The Valve and Steam Platform Discussion Thread

[felipepepe]

In retrospect, it was a great idea, right? So the key thing was that people bear the consequences of their own choices, so if I spend my time on it the only persons time I’m wasting is mine. Over time, I think people sort of recognize how useful it is for people to vote with their time. There is a huge amount of wisdom in people’s decisions about what they personally want to work on next.

So if hired by Valve I can just decide to do a RPG for 3 years and fuck whatever they hired me to do?

 

[Kem0sabe]

Valve seems to be a very nice place to work in. If only employers here understood that a motivated worker is a productive worker, most of southern europe would not be in the shithole it is now.

 

[Infinitron]

More sales figures - Starbound has sold a million copies in just over a month: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/01/07/should-have-sent-an-accountant-starbound-sells-a-million/

 

[Caim]

In retrospect, it was a great idea, right? So the key thing was that people bear the consequences of their own choices, so if I spend my time on it the only persons time I’m wasting is mine. Over time, I think people sort of recognize how useful it is for people to vote with their time. There is a huge amount of wisdom in people’s decisions about what they personally want to work on next.

So if hired by Valve I can just decide to do a RPG for 3 years and fuck whatever they hired me to do?

Episode 3 development cycle in a nutshell.

 

[Metro]

Valve is a very freeform company. They can afford to be since they make truckloads of money without actually producing anything: 30% from Steam platform sales, Dota2/TF2/CSGO crate/item/hat sales, etc. They could sustain themselves indefinitely without ever producing another title. As such they do a lot of experimental shit. If it doesn't pan out… doesn't really matter.

 

[Dexter]

Models and prices apparently announced: http://media.steampowered.com/store/steammachines/SteamMachinesBroc_WEB.PDF

 

[Visbhume]

Valve seems to be a very nice place to work in.

I can't even begin to fathom the insane amounts of politicking, backstabbing and pressure to perform that must happen behind Valve's doors. There's no such thing as a "flat" hierarchy; instead there are unofficial, unaccountable ones.

Would you be happy at work knowing that the majority of your colleagues think your pet project is worthless, and also knowing that they have a say in kicking you out? Remember, the more improductive dweebs you kick out, the more your part of the spoils increases.

Here's more info about the Valve workplace: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2013/02/varoufakis_on_v.html

 

[tuluse]

So if hired by Valve I can just decide to do a RPG for 3 years and fuck whatever they hired me to do?

I think it's a "sort of" situation.

All projects are just what people want to work on, but you pretty much have to convince enough people to work on it with you. If it's just you sitting in the corner, you're probably going to be asked to leave.

 

[Metro]

Those prices are pretty 'meh.' Lol @ the one with two Titans in it.

 

[StaticSpine]

"This is what Linux does to you"

Half-Life 3 confirmed

 

[Caim]

So wait, GabeN is going to transform into Alan Moore via way of The Amazing Atheist?

 

[Kane]

Valve seems to be a very nice place to work in. If only employers here understood that a motivated worker is a productive worker, most of southern europe would not be in the shithole it is now.

Southern Europe is supposed to be a shithole, so as to be a slave farm to secure my best european wealth.

 

[Caim]

Valve seems to be a very nice place to work in. If only employers here understood that a motivated worker is a productive worker, most of southern europe would not be in the shithole it is now.

Southern Europe is supposed to be a shithole, so as to be a slave farm to secure my best european wealth.

Southern Europe (aside from Monaco) *is* a shithole being kept alive by being drip-fed tax money of us rich Northern nations. Though it's not really to blame on the people...

And Spain is more or less bizarro Mexico at this point: instead of people illegally trying to emigrate to the north in search of money and jobs they try to illegally immigrate in from the south in search of money and jobs.

 

[Baron Dupek]

After years of waiting, as prophecies said - downloading during gameplay.
No more forgeting, no more playing in unstable/unable to minimalize game (I watching at you F:NV...)

And you forget about mexico of europe.

 

[Dexter]

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/01/09/designer-says-valve-is-days-away-from-launching-vr-software-de

Valve is reportedly "days away" from launching a virtual reality software development kit. The news comes from Valve designer Brian Coomer, who told BBC that the dev kit would give software developers a standard means of providing an interface for virtual reality headsets, like the Oculus Rift.

