"I disagree with the suggestion that they have no structure [at Valve]" - Kim Swift

[ríomhaire]

Kim Swift, part of the original team that made the student project Narbacular Drop and later Portal, has disagreed with claims that Valve has a flat management structure. Kim, who left Valve in order to become a project lead at Airtight Games, has said to Eurogamer

I guess for me, Valve as a company definitely has a lot more freedom for developers working there than a lot of other companies. But I disagree with the suggestion that they have no structure there. They do actually. They have management, there's the board of directors of the company, there's Gabe Newell. Those guys at the top of the company definitely have opinions on how things should be run.

This refutes assetions made about Valve's structure in their recently publisher employee handbook and statements made by Michael Abrash on an official Valve blog as well as various statements made by Gabe Newell in interviews.

You can read the rest of Kim's statements on the issue here.

 

[Lego]

I thought this was pretty obvious.

 

[Omnomnick]

Kim Swift - Talking out of her backside as usual.

 

[Lobster]

Pretty sure they were speaking on a project level, rather than a company level.

Its not like they are gonna let some guy walk in one day and shout, "Right. I am pulling the plug on Steam and diverting all the funds to my hydroponic cucumber farm in what used to be Conference Room B. All volunteers are welcome."

EDIT - Its worth putting her comment into context. It was a response to some gossip mongering by Eurogamer, as part of a larger interview about her new game. The fact EG decided to cherry pick that single question as their big discussion headline, is just their usual journalistic BS.

 

[Asknoone]

It seems like she's still sore they didn't run with her new idea.

 

[Cuthbert]

What was "her new idea"? Why did she leave anyway? Here I am daydreaming about being the guy that cleans the gums under desks at Valve and this Kym character leaves the company!

 

[ríomhaire]

I think that she wanted to do some sort of time-travel mechanic. Her current game, Quantum Conundrum, has an inter-dimensional shifting thing.

 

[Omnomnick]

What was "her new idea"? Why did she leave anyway? Here I am daydreaming about being the guy that cleans the gums under desks at Valve and this Kym character leaves the company!

What Ross was referencing is her new game, which he believes Valve didn't see potential in. Which makes sense.

Kim left in 2009, my personal theory is that Valve didn't let Kim be project lead on Portal 2 after they started development on it. Shes just not qualified to lead a project so huge, she clearly got pissed about that and left.

 

[Dinnesch]

What was "her new idea"? Why did she leave anyway? Here I am daydreaming about being the guy that cleans the gums under desks at Valve and this Kym character leaves the company!

EDIT: damn it.

 

[Omnomnick]

EDIT: damn it.

Basically - Kim is a one hit wonder. She now doesn't have the talent from Valve to develop an interesting and deep world so instead she tries to make lightning again without even knowing what made Portal so amazing - characters, the world and surprise of being such a hit instantly.

 

[Shem]

Kim Swift - Talking out of her arse as usual.

How? Everything she said sounds believable; in fact, what she expressed goes without saying. Perhaps a decision she made in the past has clouded your comprehension of her words.

 

[Barnz]

I wish they went with her idea. I always wanted to see time travel in a Portal game. It was done in Looney Tunes' games before. It was a working concept. Check out this footage from Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf (skip to 00:35):

 

[Dinnesch]

Basically - Kim is a one hit wonder. She now doesn't have the talent from Valve to develop an interesting and deep world so instead she tries to make lightning again without even knowing what made Portal so amazing - characters, the world and surprise of being such a hit instantly.

I mainly liked Portal because of the concept/gameplay mechanics, although the setting was nice. 15 year olds spamming THE CAKE IS A LIE all the time is a thing Quantum Conandrum will never achieve, though.

Quantum Conundrum looks like a really fun game, will probably get it as soon as possible.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

She's been frank and honest. I don't think her comments come as much of a surprise, Valve generally need a direction in which the ship is being steered, giving them general goals (make more money! keep fans happy!). These kind of themes guide and direct the projects at ground level, where there is no staff structure. Gabe may well steer the ship but when he's working with the linux team, I'm sure he's not being a manager.

Also I don't like the bullshit which flies around about Kim leaving Valve, it's all conjectural tosh. "Didn't make her project lead on Portal 2" "Valve didn't want to run with QC concept". Calm down, this isn't the tabloids. She got offered a more senior role, driving her own idea, probably for more money at Airtight. Say what you like about the comparison between both Valve and Airtight, it's her career decision and I'm totally behind people doing whatever they need to do get where they want to be and do the things they want to do. Portal 1 was wonderfully successful and she may have wanted a more directed approach to another game, something Valve's structure doesn't always support.

From what I can tell she's intelligent, said glowing things of Valve (the comment in this story is not inflammatory) and I'm genuinely looking forward to QC.

 

[Omnomnick]

I wish they went with her idea. I always wanted to see the time travel in Portal. It was done in Looney Tunes' games before. It was a working concept. Check out this footage from Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf (skip to 00:35):

Sheep dog and wolf vid

That game was and is the shit.

 

[kineaesth]

I think it's also important to recognise that the Valve handbook (which mysteriously leaked in high quality PDF) might well be as much a handbook for staff as it is a handbook for us. Valve has always been somewhat reticent about sharing what goes on inside their offices, and what we get is usually hyperbole and humour (see: TF2 blog posts). I personally do not believe that Valve operates under the entirely flat management structure that the handbook goes to lengths to describe - if we take the example that I used when the handbook was leaked (the handbook states that anyone can do anything/ship anything, anyone can do anything they want if they think the customers should receive it/no episode 3 news leaks from anyone ever) it is clear that there is some level of restriction operating on what staff can and cannot do. The handbook shows us an ideal picture, maybe even how Valve would be if they had the right staff. It feels quite reasonable for an ex-valve staff member to be saying this.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Also to clarify kineaesth, Greg Coomer (the writer) released the handbook to member of flamehaus (previously hl2world), with his consent to distribute it. It wasn't leaked.

In fact, Greg told me since then that he also intends to publish the handbook officially somewhere, probably their publications page.

 

[kineaesth]

Right, well that sort of reinforces the handbook as something of an advertising ploy. Clearly internal documents like that are not usually given out to the public.

 

[Krynn72]

Wasn't their handbook in the news just a little while before it got released? The way it seemed to happen (to me at least, and I wasn't paying very close attention) was that we leaned that such a thing existed, then everyone was like "omg want want want" and then Valve was like "You really want it? Alright, whatever, here you go."

Certainly didn't feel like an advertising ploy to me. What would it even be advertising? The only people who would see or know of the handbook are people who already know about Valve. I guess you could see it as a publicity stunt, to get their existing fans talking about them, but to what purpose? People were already talking about DOTA2.

 

[Stigmata]

Good point.

Anyway, I guess the moral of the story here is, Kim Swift got her jimmies rustled and is now mad.

 

[DoctorWeeTodd]

The VALVe handbook was released by VALVe right on their Facebook page. I don't think it's meant to be kept airtight.