Reality Comes to Paradise - Valve Layoffs

[Bensam123]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/1865 ... RwUQDvi6Zc

http://www.shacknews.com/article/77823/ ... ions-ahead

Well for some of you this should come as no surprise, for others I'm sure it'll shatter some worldly views. I suppose you can only have a decade long vacation for so long before you actually have to put out a real product. Steam could only support all of Valve for so long.

[JohnC]

Eh, just like with every company, people come and people go... Both links are only speculating about numbers (especially that garbage "Shacknews" site), so no concrete information exists about who was let go and from which department (except one chick who posted on her Twitter about being fired).

[Concupiscence]

Valve's not hurting for money, but they are a business. I suspect this is just restructuring to adjust for changes in a business plan, as the articles suggest. A couple of my friends work there, and they certainly don't seem scared...

[Washer]

Well for some of you this should come as no surprise, for others I'm sure it'll shatter some worldly views. I suppose you can only have a decade long vacation for so long before you actually have to put out a real product. Steam could only support all of Valve for so long.

Decade long vacation? There it is again. Complete nonsense. The vast majority of Valve's games have come out since the release of HL2. Many of those games have done very well. You might have heard about Portal or Team Fortress 2 or Left 4 Dead. Maybe. It sounds like these layoffs had little or nothing to do with budget issues and more to do with the company making decisions to move away from areas these people worked in.

[Sargent Duck]

A couple of my friends work there

And you're bugging them about Half-Life 3, right? RIGHT! RIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGHHHHHTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!! I WANT MY HL3!!!1111!!!!!111!!!

*ahem* sorry about that. My Half-Life fandom came over me. *Speaks to self* "Go back to your corner! Go now, HL3 will be released when Valve is ready. Sit patient in the corner".

Now, where we? Ah! Right. HL3. You're asking them about the status of HL3 right? RIGHT! RIIIIIIIGGG......
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[Bensam123]

Give me a game comparable to BF3, SC2, LoL, or NS2.

Most of Valves games have been mods, the only notable exception being TF2 (which funny enough started out as a mod, but now feels like it's own standalone game). That has gotten a lot of love since they bought the TF dev team, but most of it comes from the community now. Portal was a good one, but required a second incarnation before they really put effort into it and it has no replayability. I'm talking about a good bread and butter, hey we built this game from the ground up and designed an entire franchise around it game. They've been milking the HL franchise and engine for close to a decade.

DotA is an abomination and would still be better off being a custom WC3 map. It still feels like it is too.

As far as Valve being a company and layoffs 'happening'. They actually brag about having one of the highest employee retention in the software industry (something like 98.7%) in the Valve hand book and in their statements they've made as well as talking about how hard it is to actually get fired from Valve. This is a really big deal as it violates their companies ideology.

[TurtlePerson2]

Well, I'd say that Dota 2 is comparable to LoL. But that's just me...and the rest of the world.

[Concupiscence]

A couple of my friends work there

And you're bugging them about Half-Life 3, right? RIGHT! RIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGHHHHHTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!! I WANT MY HL3!!!1111!!!!!111!!!

*ahem* sorry about that. My Half-Life fandom came over me. *Speaks to self* "Go back to your corner! Go now, HL3 will be released when Valve is ready. Sit patient in the corner".

Now, where we? Ah! Right. HL3. You're asking them about the status of HL3 right? RIGHT! RIIIIIIIGGG......
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.
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.....

Dude, I've done what I can and been politely stonewalled at every turn. I'm headed up there next month and will probably tour the office. If I hear anything that won't get somebody fired, I'll share.

As far as Valve being a company and layoffs 'happening'. They actually brag about having one of the highest employee retention in the software industry (something like 98.7%) in the Valve hand book and in their statements they've made as well as talking about how hard it is to actually get fired from Valve. This is a really big deal as it violates their companies ideology.

There's a difference between the image a company gives to the world, and what really goes on behind the scenes. Valve's very accommodating and likes to retain talent, but if you aren't working out, they'll show you the door. I heard a story about an animator who just didn't take direction well, and they let him go after they told him to model Alyx fighting like a real, scrappy, but relatively untrained person would, and he kept making her do Matrix-style ridiculous stuff that strained credibility and broke player immersion. The acquisition of Turtle Rock Studios was also not a resounding success: the deadlines kept slipping, and an audit of the code revealed that Left 4 Dead was NOT going to be in good shipping shape unless Valve intervened. And so they did: every single person in Valve's employ was pulled off of their projects for multiple weeks to get L4D out the door, and subsequently somewhere over 70% of that team was let go. I believe they were spun back off into Turtle Rock Studios and were given legal clearance to declare themselves partial developers of Left 4 Dead, but that was not a successful acquisition. Business is complicated.

