What's It Really like Working at Valve? We Found Out.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 เม.ย. 2024
- What's it actually like working for Valve Corporation? Over the last few months, People Make Games has interviewed 16 current and former Valve employees about the inner workings of one of gaming's most mysterious companies. A place with no bosses (not even Gabe Newell, claims Valve), no job titles and you're free to pick the work that matters most to you. But how true is any of that, in reality?
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Created by Chris Bratt:
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And Anni Sayers:
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0:00 - 4:02 How much do you know about Valve Corporation?
4:03 - 5:17 Introducing Valve's somewhat fanatic Employee Handbook
5:18 - 7:31 Welcome to Flatland
7:32 - 8:46 Not everybody's the "right fit" for Valve
8:47 - 10:40 How Valve functions without managers
10:41 - 18:00 Stack ranking
18:01 - 24:54 Valve has a diversity crisis
24:55 - 28:18 How do people get fired?
28:19 - 30:08 Steam makes this a very different company
30:09 - 35:40 Disagreement over Black Lives Matter
35:41 - 41:13 Does Steam have a greater responsibility to society?
41:14 - 42:03 Is this truly a "structureless" company?
42:04 - 45:56 Valve isn't returning our emails
45:57 - 47:42 Support People Make Games (please) - เกม
The reason Valve's Lawyer is reading the emails, is cause they nearly lost their court case in Australia by default cause they didn't read their email saying they were being served... so a judge ordered a press announcement and gave permission to proceed with the trial with Valve being declared absent, Valve learnt of the case from a games media blog that said they were being sued :P
Now a lawyer reads all their emails :P
P.S They still lost, and Steam has a refund policy because of it... but yeah, they have lawyers read their emails now, still don't reply, but they read them :P
@@boxhead6177 Ah, time to think of a new way to gain ground on Valve's communication (or fair additions to steam)
sure, but the lawyer didn't just read the email, they checked the linkedin profile of the person who sent it
@@boxhead6177 You should edit this PS in to the original comment, it's interesting.
Why not just have software that flags certain words? Seems a lot more reasonable and efficient.
Not the most important takeaway, but the graphic design of this video is sooooo lovely
Anni rocks indeed.
PMG has amazing graphic designers. Even I sometimes lose track of the video subject because I'm just stunned at how good the graphics are.
jacobbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
Is Valve too libertarian to fire an orbital laser?
It really is gorgeous!
Valve learned a long time ago that, when it came to game development "It's better to say nothing and be wrong then say something and still be wrong." and have gone on to apply that mentality to everything.
The problem is that it's hardly true. They've squandered the goodwill they had not by over promising and under delivering, but by doing and saying nothing at all as their games burn.
@@Palozon When you listen to whatever the neighbour's dog barks - you'll soon believe anything - and forget what your own beliefs were, if there were any in the first place. Valve is incredibly invested in their games. All three Half-Lives and their derivatives released by Valve, as well as both Portals (lack of sequels?) have been extremely polished. Both in terms of gameplay, existance of glitches or lack thereof, their story, design, "feeling" of the game environment - they are all very loved and cherished. And it shows. They're one of the most cherished and loved games worldwide. And no, as hard as this might be for you to understand - they're not going to release another HalfLife just to create a quick cash-grab - or just because thousand fans are screaming that they "deserve" it. If you had raised a child which you were proud of - would you be willing to rush and make many other children - because, well, this one turned out all right? If you would - you'll never understand Valve's psychology in appearing to be outwardly "stingy" with their continuations of popular games and "brands".
They haven't squandered anything. They are one of the most popular game companies, and most people would rather buy their games on Steam, even though they have plenty of opportunities.
We must remember that in a broad market the single player experience is not as profitable as a multiplayer service with smaller transactions for content. Our nostalgia for polished single player experiences are left to AA developers or indie that have a focused project in mind and are willing to take a risk.
@@JurisKankalis this comment wasn't "lol, valve can't count to three." There have been critical technical issues threatening the health of their multiplayer games for years at a time unfixed, and their silence reinforces their perception as a do-nothing company to the communities that have lost patience.
Nobody is underrating valve games.
It kinda seems like the incentive structure for employees at Valve could explain why they’ve developed a reputation for not releasing sequels. Why work on those when short-term projects are so highly rewarded?
That is in fact the most popular explanation for why Valve doesn't release traditional sequels. They are instead focusing as much as possible on games-as-a-service, because those can be made and released (and monetized) in much smaller steps.
They do long term projects but they got to see the risk and reward as something so powerful to add to Steams Value, that Gabe himself will sign off on it... like VR or Steam Deck.
