Valve has a noticeably uncreative corporate culture

[Brother None]

It's what Valve does. Buy up talent and ideas, and absorb 'em. I can't even remember the last time they launched an IP of their own.

If they were EA, they'd get shit for it. And for the way Steam works as a DRM. Luckily, they're Valve, so no one cares :hug:

 

[generalissimofurioso]

You're telling me that Defense of The Ancients 2 isn't a BOLD and VIVID new idea?

 

[Eternal]

It's what Valve does. Buy up talent and ideas, and absorb 'em. I can't even remember the last time they launched an IP of their own.

If they were EA, they'd get shit for it. And for the way Steam works as a DRM. Luckily, they're Valve, so no one cares :hug:

Portal's gameplay was based on Nabucular drop but the actual IP is completely original. The world and characters and thus the IP was all done in house.

Also with Left 4 Dead valve had been attached to the project from the beginning. Mike Booth had been working with them since 2003 and the Left 4 Dead project was a continuation of their relationship.

As a matter of fact the new full game they are supposedly working on now is also attached to Valve.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23913

The publishers are likely for their casual games market of Turtle Rock Garage.

 

[Brother None]

Portal's gameplay was based on Nabucular drop but the actual IP is completely original. The world and characters and thus the IP was all done in house.

Narbacular Drop was fun.

But by "in house" you mean they bought up the talent and the talent developed the IP. Valve only had a supporting function. Same for L4D. It's what they do. Buy up talent and ideas.

Even Half-Life was written by hired sci-fi talent. Counter-Strike? They saw a good mod and bought it up. Dota 2? Same story. Day of Defeat? Same story. Portal? L4D? Indies with good ideas swallowed by the conglomerate.

It works for them, but do we really need to pretend it's anything that it's not. If this Turtle Rock thing had been done by EA people would be crying havoc. But it's Valve. So it's ok.

 

[Eternal]

Valve was working in tandem with Mike Booth and the rest of Turtle Rock since long before Left 4 Dead was conceived.

Portal wasn't "indie" Nabucular drop was developed at Digipen which is a game development school designed specifically for doing exactly what Valve did.

Mark Laidlaw who penned Half Life is a computer game designer working at none other than VALVE. He doesn't just write books.

Portal was co-authored by Chet Falizek who guess what? Wrote Left 4 Dead afterwords.

Brother, I know you want to hate on Valve and compare them to EA. But your information is only half right. They HAVE created their own IPs they don't JUST buy up talent mid-stride. They have done that sure (and quite a bit) but you can't make a blanket statement like what you have done.

Also the reason that Turtle Rock closed was because there wasn't enough people left to consider it a full studio. The only reason it was ever even retained before that was because Mike Booth didn't want to move so Valve agreed to dub the location "Valve South" and let him retain his location. However when Left 4 Dead shipped a bunch of the devs decided to accept Valves offer to move them up to washington.

Valve is still working with Turtle Rock in its current iteration. (once again helmed by Mike Booth) they weren't shut down and fired like what EA or Activision does.

 

[Brother None]

I know you want to hate on Valve and compare them to EA.

How presumptive. I'm just listing facts as given. You can add footnotes to a bunch of 'em (not all) which in no way contradict anything I said, especially since I did not Valve was involved to some extent.

You completely missed the point of my comparison to EA, which isn't to equate the two. My point is that whereas whenever EA is criticized anywhere people gang up like a bunch of happy knobbers, yet pointing out any criticism of Valve inevitably has people coming out of the woodworks to defend it.

A point that, I think, you amply proved for me. I thank you for that.

 

[Eternal]

I was less "defending" valve (which as I stated has done some of the things you stated and notice I didn't even touch on the fact Steam is indeed a form of DRM)

I was more pointing out the fact you made false statements or ones that intentionally omitt parts of those "facts"

And the footnotes I added actually DO contradict some things. Left 4 Dead was done in-house. As was Portal. Portal is a new IP based as a spiritual successor to Nabacular Drop (kind of like Wasteland and Fallout).

Valve DOES buy up a lot of people in the middle of working on projects or based off of previous mods/fan work. That is not only true, but something they have actively admitted to doing.

Valve is also not infallible by any means. The microtransaction system they've implemented into TF2 is a horrible way to take advantage of customers. Steam "as a service" is a blatent half truth as its equal parts service and DRM which they don't like to admit.

I didn't come out of the woodworks to defend them. I came out of the woodworks to defend truth.

 

[Brother None]

I was more pointing out the fact you made false statements or ones that intentionally omitt parts of those "facts"

I wasn't writing a paper on Valve.
You're pretending as if these details - most of which are inconsequential - make what I'm saying untrue as a whole. How does that work? The gist of what I'm saying is the same with your footnotes as without. In fact, what is your point? Just for the sake of completeness? You yourself state I'm right that Valve buys up "a lot of people in the middle of working on projects or based off of previous mods/fan work". So what's your point? Does it actually matter to my point that Portal and L4D are Valve's IPs when they had to buy the talent? Do you actually disagree with my take on Valve or are you just being pedantic? There's no harm in completeness, sure, but that's a bit of a waste of my time.

Valve is also not infallible by any means. The microtransaction system they've implemented into TF2 is a horrible way to take advantage of customers. Steam "as a service" is a blatent half truth as its equal parts service and DRM which they don't like to admit.

I didn't come out of the woodworks to defend them. I came out of the woodworks to defend truth.

"To defend truth"? Are you being serious? Get a bit of perspective in there.

