Beelzebud wrote on Jul 12, 2012, 18:42:
I'll bet those teams that Valve hired, and enabled them to transform their projects in to AAA quality titles, are very depressed at having to face such a tyranny.

Cutter wrote on Jul 12, 2012, 12:51:
Apparently not which makes me wonder why they post for specific jobs with specific skills and/or education if it's all just a big free love fest for them. I admit, getting paid a ton to do nothing is pretty much most people's idea of a dream job though.

jdreyer wrote on Jul 12, 2012, 13:55:
Okay, let's put this stupid "Valve is a bunch of lazy f*cks who don't like to do the boring work" meme to rest, shall we? Games shipped in the last five years:
2007: HL2: Ep2
2007: Portal
2007: TF2
2008: L4D
2009: L4D2
2010: Alien Swarm
2011: Portal 2

Dades wrote on Jul 12, 2012, 19:00:

killer_roach wrote on Jul 12, 2012, 15:53:
Considering the number of employees Valve has, they should be doing at least one full-scale game a year. Then again, Steam has pretty well allowed them to take their time with their projects.

Nothing wrong with Valve shepherding projects along if it keeps producing quality games. Most of the ones mentioned here were unpolished alpha mod equivalents before they were in the picture, people really underestimate the level of work involved.

killer_roach wrote on Jul 12, 2012, 15:53:
Considering the number of employees Valve has, they should be doing at least one full-scale game a year. Then again, Steam has pretty well allowed them to take their time with their projects.

Cutter wrote on Jul 12, 2012, 15:25:
Portal was original, I'll give them that. Everything else was fast, cheap and easy to do, most of of it built on or around mods/other people's work. And what have they really changed about Steam since it launched. Not much and it's still a shitty UI. What do they spend most of their time doing? Making hats for TF2 and crap like that. So yeah, they are lazy considering how large they are and how much money they have. Imagine what that could accomplish if they were actually focused. I like valve but honestly, their work style reminds me more of government workers than a real business.

jdreyer wrote on Jul 12, 2012, 13:55:
Okay, let's put this stupid "Valve is a bunch of lazy f*cks who don't like to do the boring work" meme to rest, shall we? Games shipped in the last five years:
2007: HL2: Ep2
2007: Portal
2007: TF2
2008: L4D
2009: L4D2
2010: Alien Swarm
2011: Portal 2

And now the mighty Blizzard, arguably the largest and most popular studio in the world:
2007: WoW: Burning Crusade
2008: WoW: Lich King
2010: StarCraft 2
2010: WoW: Cataclysm
2011: Diablo 3

If there was anyone who could afford to take their time and get a game right before launch, it's Blizzard. And yet the D3 launch was a disaster, and the RMAH wasn't even ready at launch.

Valve will also release DOTA 2 this year, which has been in polished beta form for a year already.

In addition Valve has built the most dominant PC game community and delivery system in the world. Yes, Steam has it's quirks but it's miles better than that Origin crap put out by supposedly non-lazy EA. My origin adverts all display in Russian for God's sake (they changed one day by themselves). And I had to register for Origin twice b/c the registration process directed me to an infinite loop the first time, and locked out my email. And this wasn't at launch, but just last month.

So let's stop calling Valve a lazy bunch of doodlers and dreamers, shall we? You don't ship the kind of quality games that they do or build the kind of robust software that supports millions of users by being lazy. It's untrue and unfair.

Sepharo wrote on Jul 12, 2012, 13:57:
But none of those were original IPs and they stole the work from somebody else durr durr

jdreyer wrote on Jul 12, 2012, 13:55:

So let's stop calling Valve a lazy bunch of doodlers and dreamers, shall we? You don't ship the kind of quality games that they do or build the kind of robust software that supports millions of users by being lazy. It's untrue and unfair.

Hocking recently left LucasArts, where he did not ship any games.

reisub wrote on Jul 12, 2012, 12:40:

...the former creative director at Ubisoft Montreal has joined Valve in an unspecified role.

Is there any other kind at Valve?

...the former creative director at Ubisoft Montreal has joined Valve where he'll do whatever he feels like. It may sometimes involve creating games, but usually only so far as doodling guns and monsters on a cocktail napkin during extended lunches, because game design becomes pretty dull after that stage.

...the former creative director at Ubisoft Montreal has joined Valve in an unspecified role.