Like Half Life Alyx and the Appeture Science VR game only exist to sell more VR. Like a game only exists when its already attached to another high reward project.
@@boxhead6177 or Aperture Desk Job to Steam Deck
@@logangraham3689 Also worth reiterating that Aperture Desk Job is 20 minutes long, making it pretty damn short-term as far as game projects go.
True. Kinda surprise HL Alyx somehow got made with in that kind of environment.
I like that you make the distinction that a Flat Style of management doesn't imply a worker cooperative or vice-versa. Ownership structure and management structure are separate things and can be mixed and matched to best fit the market and stakeholders.
In this case it is an implicit leadership structure where the lack of official titles allows for a lack of direct accountability from upper management
flat style just sounds like a vacuum bound for structures driven by unbound-factionalism
"best fit the market and stakeholders" - In a true cooperative, there are no external stakeholders; it's just the workers. Also, yes management structure and ownership structure are separate, but in a cooperative, everyone has the ability to influence decisions; the management role is given by the consent of those that are managed for the purpose of making things run smoother, not taken as a position of authority.
@@totlyepic What you're saying doesn't make any sense. Of course there's external stakeholders for a cooperative. If there were no external stakeholders, there'd be no customers!
@@totlyepic You mean shareholders, not stakeholders.
I love the idea that "We have no boss" and the boss show up in a meeting and lay that law and acts like it is a collective decision.
And, since he's so comfortable taking advantage of the rolling desk policy and inviting himself into group meetings, he also accepts his salary being decided by the ranking system which is reviewed by all the people who work with him over the year!! /heavy sarcasm
@@hannarchy6554 Im sure as the owner you wouldnt say anything ever... I get it that this company has problems but first look what every other corpo is doing
@@irek1394 Every other corporation doesn't pretend that everyone is equal while having a hidden but very powerful social hierarchy with no direct accountability. At least with other companies you have some idea what you're dealing with, upper management doesn't get to hide from accountability due to the lack of titles, etc
@@irek1394 Nobody here is saying that other corporations are better than Valve. What people are saying is that Valve isn't better than other corporations just because the flaws and the exploitation strategy are different. An actual worker cooperative would be better for workers than both Valve and traditional game industry companies by leaps and bounds.
@@dominateeye They are better though. The video just brings up all the bad things. If you want to look up videos about how bad many corpos are and that is not even comparable. The fact that not everyone fits in a certain environment isnt a good thing but who fits in a normal corpo environment? Even less people
The fact that there could be better ways to handle things doesnt make Valve bad.
Gabe`s biggest praise will always be keeping Valve a private company and being able of making his vision about a company a reality, for better or worse.
SO basically, a narcissistic shithole?
Yeah libs dont get that kind of thought.
I think his libertarian principles are admirable, you can see it in how Valve is steadfastly committed to not buying platform exclusivity contracts even while Epic abuses that tactic to try and bite into their market share, or how Valve is steadfastly committed to remaining hardware agnostic in VR, even while Meta abuses that tactic to try and bite into their market share. What he's built is incredible, even if I have a lot of criticisms about Valve and how they're run.
It's kinda funny how much Gabe doesn't seem to really "get" game development. Look up his demands for real-time moss growth mechanics for one example.
@@N1c0T1n3__ let's see what other non-" narcissistic shithole" is doing. Ubisoft? major losses and mediocre gameplay. Take two sitting on NBA, NFL, and FIFA doing minimal. EA was once the most hated company. Activision Blizzard loses the charm and offering bob kotick and diablo immoral
That Valve's supposedly flat hierarchy leads to a dysfunctional, insular work environment should be no surprise to anyone who's worked at small, family-owned companies with no formal structure. What that actually means in practice is that the hierarchies are hidden and less accountable.
IMO giving employees $10k to donate to whatever they want is better than any statement they can make "words are cheap" and all that. Sure someone can keep the cash for themselves but that isn't a reflection on Valve, that's on the employee.
Seeing how mansions were bought with blm money....
Can't imagine how many people must've started working on Half Life 3 only to hear about the dozens of projects that came before and got rejected and ended up not even presenting it :D
heavy update
I remember reading some time ago (back when reports about Valve's work culture were first surfacing) that there were, in fact, dozens of attempts to work on Half-Life 3, nearly all of which ending not long after the honeymoon phase, when actual development starts. It's super fun to think of ideas and concepts, but it's less fun to put them all into practice into a cohesive product, which is where a lot of the Half-Life projects ended up failing. HL Alyx almost met the same fate, until GabeN personally stepped in and issued a rare command of "all hands on deck" for it. "In the Valley of Gods" was even cancelled due to this because the devs were directly ordered by GabeN to help Alyx ship no matter what.
