Is this the reason why Valve can't count to three?

Here's the story.

Not a Valve-hater, but I thought this was a bit interesting. :P

Pasting my comment from Eurogamer's story on this subject:

"Old timers" blocked her attempt to hire a machinist for $40,000 a year to manufacture machine parts because it was felt they wouldn't fit into Valve's culture, she claims.

Getting over this shit is what made Google and other companies the behemoths they are today.
You need grunts to do grunt work, or you're wasting resources.
The shit Steam support and the Greenlight f*ck-up are direct results of Valve's reluctance to hire grunts.

The bonus thing, which for some reason the article ignored, sounds toxic: the employees vote for the bonuses. The more "prestigious" a project is, the bigger the bonuses get, even bigger than the yearly salary. How can small, clever projects thrive in such an environment?

Sucks to hear, hope they get it all work out. For a moment I thought Valve seem like a nice place to work. 

 

The shit Steam support and the Greenlight f*ck-up are direct results of Valve's reluctance to hire grunts.

Baranga

While I agree with most of what you posted, Greenlight has not been a **** up, there is some issues but overall I find Greenlight and Kickstarter to be great for pc gaming.

Greenlight has not been a **** up, there is some issues but overall I find Greenlight to be great for pc gaming.

kozzy1234

How can small, clever projects thrive in such an environment?Baranga

How has Greenlight been a f*ck up? I thought it was going well.Twisted14

Scams and turds like American McGee's Akaneiro or Interstellar Marines end up in the store instead of functional, complete and good games - some of which are already available on properly managed stores. Developers are also locked into Greenlight - if a third party offers to publish the game the Greenlight can't be cancelled and Valve won't allow the game on Steam, as it happened with Paranautical Activity.

Greenlight is shit.

Imagine if Valve made something small and clever like Portal! nutcrackr

A game developed by a student team hired specifically for this 7 years ago! What a wonderful accomplishment! Meanwhile the lead developer left Valve because 1. they forced her out of a GDC Game Design Challenge because the theme was sexual and 2. they rejected her following prototypes because they were too "alien".

Remember Alien Swarm? A UT2k4 mod turned into an abandoned Source mod. Then the team was hired and Alien Swarm came out as proof of concept for isometric Source games. It's now resting in gaming heaven, right next to Ricochet...

At least the creators of L4D were able to split amiably after they shipped the first game.

You know, maybe Ellsworth could have done more and better work if they hired cheap machinist she needed - not to mention the other resources her team lacked.

Valve hired her and a couple of other hardware hackers and then left them alone to MacGyver shit in the basement. They still built cool stuff - castAR looks like a killer boardgame device and the virtual reality lenses sound absolutely incredible.

[QUOTE="Twisted14"]How has Greenlight been a f*ck up? I thought it was going well.Baranga

Scams and turds like American McGee's Akaneiro or Interstellar Marines end up in the store instead of functional, complete and good games - some of which are already available on properly managed stores. Developers are also locked into Greenlight - if a third party offers to publish the game the Greenlight can't be cancelled and Valve won't allow the game on Steam, as it happened with Paranautical Activity.

Greenlight is shit.

Imagine if Valve made something small and clever like Portal! nutcrackr

A game developed by a student team hired specifically for this 7 years ago! What a wonderful accomplishment! Meanwhile the lead developer left Valve because 1. they forced her out of a GDC Game Design Challenge because the theme was sexual and 2. they rejected her following prototypes because they were too "alien".

Remember Alien Swarm? A UT2k4 mod turned into an abandoned Source mod. Then the team was hired and Alien Swarm came out as proof of concept for isometric Source games. It's now resting in gaming heaven, right next to Ricochet...

At least the creators of L4D were able to split amiably after they shipped the first game.

You know, maybe Ellsworth could have done more and better work if they hired cheap machinist she needed - not to mention the other resources her team lacked.

Valve hired her and a couple of other hardware hackers and then left them alone to MacGyver shit in the basement. They still built cool stuff - castAR looks like a killer boardgame device and the virtual reality lenses sound absolutely incredible.