took 3 years to come out after HL:Blue Shift and it was talked about in that time as a "it is coming out, we are working on this HL 2 game", unlike then there has been no word on a HL 2 EP 3 nor a HL 3 at all being made.
"Valve Time" is also something gamers should never have accepted as being "ok" no matter how good the companty is or was.
I like Left4Dead and Left4Dead 2 but they should have been made AFTER the HL story was over via the 3rd episode or a HL 3.
@Offworlder1Consider this: if Valve did things the way you think they should (the way everybody else does it), their games would be disappointing, just like everybody else. The reason you want their game so bad is because they do things their way, and they make great games as a result. Grow up and have some patience.
1 Like @Offworlder1 Calm down man, most of your arguments are invalid.
First of all they have multiple teams working on multiple things so they haven't side stepped anything.
Second of all Blus Shift wasn't made by Valve but by Gearbox (which is probably why it was just ok) and published by Valve's publisher at the time Sierra.
And finally it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out they've been developing HL3 on the new Source engine for the next generation of consoles (and PC of course, but waiting for consoles to be able to handle the new engine).
If they have not announced or given any info for HL 3 or even what happened to HL 2 EP 3 it means they are not doing anything or are not confident in what they have done to talk about it to the public.
Valve needs to man the **** up and release info or just admit they don't have a damn thing, this BS with HL 2 EP 3/ HL 3 not having any update or news for so long is unacceptable. Even HL 2 had more info and news in the 2-3 years it was "in the making".
@Welverin @Offworlder1 @Daian I would tend to side with offworlder on this one but no one knows for sure what's going on at Valve right now. They seem very secretive about projects(as they should). They did however leave a hell of a cliff hanger with the expansion EP which never was dealt with. After how many years? (5-6) I think it's safe to say that HL was put on the back burner, at least for some time. If I were to 'guess'- HL3 out in 2014-15. Who knows, right?
1 Like @Offworlder1@DaianThe notion that because Valve isn't talking about the next Half-life game means they aren't working on it is just plain stupid.
If you really want to understand why Valve isn't talking about it you need to read about the development of Team Fortress 2* and Portal 2. Both games went through multiple versions, the first take of Portal 2 was something radically different from what we got. Gabe has actually said they don't want to talk about it because nothing is concrete and it will only annoy their fans even more (this was done so obliquely, since he gets in trouble whenever he actually mentions HL3).
You need to just accept that Valve won't talk about any of their games until they're good and ready and what they reveal isn't going to radically change before we get it.
* http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Team_Fortress_2#Development
WHAT. THE FUCK? No mention of Half-Life 3? Shaun didn't even take the opportunity to ask Valve, on camera, about HL3? Why? What a wasted opportunity. Otherwise great video. As you can probably tell, I love their games. Please don't make us wait for HL3 for much longer, Valve.
8 Like @x-2tha-z Easy to understand your disappointment. We didn't bother asking them about Half Life 3 because we already knew what the answer was going to be - likely along the lines of "We aren't here to talk about any projects we haven't announced yet". It became a running joke during our time there when we wanted to film people at their desks that our handler needed to run ahead of us and tell everyone in the area to "get all the half life 3 off everyone's monitors" so it would be safe to film.
I can say this much, there were a lot of areas of the studio that we didn't have access to because people were hard at work on unannounced projects. No real surprises there though.
Glad you took the time to watch the video, and hope you enjoyed it otherwise.
2 Like Bravo, Shaun, and Gamespot. Excellent story, excellent topic, excellent interviews. This is the kinda content I love. In-depth, behind-the-scenes reporting with the people that make the games we play. Bravo.
Maybe some other designers/publishers/developers could learn a few things from valve. Time and time again they give the people what they want even if the people don't always know what that is.
They have the right idea and if i was 25 years younger i would strive to earn employment there. By far the best games company out there.
1 Like So my theory is proven correct. Managers are not necessary for a company to thrive as long as you hire the right people who aren't ego-centric douches.
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