toblix

Half-Life 3

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I may have whinged about this before, but really think about Valve for a second: if you happened to get a hundred or so of the smartest people you could find in a room and let them work, do you think you'd do quite so little as Valve appears to do? But I think the thing that bothers me the most is that Valve don't really come up with their own games any more. They bought Team Fortress, Portal, Tag: The Power of Paint, Left 4 Dead and DOTA and basically polished them. They are far less impressive as a company when you realise that the vast majority of the company are basically superfluous.

 

"Basically polished them" greatly understates the amount of work that they've put into each of those games. For example, take Team Fortress 2: outside of the classes and basic abilities, almost everything else in the game is different.  Portal only carries across the basic mechanic from Narbacular Drop, adding cleverer puzzles and a strikingly unique story. Just looking at their official releases is also misleading, since they're continuing to push out new content for a lot of those games. And even for DOTA 2, that's a surprising lateral move for a company that's previously done FPS games only.

 

Granted, they have been pretty quiet recently, which is probably due to the new engine stuff that Lu? and BigJKO mentioned. They also have side-projects like Steam going too, which would take a surprising amount of effort between infrastructure, continued development, publisher relations, etc. But historically most of their work—and their success—has been in actually spending 90% of man-hours on the last 10%. I just don't feel that you can attack their work by saying that they pulled in most of their mechanics from outside teams, since the whole breadth of their projects is really rather stunning.

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Valve takes forever to do stuff because they do great stuff and it takes a long time to do great stuff. From their very first game to what they're making now, Valve isn't afraid to scrap 90% of what they have and rebuild it all from scratch if that means making a better game. Of course, this takes forever and it costs a lot of money, so not many studios can do what Valve does, but it's hard to argue with the results. If a hundred or so of the smartest people you could find were put in a room and given basically unlimited resources and no time pressure, they sure as fuck would take a long time to make anything! They'd be perfectionists. How do I know this? Well, look at Valve!

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They also do a hell of a lot more work than you ever see and work on more games than you ever hear about. Some people at Valve can spend years working on some completely new game and end up with something cool, and then not release it because they don't think it's good enough or they lose enthusiasm or whatever, and presumably it gets left on a hard drive over there and you never find out about it. 

I heard an interview years ago with Gabe and someone else where the interviewer asked if they ever completely fail at game design, and they're all "oh man, remember that fairy game? with the spells and the gesture control? yeah that was retarded"

 

Also a good example: TF2 taking a decade because they made a bunch of different TF2s and never talked about most of them

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Plus I bet the lack of crunch adds a few months to production. I feel like I fanboy too much over Valve sometimes so some skepticism and criticism is fair.

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Plus I bet the lack of crunch adds a few months to production. I feel like I fanboy too much over Valve sometimes so some skepticism and criticism is fair.

It sounds like you're suggesting it's a bad thing that Valve doesn't push their employees to ridiculous and frankly unethical limits just to get a video game out on the market a few months earlier... crunch is stupid and terrible for employees. Reading up on the game industry just makes me thankful that I don't work for game companies where crunching is the norm. It's horrible and exploitative.

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Whoops, those were totally separate thoughts that got inappropriately juxtaposed. Nope, I definitely don't think crunch is a good thing.

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I once took a tour of the Valve offices in Seattle and I'm amazed they get any work done at all.  They have toys and props all over the place, giant desks on wheels with 5 monitors, arcade machines, and I saw 2 rooms with massage tables in them and a massuse reading a magazine (it was the weekend so basically no one was there).  I'm sitting in a dungy cubicle at work right now without those distractions and I'm posting on this forum instead of working (don't tell my boss).

 

In all seriousness, I'd love to see a Valve version of the Double Fine Amnesia Fortnight.

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Well I'm with Merus on this 100%. Don't want them to feel alone on this, but I figured I'd say something even though arguing against Valve is a deathwish in the video games community.

