It’s no secret that Valve doesn’t work like other game studios. Valve’s flat corporate structure, as a unique new hire handbook, (opens in new tab) “We have no administrators and no one ‘reports’ to anyone else. We have a founder/president, but even he’s not your manager. This allows employees to form ad-hoc teams by moving together when someone (anyone) suggests a project that interests others, and moving when they decide to move.
Sounds like a great place to work, free from hierarchies and bureaucracy. However, according to a new video from People Make Games, (opens in new tab) (a channel dedicated to investigative game journalism created by Chris Bratt and Anni Sayers), two former and current employees of Valve ended up having two workplaces compared to The Lord of The Flies. said to have become one.
Part of the problem is the fact that Valve uses stack rankings. This is an employee evaluation technique that was recently fired after Blizzard employees protested. Each year, Valve staff judge each other through a series of meetings that result in an overall ranking of all employees that determines who will receive a higher salary in the following year. Because there is no manager to tell you exactly how decisions should be made or how the resulting salary change will be decided, probably because Valve still has a board of directors The effect of looks very pronounced.
“One of the most interesting ways you could see it permeate was when people did particularly risky projects near the beginning of the year,” a former Valve employee told People Make Games. “And as review time approaches, they’re going back to the more famous stuff, because the bias these days makes people focus on stuff like that.”
Another impact was to reinforce Valve’s lack of diversity. He wasn’t the only interviewee who stressed that Valve is a very white and male company, even compared to the rest of the video game industry. At other studios, the initiative for diverse hiring comes from management, but at Valve it had to come from the employees themselves. As one interviewee put it, “Valve’s structure makes it difficult to build momentum where the added value isn’t immediately apparent to certain people, and it certainly has something to do with ‘diversity.’ Includes all projects where the term is mentioned. “
Even well-intentioned employers have an unconscious bias against hiring people like themselves. sA study of symphony orchestras that switched to blind auditions (opens in new tab) Simply removing the jury’s knowledge of each musician’s gender has dramatically increased the number of women hired. Valve is a company founded by two white men in an industry already biased towards them. . With the rest of the gaming industry slowly diversifying and no one pushing to change the way they hire, Valve seems to be going in the opposite direction.
“I feel like they have crossed a tipping point,” said the former employee. But I think we are definitely below that level now.”
Another occasion where Valve’s flat structure seemed to influence decision-making was in response to an indie developer’s removal of the game from Steam in response to Valve’s silence on Black Lives Matter. “Several employees I spoke to totally blamed Valve’s leadership for the decision,” Bratt said, but more employees were of the opinion that it was a problem. Not enough The leadership that prevented “months of debate” from leading to a statement that satisfies everyone and a plan for how to release it.
Ultimately, Valve made no statement, instead sponsoring two events, including Game Devs at Color Expo, and an interviewee now employed at Valve said, “What finally landed was Valve was to give all employees $10,000 to do with whatever philanthropic desires they have.”
One decision was clearly decided at the top. This is Valve’s policy of not policing anything on Steam.A former employee said, “Gabe [Newell] If we were a video store, we wouldn’t want to treat The Sopranos to his personal taste, but he recognizes it as a very successful and popular TV show. Even if it doesn’t feel worthwhile, it shouldn’t be banned.We argue that there is a difference between us who think something has a bit social value and what we think it has negative social value. ”
Ignoring Newell’s unpopular take on The Sopranos, it seems like this was the one occasion the rest of the company’s founders had the last word. “I did not agree with his free speech absolutist stance,” said the interviewee.
When Valve’s staff aren’t on the railroad, and their desks move freely and easily, it’s easy to wonder what they’re really doing. There must be a lot of desks gathered in , but it’s a joke that Valve doesn’t make many games. Its last major release, aside from Aperture Desk Job, a tech demo for Steam Deck, was Half-Life: Alyx.
“Valve almost certainly would have shipped more games, but that’s not always the case. Better but definitely moreIf you had a traditional company structure that did not allow employees to leave or leave projects easily…a long time. “
This is why Valve is unlikely to change anytime soon. Difficult or unrewarding tasks seem to be left to those who want to earn brownie points for working on them. That said, tackling issues like the unmoderated hate speech that fills Steam’s forums isn’t a fun project that’s likely to move anyone’s desk. Yet Steam continues to make some money and has no incentive to change Valve’s corporate culture.
The People Make Games video report is over 45 minutes long and covers a lot more than this. Despite Valve saying it’s not a “hit”, it’s worth watching if you’re even slightly curious about what’s going on behind the scenes at one of PC gaming’s most influential companies. There are enough. Their video on how Roblox is exploiting young game developers (opens in new tab) Another worthwhile watch.
