The New York Times: not well-behaved game developers valve

Beijing Time September 10 News, The New York Times Online edition of Nick Wengfield (Nick Wingfield) 's long article, in-depth hints of the U.S. game developers valve new development and management concept: not by the industry's established rules and regulations.

The following is the full text of the article:

Valve is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, USA (BELLEVUE).

These are not Microsoft Xbox 360 or Sony PlayStation 3. Looking around, new smart glasses are everywhere. I seem to have walked into the visual world of the 22nd century and seemed to be in a virtual world.

Take a look at the future trends of video games. At least this is the future game development pattern envisioned by valve game developers. Valve developed games including the "Half Life" (Half-Life) series for science fiction shooting games. But the pace of Valve's game development has not stopped. Valve was founded by Microsoft's two former employees in 16. For the games released by the company, some players often play all night. But the real factor that makes valve stand out is the company's foresight towards technological development.

Ten years ago, Valve had released a Web service called "Steam" before media executives realised that content downloads represented the future of industry. Since then, Steam's position in online gaming has been like Apple itunes in online music services. As of now, steam has become a large online game distributor, with more than 40 million active users. Steam is estimated to occupy about 70% of the games bought or downloaded by US PC gamers. Through the steam service, valve not only collects the related transaction cost of other game vendors, but also achieves the profit purpose by selling their own products.

Starting in Monday, Valve will conduct a public test of a new user interface. The interface is optimized for devices such as televisions to make it easier for players to transfer PC games to flat-screen televisions with larger display sizes. "Valve takes the lead in the future development of the gaming industry," said Peter Moore Moore, chief operating officer of EA (COO), one of America's leading game developers. "Art Power is both a competitor and a partner of valve."

Wearable calculation

Today, Valve executives believe the company can enter the next area with huge growth potential: wearable computing. I am wearing smart glasses, not by reminiscent of the outside of the speculation of Google (smart glasses. and valve this kind of eyeglasses, can let the game industry find new development opportunity. This new technology allows gamers to mix virtual games with the real world they see in their eyes.

For the technology giants such as Google, because the company has strong financial resources, so naturally can afford smart glasses and other projects such as the development costs. But for Valve, which employs only 300 people, the strategy of developing wearable games is both ambitious and idiotic.

Valve decided to enter the new game hardware market, also coincided with the PC gaming industry is in transition. Over the past years, valve market performance for the PC has a great dependence. However, Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 8, will be officially released this October, when Microsoft will launch its own web store for software distribution, which will make Valve's steam services lose some market share.

Maverick

Even in accordance with the bizarre standards of technology companies, Valve has maintained a culture of not behaving in a disciplined way for years. Although the vast majority of technology start-ups will make an equal oral commitment to employees, but Valve has been able to emphasize the company "no boss" concept. Valve's new Employee Handbook wrote: "We don't have any management team, so employees don't have to report to anyone." "The content of the manual, which was exposed online this year, immediately sparked a buzz among netizens," he said.

Valve employees have no formal titles. Only a handful of employees printed some titles on their business cards, but this was done to work with other companies: Many companies were unwilling to work with employees who did not have any titles. This also applies to one of Valve co-founder Gueb Newville (Gabe Newell).

"I think Newell actually plays the role of CEO," said Greg Coomer, one of Valve's first employees, the company's designer and artist Grigg Coumers. Interestingly, I'm not sure about that. ”

To inspire the creativity of employees, Google Management has proposed "20% working time" concept, that is, Google employees in their normal working hours, to take out 20% time to focus on or participate in their own work is not related to the project. In valve, however, this ratio becomes 100%. When new employees join the valve, they will not even be told where to work, but rather let these employees decide to participate in the projects that best enable them to develop their own expertise. Valve a large number of desks with wheels. If new employees finally make up their minds, they can push their desks to the development team they want to join.

A few years ago, an artist who worked in Hollywood for special effects joined Valve, but he refused to move his desk. When the news reached Newell, he immediately moved the table to a new place and embarrassed the new employee. Valve declined to disclose the name of the employee. It is reported that this employee has now left from valve.

Newell said in an interview recently at Valve headquarters that in the past few years, a small number of employees have been leaving. But the reason most of these employees leave is because their parents are old and sick and need care. In one case, valve the parents of an employee to live in the Seattle area. In this way, the employees ' parents will not only receive more care, but also have better medical conditions in their place of residence. Newell said: "Whenever there are employees leaving, I am very annoyed." This is like a flaw in a complete system. ”

Work Team

In the user participation matter, valve also in the industry leading position. In the early stages, Valve was known for tolerating players ' "modifications" to their game. For the user's creativity, valve not only does not intervene, but also encourages users to do so.

The continuous innovation of valve games also resonates in the hearts of its players. Gateway 2 (Portal 2) is a shooting game in which players can use weapons to open exits on walls, floors, or roofs, while at the same time being able to skip cracks or jump vertically up and down with weapons in their hands. After the game was released, it stimulated a large number of players to post homemade video content. In these videos, players can use homemade weapons with a large number of wall-crossing and bypass street effects.

