Gabe Newell Talks About Valve's Organisational Structure

[ríomhaire]

In an interview with the Washington Post,Valve's managing director Gabe Newell answered several questions on Valve's famous flat management style and how it works for the company. Much of this we've heard before but it still makes for a very interesting read. He also mentions the recent incident over the Diretide Halloween event in Dota 2.

Here's a few highlights from the interview:

On specialisation:

You need people who are adaptable because the thing that makes you the best in the world in one generation of games is going to be totally useless in the next. So specialization in gaming is sort of the enemy of the future. We had to think about if we’re going to be in a business that’s changing that quickly, how do we avoid institutionalizing one set of production methods in such a way that we can’t adapt to what’s going to be coming next.

On retaining employees:

A lot of times also we just ask people. We say "we want you to be here ten years from now, so what do we need to do for it to make sense for you to be here?" A lot of times those answers are idiosyncratic. Right now, the answer is surprisingly often, "I have an ailing family and I need to go away for a while and be with that person." And they'd assume that that means that they have to quit in order to do that -- we just say, "No, everybody is going to have that problem at some point. Let's figure out a way that you can do that."

On scaling Valve's structure as the company grows:

One of the nice things about having pretty distributed decision-making in the company is that it tends to scale really well. You can trust that lots of good decisions are being made all the time. That's one of the things that we try to explain when we're bring somebody in -- you guys know there are no monthly reports here? There's no "all of the information has to flow to Gabe." It's like, if I need to know something I'll figure out who is involved with it and find it because I'm just like somebody else. Nobody's going to put together a report for me so I can have a giant file of reports laying around that I never get around to reading.

And on the disadvantages:

Where that bites you is if somebody makes a bad decision, like Diretide. I found out that we were doing something stupid when one of our customers mailed me and said "you're doing something stupid." I was like "really?" And I go and find out that yes, in fact, we're doing something stupid. That isn't a fault, it's just one of those trade offs.

If you're interested in Valve on a business level as well as a game production level it's worth reading the whole thing over at the Washington Post.

 

[Au-heppa]

Yet the thing I worry most about getting into the industry is not having specialization.

 

[RabidJellyfish]

I don't really play Dota, what was so stupid about Diretide?

 

[SpotEnemyBoats]

It would appear that Valve's flat management structure isn't all that its cracked up to be, considering those that got fired because they didn't fit in with the "social multiplayer experience" or "what makes us the most money"

 

[Gloone]

I told you guys Valve's handling of Diretide was stupid. Do you admit it now..? Glad to see Gabe being straight about that. Though of course, he was himself guilty of much worse back in 2003.

As for Gabe apparently criticising his own employees (the small number known to be working on Half-Life 3) and saying that they're worth much less than people who can "design social experiences" because that's "customer demand", that seems both insulting and stupid.

One, because Valve's own "social experiences" can be pretty crap. Dota 2 has notoriously bad social problems, a good many of them due to Valve's neglect.

And two, because the customer demand for a sequel to Half-Life 2 is gigantic. Gabe has truly lost it if he is suggesting that what customers are more excited about is new hats.

 

[Omnomnick]

One, because Valve's own "social experiences" can be pretty crap. Dota 2 has notoriously bad social problems, a good many of them due to Valve's neglect.

Have you seen behaviour from the rest of the MOBA/ARTS genre? I guess the notoriously bad communities from other games like LoL and HoN are also due to Valve's neglect.

Gabe should be ashamed of himself for doing such a terrible job controlling volvo.

 

[Gloone]

I guess the notoriously bad communities from other games like LoL and HoN are also due to Valve's neglect.

You suck at straw manning.

 

[MFL]

you want them to recognize that being really good at Half-Life level design is not as nearly as valued as thinking of how to design social multi-player experiences."

"when the key is to just continue to follow where the customers are leading"

We can only buy what you sell us, asshole.