 

I am inclined not to think that the brightest people are self proclaimed geniuses that just dick around all day on little pet projects. The most brilliant minds that we remember throughout the years DO SOMETHING. A brilliant mind would want their stuff out there if they feel it's brilliant, they would want to create. The only major game changing work they seem to do is with Steam now. Gussying up existing games and concepts isn't really "brilliant" now is it? The funny thing is is that all of these amazing things you guys are saying Valve is currently working on is also purely your imagination. We don't see or hear of any productions so how could we even have any point of reference?

 

Make all the excuses you want, but there is a reason Merus is bringing up the points he is making. To act like Valve is amazing because it's one neverending Amnesia Fortnight only shows why Double Fine probably deserves more respect. They do so with the intention of exploring and and then executing instead of stopping short on the former.

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Well, if Double Fine had infinite money I'm sure they would look like a very different studio. They might look a lot like Valve...

 

If you don't think Valve's games are brilliant, that's fine, but you're in a fairly small minority there. They're not the greatest games ever made, but they're pretty much flawless when it comes to doing what they set out to do. DotA 2's menualone, is better designed and implemented and is more revolutionary and interesting than a lot of games I've played.

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The menu is revolutionary? C'mon, now...

 

GERBIL. I feel like, if Valve were just more open about the shit they do, you probably wouldn't imply that Valve doesn't "do so with the intention of exploring and and then executing instead of stopping short on the former."

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Well, if Double Fine had infinite money I'm sure they would look like a very different studio. They might look a lot like Valve...

 

I just don't think having a neverending supply of money makes you want to tweak something to the point of never releasing it.

 

GERBIL. I feel like, if Valve were just more open about the shit they do, you probably wouldn't imply that Valve doesn't "do so with the intention of exploring and and then executing instead of stopping short on the former."

 

Well of course because then you could actually make a judgment based on what they are producing instead of imagining all of the amazing things they are working on based on the inspired words of Gabe Newell and their employee handbook.

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Again, as Greg said "gussying up existing games and concepts" is vastly understating the amount of work Valve put into Team Fortress, Portal, Left 4 Dead and Dota 2 to get the games where they are right now.  That they "just dick around all day on little pet projects" is also purely your imagination.

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Well of course because then you could actually make a judgment based on what they are producing instead of imagining all of the amazing things they are working on based on the inspired words of Gabe Newell and their employee handbook.

Right, but that's my point. You're basically begrudging them for not being open about what they're doing. Which is fine, because it irritates the fuck outta me, but call a horse a horse.

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I'm a big believer that great artists ship. If you're constantly prototyping and you never actually finish a thing, get it out the door, see how people respond to it, and use that to inform your next thing, you are basically as much of a creative force as I am, with all these abandoned half-projects that never became A Thing That Exists.

 

Their high profitability per employee comes from two things: Steam, which is absurdly profitable, and them convincing the community to do their work, which they get their 30% off.

 

I want to touch on that more: Gabe Newell's publicly said that Valve's thing, if it has a thing, is finding resources that are under-utilised and seizing on them. TF2 is basically afloat due to Polycount's work, and yes some of those artists make quite a bit of money from that, but it feels like, if they're doing professional quality work, they could take that time they're spending making hats and make a real thing that they own 100% of and sell that.

 

But I'm not seeing what value Valve adds as a developer being much different to, say, Rocksteady, or Crystal Dynamics, who make perfectly competent games that don't push any A4-sized envelopes but are executed very well indeed. Their writing is good, but so is Double Fine's, Irrational's and Rockstar's. Their animation is great, but so is Naughty Dog's. They treat their staff well, but so does any developer that came from an industry where they had actual project managers. Their gameplay loop is polished so smoothly that these days it runs the risk of being samey. Their engine can't stream assets (which is why they're rewriting it). My point is that, yeah, they're good, but they're not so much better than every other studio out there that they deserve to be deified the way they are.

 

As for the culture that allows great ideas to bloom, how interesting it is that the designers of Counterstrike and Portal had to leave the company to work on their new thing. And Kim Swift left suspiciously soon after participating in a Experimental Gameplay panel on representing sex in games. They have all that Steam money, so they don't have to actually do anything other than sit in the middle and take their cut; is it any wonder that the only concrete plan that we've heard from them about their future work is to give everyone a game store so they can sit between everyone and take their 30% cut? Do they actually intend to make any games any more?