The report says the kit will launch during Valve's Steam Developer Days conference, which begins on January 15 in Seattle. Coomer added that "there's also technology in development at Valve based around head-tracking and headset manufacture and design," and that Valve is "working with other companies right now but we have not made any specific announcements."

Valve has some internal experience with virtual and augmented reality headsets in the past, as former Valve engineers Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson were granted permission to take the Cast AR glasses project with them when they left the company in February 2013. The now-independent Cast AR augmented reality headset went to Kickstarter in October, and earned $1,052,110 from backers in a month. Additionally, Valve added a virtual reality support category to Steam for the Oculus Rift in December. Oculus VR has received more support from Valve these days, as seen in the headset manufacturer's latest model, which we took for a test drive at CES 2014 this week.

 

[tuluse]

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/discussions/1/648816742494478600/

SteamOS has added AMD and Intel graphics support.

I still can't test it because my livingroom computer, being made of spare parts, does not have an UEFI Bios.

 

[UserNamer]

Valve seems to be a very nice place to work in. If only employers here understood that a motivated worker is a productive worker, most of southern europe would not be in the shithole it is now.

Guys like you don't get it, at all.

The point of this sort of policy is to strike TERROR in the hearts of your employees, not motivate them.

When your job description, responsibilities, required skills, hours, days off, are extremely vague, it just means that you are constantly wondering if you are going to get fired for no reason at all.

You are not going to take a few days off if you feel like it. You are going to be shamed into taking as few days off\vacations as possible.You are not going to be ambitious and take a risk; you are just going to do what seems to be profitable (ie virtual hats and pointless "community social" stuff). You are going to constantly wonder if you are becoming irrelevant and useless. Do you think a company so JEWY to profit from selling over priced tf2 hats is going to keep you around for long if you decide to exercise your "time management freedom" in a way that's not immediately profitable and in-line with the company values? (values based on selling cosmetic items to mentally ill manchildren and spoiled brats, megalomania-induced useless projects like making linux the next big gaming platform, and not releasing hl3)

 

[Kem0sabe]

Valve seems to be a very nice place to work in. If only employers here understood that a motivated worker is a productive worker, most of southern europe would not be in the shithole it is now.

Guys like you don't get it, at all.

The point of this sort of policy is to strike TERROR in the hearts of your employees, not motivate them.

When your job description, responsibilities, required skills, hours, days off, are extremely vague, it just means that you are constantly wondering if you are going to get fired for no reason at all.

You are not going to take a few days off if you feel like it. You are going to be shamed into taking as few days off\vacations as possible.You are not going to be ambitious and take a risk; you are just going to do what seems to be profitable (ie virtual hats and pointless "community social" stuff). You are going to constantly wonder if you are becoming irrelevant and useless. Do you think a company so JEWY to profit from selling over priced tf2 hats is going to keep you around for long if you decide to exercise your "time management freedom" in a way that's not immediately profitable and in-line with the company values? (values based on selling cosmetic items to mentally ill manchildren and spoiled brats, megalomania-induced useless projects like making linux the next big gaming platform, and not releasing hl3)

Are they well paid? do they have good benefits? Try coming to Portugal, being paid little over 500 dolars a month to collect 14 tons of trash a day. You have no clue whatsoever.

 

[Darklife]

Valve seems to be a very nice place to work in. If only employers here understood that a motivated worker is a productive worker, most of southern europe would not be in the shithole it is now.

Guys like you don't get it, at all.

The point of this sort of policy is to strike TERROR in the hearts of your employees, not motivate them.

When your job description, responsibilities, required skills, hours, days off, are extremely vague, it just means that you are constantly wondering if you are going to get fired for no reason at all.