The valve headquarters office is open and has a variety of badges for the games that the company has developed in the doors leading to the offices. Valve also recruited remote office workers, such as an artist employed in Valve, who lived in London. Valve recently recruited Leslie Red (Leslie Redd), a High-school principal, and Reid used the portal game to teach physics and other related courses. He said that more than 2000 teachers around the world have already registered, hoping to use the valve game for classroom teaching.

After seeing a blog post from Greek economist Jenis Valufakis Yanis Varoufakis, Valve recruited him as a remote employee. Valufakis Blog article mainly related to the European financial crisis, he had never heard of valve, nor gamers. After Valve recruited Valufakis, his task was to study the virtual economy in valve games, where players could sell all kinds of equipment in the game. Valufakis said he had accepted Valve's request for a franchise, in part because it was attracted by Valve's unique management structure.

"Valve's unique structure will bring new insights into the corporate governance structure," Valufakis said in a recent interview in Greece via Skype's online communications service. We may as well face it, valve the current corporate culture can inspire staff enthusiasm. ”

Hardware business

Valve recently introduced a recruitment measure: Build a hardware team and hope to develop new technologies that will attract netizens to play games. Valve's job ads on its web site show a desire to recruit an industry designer. It also suggests that valve may plan to go directly to the computer hardware industry. "We were disappointed with the technological innovations in computer hardware and decided to get involved in it," the job advertisement said. Over the years, basic input devices such as keyboards and mice have not been substantially improved. ”

Valve also recruited inventors, self-taught chip designer Jerri Elsworth (Jeri Ellsworth). Elsworth recently unveiled a valve hardware lab with 3D printers and other hardware prototypes. Elsworth revealed that in her job as a valve hardware designer, she had doubts about Valve's hardware strategy, "I said at the time, the cost of building a hardware lab is not low, it's 1 million dollars." Newell said, "On this issue?" "

and valve key hardware items can be wearable calculation, the owner of the hardware industry veteran Michael Abrash (Michael abrash). In his view, playing games in smart glasses and other devices is the natural evolution of playing games on smartphones and tablets. Google Smart glasses can display text and video conferencing content. and valve smart glasses have a lot of difficulties to be overcome. Valve must find a solution to how the image of the game does not wobble during the walk, or it will give the player an illusion.

Abrash that in the next 3-5 years, will be able to operate on the smart glasses on the stable operation of the reality of the game is going to be available, but virtual reality glasses will soon appear. He revealed that Valve has not yet decided whether to produce smart glasses at home, but eventually valve will share the design with other hardware companies free of charge so they can also produce the appropriate smart glasses.

"Newell said that Valve should do the work that must be done," Abrash said. We don't have to be a hardware-for-profit company, and that's not what we're doing. "Moore of the American Art Power thinks that smart-glasses projects such as valve and Google may not be popular with mainstream consumers," and they are interested in these programs because they are far from the will and affordability of mainstream consumers. ”

Newell this summer when talking about Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system, it said the product would bring "a huge disaster" to everyone in the PC industry. He recently reiterated his view on several occasions, saying the operating system is becoming less open to developers such as valve. After Apple released its iOS operating system, it launched its own app store and controlled the distribution of related applications, and then shared sales revenues with developers.

Newell said it was a success for Apple itself, but worried that Microsoft would do the same with applications in its Windows 8 operating system, where Windows 8 apps would be distributed through Microsoft's own web App store. Newell is concerned that Microsoft will gradually reduce the impact of steam services after gaining the right to control it.

"What we want to say to Microsoft is that we can understand the various market challenges you face," Newell said. But you are trying to get out of the way by copying the Apple model, which will only accelerate without slowing your decline. ”

In Newell's view, Microsoft spokesman Mark Martin Mark Martin declined to comment.

50 Step Smile 100 Steps

And some game industry executives said that, given the valve for steam network services for all, valve to Microsoft's accusations, is tantamount to "50 steps laugh 100 Steps." During the last year, Valve had "rubbed off" with art power over all the income sharing of the games sold on Steam services. As a result, EA decided not to release the latest games through the steam service.

Valve said that if the steam service does not make the corresponding policy, then through the steam release of the game developers can easily "loopholes": first the game is made free version, and then through the subsequent additions to the player charges. Also worth pointing out is that the art power last year launched its own online game store origin, with valve steam services directly to compete for the market.

Unlike conventional enterprises, Valve is still a private company, and control is firmly in the hands of Newell, so in the corporate management matters, valve do not have to adhere to the traditional enterprises for many years to form the rules. Newell and Maik Hallington (Mike Harrington) were former employees of Microsoft, who jointly created valve in 1996. Previously, Harrington had resigned from Valve. Since Newell and Harrington were not wealthy during the rise of Microsoft, the company has never received any financial aid from outside investors as a result of Valve's creation. In this way, Valve will not be listed or sell themselves to the pressure.

In fact, Newell also had the opportunity to sell valve. As in the past few years, the art power has been playing Valve's "idea". According to people familiar with the matter, in the contact negotiations between the two sides, the valve valuation of the arts electricity over 1 billion U.S. dollars. But Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Nomura, an American investment firm, reckons that Valve's current value should be around $2.5 billion trillion.

Newell said that if Valve was acquired by an external company, it would mean that the company's team would also "run West East". Newell said: "It's like we get together and say, let's find a big company to buy us, we can get some money to spend." Then wait two or three years and our work contract will be terminated. ”