 

You scoff, but think carefully: they don't have to make games to make money any more. Their business plan was to make money from games, not to make games, but because Doom was the biggest application on Windows. That business plan is now irrelevant. How many great ideas has Valve abandoned that could have changed the industry for the better had they been made by a company that was a little more hungry, that had to unify behind something they maybe don't believe in yet because it's either that or get new jobs? Do you think a hungry Valve would have let the Oculus Rift beat them to market? Do you think a hungry Valve would have been quite so proud of the physics-driven opening of Portal 2 if they had seen what Naughty Dog was doing with the collapsing buildings in Uncharted 2, a year and a half earlier?

 

As for their management structure, how do they defend against office politics and unspoken power dynamics, or do they assume that they just don't exist, that people don't jostle for position, access and influence? Is there a grievance process? Is there a defence mechanism against bad actors? Against sexism and racism in the workplace? Or do they assume, like so many do, that culture without rules grows organically and cannot be attacked or subverted from within?

 

Here's why people deify them, to my mind: a> those early Steam sales, with ridiculous bargains on indie games just as the weakness of XBLA as a platform was becoming obvious, and b> they haven't yet fucked up big. It's not to do with the quality of their games at all, which, yeah, are great, but plenty of other studios do great work too. It's to do with the fuzzy positive memories of that time when you spent way too much money on way too many games, and it was easier to transfer that onto the company that owns the service because they never gave you a reason to hate them. It's exactly the same impulse that drives the console wars - doubling down on buyer's remorse by telling yourself that no, you actually made an amazing choice. But Steam isn't that much more respectful of you than XBLA or PSN. The contract still lets them weasel out of a class action, and they can change the rules at any time, and it's either agree to it or lose access to anything DRM'd. They can say what they want, but it's how they behave that's the true measure of how they really are.

 

And they behave just like everyone else.

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Again, as Greg said "gussying up existing games and concepts" is vastly understating the amount of work Valve put into Team Fortress, Portal, Left 4 Dead and Dota 2 to get the games where they are right now.  That they "just dick around all day on little pet projects" is also purely your imagination.

 

I don't know. I have worked hard on several novels, short stories, and articles, all of which remain in various stages of incompletion, but that still doesn't make me much of a writer. Long periods of silence and inactivity are valid points for criticism, because in the end what they do for the most part is spin a web of mystique and power that Merus references, the same that surrounds many reclusive authors, musicians, and filmmakers. It protects them from questions, and that rankles me.

 

And yeah, maybe some of that is a knee-jerk reaction from me, having left behind my admiration for companies that polish things to perfection. That's a luxury most people don't have and do fine without, not to mention it didn't help Blizzard with Diablo III and hasn't helped Valve with Half-Life 2: Episode 3.

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It's to do with the fuzzy positive memories of that time when you spent way too much money on way too many games, and it was easier to transfer that onto the company that owns the service because they never gave you a reason to hate them.

That's absurd. People like Valve because of their games and Steam in general. It's the same mentality as that behind Blizzard love, but with the bonus of Steam.

 

Sure, the Steam sales are great, and no doubt contribute to a good deal of the good will, but so does everything else about Steam. It's a great service, period. It ain't perfect, but whatever, man.

I'd also be willing to bet that the large majority of people, when asked why they love Valve, would not list Steam as their number one reason. And, in fact, there are people who love Steam that don't consider themselves Valve fans. They're very closely associated in The Real World, but inside the people's collective brainholes, there is a distance between Valve the Game Developer and Valve the Steam Curator. To a certain extent, anyway.

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Not really interested on going back and forth over Valve, but Merus boils it down best here:

I'm a big believer that great artists ship.

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I don't know. I have worked hard on several novels, short stories, and articles, all of which remain in various stages of incompletion, but that still doesn't make me much of a writer. Long periods of silence and inactivity are valid points for criticism, because in the end what they do for the most part is spin a web of mystique and power that Merus references, the same that surrounds many reclusive authors, musicians, and filmmakers. It protects them from questions, and that rankles me.