Ask me about Quake 4 or Duke Nukem Forever some time.

[Bensam123]

Do you have any sources for what you're saying Conc? Cause everything I've read and heard is the complete opposite of what you're saying. Maybe Valve has some Apple level koolaid going on, but I sorta doubt it.

It's one thing if they say they're friendly and don't simply fire employees for doing what they want, it's a complete other to brag about their employee retention rates and talk about giving their employees complete development freedom (to which everything I've heard down the grapevine such as through twitter has been true). That's why the company is such a schizophrenic mess with no real direction or goals besides 'Making the best experience we can for our customers.'.


Yeah Turtle and it may be. But for me it reminds me waaay too much of a WC3 custom map I played a decade ago with no real improvements. LoL and HoN have actually tried to improve the moba formula and add new and exciting elements to the game. Some of the champions in DotA 2 are just downright stupid (like ones a mana battery, no one wants to be that or even watch someone play that).

Heres a link to the RPS article if you hate Shacknews: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02 ... -it-seems/

[JohnC]

Heres a link to the RPS article if you hate Shacknews: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02 ... -it-seems/

This is just another redirect to rumored "OMG over 9000 ppl laid off at Valve!!!!!" article at Gamasutra... Which you already posted. Do you really hate Valve THAT much because of Dota 2?

[clone]

As far as Valve being a company and layoffs 'happening'. They actually brag about having one of the highest employee retention in the software industry (something like 98.7%) in the Valve hand book and in their statements they've made as well as talking about how hard it is to actually get fired from Valve. This is a really big deal as it violates their companies ideology.

according to Gabe Valve prefers to hire the best but with that comes expectations, he then went on to say the only way to maintain continued success in that model is to be ready to fire ppl who can't find a way to fit into their culture and cited that they've had the most difficulty with new hires from Hollywood.

that doesn't in any way sound like a company that never lets employees go, also mentioned is that Valve has experienced 50% year on year revenue growth since the company launched the original Half Life.

keeping those comments in context contradicts claims that Valve may be suffering.

got that from that video that TR posted of Gabe Newell last week, was well worth the hour invested, found it very interesting.

We don't usually talk about personnel matters for a number of reasons. There seems to be an unusual amount of speculation about some recent changes here, so I thought I'd take the unusual step of addressing them. No, we aren't canceling any projects. No, we aren't changing any priorities or projects we've been discussing. No, this isn't about Steam or Linux or hardware or [insert game name here]. We're not going to discuss why anyone in particular is or isn't working here.

[Scrotos]

Well for some of you this should come as no surprise, for others I'm sure it'll shatter some worldly views. I suppose you can only have a decade long vacation for so long before you actually have to put out a real product. Steam could only support all of Valve for so long.

Decade long vacation? There it is again. Complete nonsense. The vast majority of Valve's games have come out since the release of HL2. Many of those games have done very well. You might have heard about Portal or Team Fortress 2 or Left 4 Dead. Maybe. It sounds like these layoffs had little or nothing to do with budget issues and more to do with the company making decisions to move away from areas these people worked in.

Portal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_(video_game)#Development

Portal took approximately two years and four months to complete after the DigiPen team was brought into Valve,[39] and no more than ten people were involved with its development.

Left 4 Dead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_4_Dead#Production

Turtle Rock Studios announced Left 4 Dead on November 20, 2006,[35] and was acquired by Valve Corporation on January 10, 2008, because of the game and long-standing relationship between the companies.

Teen Fortress 2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Fortress_2#Origins

Development on Team Fortress 2 switched to the GoldSrc engine in 1998 after the development team Team Fortress Software—consisting of Robin Walker and John Cook—were first contracted and finally outright employed by Valve Corporation.

The root of the decade-long vacation sneer is that Valve hasn't done anything original in ages, they've just bought existing products and coding teams outright and released it under their own brand. One of the only two original games/IPs is the Half Life series, the other is... Ricochet? No wait, that's just a HL mod.

Counter-Strike? Day of Defeat? Alien Swarm? Dota? All mods made by other people and other teams that Valve has bought and slapped their names on.

I have nothing against Valve and I think Steam is great! But I do think the haters have a genuine bone to pick about Valve doing original games. They haven't in years, just been a publisher and distributor. Which is fine. They're another EA or Activiation or Microsoft and good things can come from those types of companies. But seriously, HL and HL2 in 10+ years? Their library isn't as large as you might think for stuff they actually came up with themselves.