 

[ríomhaire]

Yet the thing I worry most about getting into the industry is not having specialization.

Well Valve is hardly the norm when it comes to companies.

It would appear that Valve's flat management structure isn't all that its cracked up to be, considering those that got fired because they didn't fit in with the "social multiplayer experience" or "what makes us the most money"

OK ignoring that stuff at the end: People getting fired is not a sign of failing. Some people don't work out with Valve's structure or want to go in the same direction that Valve as a whole does. There's nothing wrong with that. Not everyone has to work at Valve.

 

[SpotEnemyBoats]

Yeah because hat and crate making is such a difficult process, and as such a HL level designer is useless.

 

[Omnomnick]

You suck at straw manning.

Not really, it just shows you have a very limited understanding of the MOBA/ARTS genre and the community activities within it. The majority of games within the genre are designed to be highly competitive, which means it's highly likely public players will become extremely aggressive or defensive when something goes wrong, which is why we see so much bad mouthing and shit-talking.

 

[Skyace65]

read the whole thing

i find it hilariously ironic that he says they work out because of being flexible from one generation to the next, yet the source engine as a whole is a complete contradiction to that. not saying it's bad, but there's a lot of problems and little has been done to fix them or make it any easier to use(especially hammer)

I'm surprised how out of touch he is though with what he said about social experiences being more valuable than experience with single player games. personally i enjoy multiplayer and singleplayer and i hope when HL3 releases the deathmatch is part of the main game(not a seperate program) and that it would have workshop map support. but multiplayer doesn't offer the same kind of fun a singleplayer game can have

 

[Gloone]

Not really, it just shows you have a very limited understanding of the MOBA/ARTS genre and the community activities within it.

You don't seem to understand what a straw man is. It's where you put a stupid argument in somebody else's mouth and then knock it down, because you're too vain or too impotent to actually talk to them directly. It's what you're still doing. You haven't asked me to clarify or addressed me at all, you've just been having a discussion with your own prejudice. It's really remarkably rude, not to mention pointless.

 

[Mogi67]

You don't seem to understand what a straw man is. It's where you put a stupid argument in somebody else's mouth and then knock it down, because you're too vain or too impotent to actually talk to them directly. It's what you're still doing. You haven't asked me to clarify or addressed me at all, you've just been having a discussion with your own prejudice. It's really remarkably rude, not to mention pointless.

Isn't that what you just did with his post?

 

[GreenPepper]

Well, I feel even more alienated now as a customer, I guess I should have known that was the reason why they were so quiet about the Half-Life series, seems like they just want fans to move on and forget about it, especially considering the broken state in which their Hammer editor is in.

Heard about someone leaving the company because it was getting too big, I can definitely see this now.

 

[SpotEnemyBoats]

Well, I feel even more alienated now as a customer, I guess I should have known that was the reason why they were so quiet about the Half-Life series, seems like they just want fans to move on and forget about it, especially considering the broken state in which their Hammer editor is in.

Heard about someone leaving the company because it was getting too big, I can definitely see this now.

Both Hammer editor and the HL games are one big metaphor, all of its broken mess. Thanks to Valve being content and lazy with their shitty updates, and then having Alfred take all of the burdens of "fixing" it and he himself admitted he can't fix it all.

 

[Au-heppa]

Well Valve is hardly the norm when it comes to companies.

Yeah, if it was, I would not worry. But as I don't have a specialization I feel like there isn't a whole lot of options for me.

 

[Captain Derp]

These articles are nice and everything, but until I see what they're actually working on, I won't be able to choose whether or not to believe that Valve is as adaptive to the next generation as they say they are.

 

[SteamEmpire]

These articles are nice and everything, but until I see what they're actually working on, I won't be able to choose whether or not to believe that Valve is as adaptive to the next generation as they say they are.

All we can really relly on is the Jira database leaks,a picture from a monitor on the international and Gabe talking about source 2 about a year ago