 

And yeah, maybe some of that is a knee-jerk reaction from me, having left behind my admiration for companies that polish things to perfection. That's a luxury most people don't have and do fine without, not to mention it didn't help Blizzard with Diablo III and hasn't helped Valve with Half-Life 2: Episode 3.

 

What? That you've not completed a lot of work has something to do with Valve actually completing a lot of work? I mentioned four games that are out and can be played and enjoyed and are examples of what Valve are good at. There is no web of mystique surrounding these games.

 

And no, Merus. People deify Valve because of breakout stuff like Portal (which they spent a lot of time on, even when they just thought it'd be an extra on Orange Box) and their constant updates to Team Fortress 2 and weird, silly stuff like the Meet The Team videos. Also, people seem to like Half-Life a lot.

 

There's been a long period of silence regarding Half-life, during which they've talked about and made a lot of other great stuff.

 

But I definitely agree that polished to perfection isn't the only thing to strive for and that a lot of the interesting games out there are rough around the edges.

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What? That you've not completed a lot of work has something to do with Valve actually completing a lot of work? I mentioned four games that are out and can be played and enjoyed and are examples of what Valve are good at. There is no web of mystique surrounding these games.

 

I think there's a web of mystique surrounding Valve, which makes people hesitant to question them, because they don't know what's going on. That's no accident.

 

As for my own analogy, I meant to say that I've done a lot of work with not much to show for it, but Merus said it better: great artists ship. Cancelling projects doesn't make you a better artist, just a perfectionist. Only one of those is really laudable, to me. But you agree with me there, so never mind.

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Let's be fair, Merus might have posted 'great artists ship' but he swiped (edit: and mangled, apparently) that from Steve Jobs, another guy who did pretty great work but had a mystique that far outsized his influence.

 

Also, you know they fired the guys who did the Meet the Team videos, right?

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Let's be fair, Merus might have posted 'great artists ship' but he swiped that from Steve Jobs, another guy who did pretty great work but had a mystique that far outsized his influence.

 

Also, you know they fired the guys who did the Meet the Team videos, right?

 

Well, it's really a truism in most disciplines. I'm taking a professionalization workshop with a few of my colleagues as part of the dissertation process, and everything we're doing drills into my head that I need to stop dicking around and publish what I've got. The guy who publishes a hundred articles in his career, some of them pretty good, does better for himself, for his field, and for humankind than the guy who spends his life writing one or two perfect monographs. I guess I'm projecting that onto Valve here, too.

 

And really? That sucks for him, that was good work.

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Whatever else I may disagree with, I definitely agree that I'd prefer a Valve that was more willing to ship flawed products.

 

I used to be a huge Blizzard fan, but that's fallen off as they now take forever to release anything ever, and it all falls into the same three franchises they've been working on since forever. I guess I give Valve a bit of a pass because they release games [that I care about] more often. Also TF2 and Dota 2 are by far my most played games that aren't MMOs. Combined, they might even top my most-played MMO (which is, somewhat ironically, considering my previous statements, WoW).

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As for the culture that allows great ideas to bloom, how interesting it is that the designers of Counterstrike and Portal had to leave the company to work on their new thing. And Kim Swift left suspiciously soon after participating in a Experimental Gameplay panel on representing sex in games.

 

First of all, what do you mean suspiciously soon? Are you saying she quit because she couldn't represent sex in video games or that Valve fired her or.. I'm genuinely curious, because I hadn't heard of this before.

 

Second, Kim Swift's latest game is a great example of what Valve's polish does for a game.  Portal and Quantum Conundrum are similar games, but Quantum Conundrum fell short of its potential partly because of lack of polish. As I said earlier, I don't think polish to perfection is necessarily the best, but to a certain degree there is definitely great value to it.

 

I think we all agree that Valve isn't The Best, or anything, right? But to say they're doing nothing but dicking around, puttin' spit and polish on already finished stuff is reaching, I feel.

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