All I'm saying is whenever I mention anything about Valve someone appears as by magic to defend them. It's all a PR game, man, the best PR is when people don't know they being had.

 

[Eternal]

They didn't "buy the talent" for left 4 dead. The project was worked on by people who either already were working with Valve at the time via contracts and by people already part of Valve.

Also how do you exactly expect companies to grow if they don't hire talented people? Hire random hobos off the street and hope they can code?

The company has had a policy of hiring from the community from the initial start. Most companies require a combination of schooling and experience in the field to be hired. This means a portfolio of previous work. Hiring from the mod community shows both experience, knowledge, and quality.

http://www.interlopers.net/articles/turtle-rock-studios-interview

Turtle rock was working hand in hand with Valve as a near subsidiary of the company right up until the eventual purchase. They didn't just "swoop in" and take the talent.

 

[Brother None]

Man, this is getting hard to continue, because I really have no idea what point you're trying to make. Valve makes a habit of hiring "a lot of people in the middle of working on projects or based off of previous mods/fan work", yes? We got that far. Now, nothing wrong with hiring from the community or sniffing out universities for talent, but let's not pretend the way Valve operates is any kind of standard.

For the longest time, all they released was sequels and mods-made-into-full-releases. They only broke with that mold by releasing two titles for which they needed to import creative talent. From the outside looking in, Valve has a noticeably uncreative corporate culture. That is the whole of my point. If I work at Valve since the 90s, what IP can I really call "our baby" other than Half-Life? Even Blizzard does better than that.
That's why it is really not relevant that Valve had a long working relation with Turtle Rock or that Nabacular Drop and Portal are separate entities IP-wise, because in both cases Valve continued its tradition of needing to import creativity. I appreciate your willingness to clarify and link to further facts, but do realize they are not actually relevant to what I'm saying.

<hr>

Back on topic: I think I figured out why Jason left. Because he was being asked to work on this

InXile's product line is so all over the place.

 

[Eternal]

Except you keep claiming that they "imported" creative talent. Which as I said for Left 4 Dead is almost entirely untrue. And actually several companies hire based off previous mods/fan work. Blizzard, Riot Games, Relic(have a friend who got a job based off it, he works as a senior level designer now.). It is far more common than you think.

As a matter of fact, its one of the most recommended ways to break into the gaming industry.

Q: For hiring programmers, what consideration for mod programming and reverse engineering is there?

A: There is great consideration for these endeavors. The ability to write modifications is part of the development process. Having done those things creates a talent for the debugging process as well. We hired one of the guys who hacked the Xbox J

http://tmeatblizzcon2009.wordpress....-into-the-gaming-industry-ala-blizzard-style/

 

[Brother None]

Except you keep claiming that they "imported" creative talent.

Well, what term would you prefer me to use?
And how does it not apply to TRS? Yes, they always and only worked with Valve, but that does not make them native as opposed to imported talent, does it? How you think "working via contracts" would mean the creative talent originates from Valve is beyond me.

It is far more common than you think.

I'm glad you think you know what I think, but I know very well how it works, and I did in fact say "nothing wrong with hiring from the community or sniffing out universities for talent, but let's not pretend the way Valve operates is any kind of standard". Again, other than trying to insult my knowledge, I'm missing your point here. You already acknowledged Valve does it "a lot", which I assume means that you know as well as I do that the scale at which Valve buys up modding talents and commercializes mod ideas is unusual.

Look, I'm still not following what exactly you're trying to argue, so here's a simple question: What was the last idea for an IP that originated from within Valve? Do you or do you not agree that Valve has a noticeably uncreative corporate culture?

If the answer to the first question is "Portal" and "Left 4 Dead", please explain how a spiritual sequel to a univ project whose story was written primarily by the univ people and set in the same world as an existing IP, how all that applies as "an idea originated from within Valve"? Same for L4D. TRS is a contract studio, they always and only worked with Valve, does that mean that when they brought in the idea for Terror you're going to claim it originated from within Valve? That's kind of insulting to their creative work.

But even if you could convincingly argue for either or both to really be creative children of Valve or that Valve is one of their parents, does that actually change my argument much? Valve becomes slightly less uncreative, but not significantly so. I'm not clear on if you believe my argument is wrong or are just being pedantic. On a scale, I'd say they're not as bad as Bethesda, but worse than Blizzard. Yes/no?

And just an FYI, the pedantic arguments are really tiring, but when you keep going "I know you want to" and "you think" that's just being annoying. Either argue fairly or don't bother at all.

 

[Brother None]

I think the statement that Valve are "uncreative" is a bit misleading.

I grow weary of semantics!!

 

[PainlessDocM]

 

[Ausdoerrt]

I don't get it, why is Valve "buying up talent" a bad thing? Would you prefer for all those people to keep their talent to themselves and work at 7/11 instead?

 

[Brother None]

I don't get it, why is Valve "buying up talent" a bad thing?

I don't know. Why don't you find someone who said it is a bad thing, and ask him?

I don't see anyone saying that though.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Well, YOU're obviously trying to bash them for "buying up talent and ideas".

 

[Brother None]

Well, YOU're obviously trying to bash them for "buying up talent and ideas".

I am? Please quote a statement I made where I am bashing them for buying up talent and ideas.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

"If they were EA, they'd get shit for it."

Sounds like bashing to me. Of course, it may be just friendly advice from where you stand

 

[Brother None]

Sounds like bashing to me.

That's a reach. Where exactly in that phrase did I say I personally disapprove or even indicate they "should" be getting shit for it?