You are not going to take a few days off if you feel like it. You are going to be shamed into taking as few days off\vacations as possible.You are not going to be ambitious and take a risk; you are just going to do what seems to be profitable (ie virtual hats and pointless "community social" stuff). You are going to constantly wonder if you are becoming irrelevant and useless. Do you think a company so JEWY to profit from selling over priced tf2 hats is going to keep you around for long if you decide to exercise your "time management freedom" in a way that's not immediately profitable and in-line with the company values? (values based on selling cosmetic items to mentally ill manchildren and spoiled brats, megalomania-induced useless projects like making linux the next big gaming platform, and not releasing hl3)

Are they well paid? do they have good benefits? Try coming to Portugal, being paid little over 500 dolars a month to collect 14 tons of trash a day. You have no clue whatsoever.

It would be a bit aburd if being the garbage man was a lucrative employment opportunity.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Valve seems to be a very nice place to work in. If only employers here understood that a motivated worker is a productive worker, most of southern europe would not be in the shithole it is now.

Guys like you don't get it, at all.

The point of this sort of policy is to strike TERROR in the hearts of your employees, not motivate them.

When your job description, responsibilities, required skills, hours, days off, are extremely vague, it just means that you are constantly wondering if you are going to get fired for no reason at all.

You are not going to take a few days off if you feel like it. You are going to be shamed into taking as few days off\vacations as possible.You are not going to be ambitious and take a risk; you are just going to do what seems to be profitable (ie virtual hats and pointless "community social" stuff). You are going to constantly wonder if you are becoming irrelevant and useless. Do you think a company so JEWY to profit from selling over priced tf2 hats is going to keep you around for long if you decide to exercise your "time management freedom" in a way that's not immediately profitable and in-line with the company values? (values based on selling cosmetic items to mentally ill manchildren and spoiled brats, megalomania-induced useless projects like making linux the next big gaming platform, and not releasing hl3)

Are they well paid? do they have good benefits? Try coming to Portugal, being paid little over 500 dolars a month to collect 14 tons of trash a day. You have no clue whatsoever.

It would be a bit aburd if being the garbage man was a lucrative employment opportunity.

Why not? does manual work desqualify someone from being well paid for what is arguably a hard job? In other civilized countries it is a very well paid job.

The same aplies to other jobs, we have some of the best educated engineers in the world working for 500, 600, 700 dolars a month in many cases.

People tend to complain a lot about their jobs, thats natural, but sometimes some prespective about how it is in a lot of other countries would be nice, because much of what i read just sounds like "first world problems".

 

[hiver]

Garbage men and women should get payed more, much more then some fucking virtual "menagers" and other assorted bureaucracy parasites. If we were to use any common sense about it and correctly see all the influences and consequences of such a job.

 

[Monad]

Hmm hiver, I guess garbage men and women should be paid more than nuclear physicists and the like too, eh?

 

[Ninjerk]

Waste management is incredibly important, but so is medicine, so is engineering, etc. These professions should not be less lucrative than waste management because they need to develop their minds more than a garbage man develops... anything reallly.

 

[Kem0sabe]

It's just annoying how western civilization has evolved to a point that it looks down on manual labor and people without higher education in general. Waste management was just an example, as a job that many people frown upon and is generally poorly payed.

Take game developers in general, their professions have no meaningful impact in the survival of modern civilization, we could do perfectly well without them if they went on strike. Waste collection on the other hand, as cities like Naples and Lisbon can attest to, when they go on strike, utter chaos ensues. Which do you say is payed more on average?

Of course, wage often has little to do with how important you are to society, but how much money you can bring in by your work, especially in the private sector. But even here, privately managed waste management companies, as we well know, often charge a lot for their services and make good money, on the backs of poorly payed professionals. While even in developers that are launching and have no guaranteed successful titles under their belts, their personal often get payed 10's of thousands of dollars a year for their services.

What started this debate, and is momentarily derailing this thread, is how a company that arguably pays very well and has excellent worker benefits like Valve, is seen as a bad workplace. People often have no clue about the workplace in general out of their zone of comfort. If i tried complaining to one of my workers how stressful my job is, he would laugh in my face or possibly deck me right there, because hes probably under 40, has 3 kids and gets payed 500 euros a month to build a building while i sit at a desk designing plans.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

But your worker could be more easily replaced than you. Training someone to lay on bricks / collect trash takes much less time and money than designing plans / develop games, so naturally the former jobs get less respect and pay even though they are more important to society as a whole.

Also, nobody told your worker to have 3 kids. C&C