Tour Of Valve's New Office

Hectic Glenn

Hectic Glenn

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Valve have grown and grown over the years. Starting off with about 20 people, Valve now employ over 200.[br]Most of us have seen Valve's impressive HQ in Bellevue in the press over the years but over the past month Valve have upped sticks and moved into a much bigger office space to accommodate their needs.[br]Check out the video of Erik Johnson showing us around before the move and Doug Lombardi after completion! Lets hope we can reserve a table for Thursday lunch.[br]
 
Getting a "Service Unavailable" error from that page. :(

Edit: And the entire game informer website, it seems.
 
already seen it this morning :)
 
Now that's a snack room to be proud of, so very many snacks.
 
lol @ Gabe. Looks like he just woke up. All those pictures of his knife collection are kind of creepy too.
 
Man, the new studio looks awesome. Seems like an awesome workplace.
 
why is gabe so close to that huge LCD? i could never sit that close to something that size...i follow a "screen size determines distance" ratio pretty good at my computer/living room.
 
lol at the guy who was walking down the hallway, took one look at the camera then immediately turned around
 
Right, let's not attack Gabe in his own office.
 
Looks pretty sweet, video is taking forever to load so I could only watch about half of it. But when I saw the post-it notes on the board as their project management I nearly spit out my coffee. That's the shit they pull at my work, no wonder HL2 got delayed for well over a year.
 
Looks to me like they definitely took some ideas from DICE's offices in Stockholm Sweden. They have 2 floors connected with a "hub" staircase as well and the new kitchen area from Valve looks almost identical to the one at DICE. To me the DICE offices still look better than the new Valve offices. DICE had more graphics of their games all over the walls. But maybe this will change in due time as they work more and more in their new environment. It's for sure a boost to work in such an office and it makes going to work fun :)
 
Oi, what's with that women in the 'snack' room that looks guilty and turns
her head away? I know she's stuffing chocolate all in her face. She can't hide it.
 
she was stealing food from lord gabe's personal storage
 
I like this video. I also like that Gabe is crazy and not only has a collection of weird knives but had them professionally photographed. And the fact that he was sitting a foot and a half from a 50'' LCD screen that was flashing bright colors is kind of crazy too.

Nice office though. Certainly not as good as some other game studios, but it appears that they focus more on making awesome games than playing ping pong or lounging in giant bean bags playing retro games. They sure have plenty of snacks though...
 
Hope that awesome bread slicer survived the move, for Gabe's sake.
 
yeah the post it notes made me laugh to, to do list nothing, done list...tons of sticky notes...maybe episode 3 on that list and not relised it ISNT DONE!! anyway nice office, kinda wierd video, sigh when i finish studyin i never wanna work in an office again to much office poltics when a company gets bigger. I hope valve getting bigger wont reflect in there games over time
 
robsters said:
yeah the post it notes made me laugh to, to do list nothing, done list...tons of sticky notes...maybe episode 3 on that list and not relised it ISNT DONE!! anyway nice office, kinda wierd video, sigh when i finish studyin i never wanna work in an office again to much office poltics when a company gets bigger. I hope valve getting bigger wont reflect in there games over time
Click to expand...

Im hoping the same thing.
 
IMO they seem to be getting better as they get bigger. What was once just HL1 and a few mods (from acquired modders) for years... grew to make great things beyond HL and mods, like L4D, TF2, and Portal. If they keep up with creating new amazing franchises, I don't think I'm going to be able to have enough time to enjoy them.

I mean honestly not just being a fanboy here. How many companies create franchises that are as trend setting? I mean at least it's not like Lucas milking Star Wars or Bungie/Microsoft milking Halo...

However, I do question their game plan here. Mostly because I don't know what it is. Pumping out a L4D sequel and a Portal Sequel before their flagship franchise is strange. But if L4D2's any signal of their ability to create something great in a short amount of time (though molding awesome from a big steaming pile of awesome is relatively easy), then their future titles will be exceptional. So... I don't think them growing will have any negative effects... except a lot of use of that staircase.
 
since they now have a so great work space maybe they can give us hl2 episode 3!
 
OmegaX said:
lol @ Gabe. Looks like he just woke up. All those pictures of his knife collection are kind of creepy too.
Click to expand...

To each his own... Everyone has different interests... Gabe likes knives. If I was CEO of a company making big bucks I'd have pictures of drums and guitars everywhere.

Pretty interesting though. Nice way to waste 10 minutes. Enjoyed watching it. :)

Also, with their new and improved building, their teams might have a better chance to get games going quicker and better quality. Exciting.
 
wow i'm actually watching a streaming video on the net that isn't porn.

Thats's a first.
 
Otto-Grainer said:
Oi, what's with that women in the 'snack' room that looks guilty and turns
her head away? I know she's stuffing chocolate all in her face. She can't hide it.
Click to expand...

She is an illegal immigrant hired by Gabe for after business hours (if u get what i mean) and she wants to keep a low profile on her cover job.
I guess Gabe is pro illegals ! :thumbs:
 
hispanic gordon for the rescue
 
Anyone see the 3 discarded cans sitting in the cafeteria? Surely this is more viral marketing:

3 empty sodas... empty sodas 3...

(j/k there are no cans I made it up)
 
Pretty interesting video...I haven't seen much of Valve's old office, since I didn't follow their games' development much, so most of it was new to me. I only really recognize the lobby with the giant valve/golden crowbar/etc. and I may have glimpsed a few other parts in past videos. Their new place also looks awesome and is obviously much more suited to their current size and future growth(I wonder if their level designers had any input?). Although I'm sure there's some sadness about leaving the place where all the games that made them what they are today were formed.

Like everyone else, I love the sticky-note board and Gabe's knife collection. And nice to see where the Passing and Portal 2 were/are being worked on.
 
It's actually their third office.
 
I guess I was mistaken there. According to Wiki, they last moved in 2003, so that office still went through the last days of HL2's development and its release, and everything that came afterwards until now. Still pretty significant.
 
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