@@raidenvakarian9362 Valve needs more "all hands on deck" and less "do whatever you want so long as it makes money". Less lootboxes, more Alyx.
@@peacemaster8117 seriously. what happened to the half life series is proof theres something off with valve
@@angelofdeath275 Gaben not stepping in is what happened
The most damning thing about this video is that Gabe Newell seems to not like The Sopranos.
lmao
The Shah of Iran agrees
I don't know man, I personally was bored to tears until I dropped the show by episode 5. Then again, I was expecting something like "Analize This".
"The Sopranos" is okay, if you like generic mobster stories, but it's not as good as "Sex With Hitler".
Sopranos was and still is garbage. Just a big pile of boring stereotypes and 'the same old actors' wrapped in a onesie. If you like that stuff, it's fine, I guess.
When it comes to game development studios valve feels like some ancient civilisation that’s managed to stay uncontacted for thousands of years. So interesting seeing what actually goes on in there!
Probably why they're as successful as they are. Diversity and Fentynal Floyd are why the tosser presenting this video should be ignored.
And its good why do people try to ruin stuff
@@nicekeyboardalan6972 Talking about things isn't trying to ruin anything.
@@Cinnamon1080 Why don't they leave them alone there's nothing wrong with this just seething dorks mad at success. I pray Gabe uploads his brain into internet before he dies to stop this stuff.
@@nicekeyboardalan6972 They made an entire game on why that's a bad idea
Great video, but the bit about 3% of respondents thinking a 30% cut is justified is a bit duplicitous. The source reveals that 72% of respondents thought a lower cut was justified, not the implied 97%.
Thank you for taking the time to highlight this so it doesn't slip by unnoticed.
Did you see where the other 25% came from? Like were those people in favor of 30%, or neutral, or something else?
@@Healermain15 3% responded "more than 30%", 22% responded "don't know/not sure". The 72% is also split among the amounts less than 30%; you can see the details on page 26 of the GDC 2021 state of the game industry report.
It's good that you took note but I don't think PMG implied that 97% thought it wasn't justified. Just that 3% said it WAS justified. Sure the information they provided wasn't complete, but it doesn't change the fact that only 3% actually thought it was justified, right? At least, that's not what I concluded.
@@DaFlavourFace 43:04 It's technically true, but the wording used led me to think the poll asked "do you think a 30% cut is fair?", not, "What do you think is a justifiable amount?" like it actually is. And I think those are pretty different questions, and the actual results make more sense to me now.
I find it funny that they allow anything that they decide isn't "illegal or straight up trolling" on steam, meanwhile as a developer I know that they've got a complete list of things that they "won't publish" that they've just completely ignored I guess. It's publicly available in the steamworks documentation, and I guess it's worded as "What you shouldn’t publish on Steam", but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be self enforced if that's what they mean by that.
Anyway's here's the list copy and pasted in case anyone's curious:
Hate speech, i.e. speech that promotes hatred, violence or discrimination against groups of people based on ethnicity, religion, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation
Nude or sexually explicit images of real people
Adult content that isn’t appropriately labeled and age-gated
Libelous or defamatory statements
Content you don’t own or have adequate rights to
Content that violates the laws of any jurisdiction in which it will be available
Content that is patently offensive or intended to shock or disgust viewers
Content that exploits children in any way
Applications that modify customer’s computers in unexpected or harmful ways, such as malware or viruses
Applications that fraudulently attempts to gather sensitive information, such as Steam credentials or financial data (e.g. credit card information)
Video content not directly related to a product that has shipped on Steam.
Non-interactive 360 VR Videos
Applications built on blockchain technology that issue or allow exchange of cryptocurrencies or NFTs.
Can I ask about "non-interactive 360 VR videos" ? I don't do VR so I'm guessing what's the matter with videos not being interactive ?
Wow I didn't know they stated against shitcoins and NFTs ! (and I think this is a good idea to keep it like this because it's just too easy to scam people with this at the moment).
@@Par-Crom On the VR thing, I'm guessing it's just a way for steam to differentiate between a "game" and "video media", and exclude the latter from steam. Like they likely want to emphasize that steam is a game platform, not a video platform.
Although Im not sure why they have the need to do that, since I've never seen an instance of VR videos being sold as games before.
It seems that they also will knock out almost anything that has or even implies sexually explicate material if it's in a "anime"-like form. Whole swaths of visual novels don't make approval or have to be seriously edited to get on it.
The best anyone can seem to figure is that it's in an attempt to stop simulated child predation; but that means that they're treating all animesque=lolicon, which is it's own bag of worms, or this is someone with clout's personal disliking, and it's getting heavily inforced, which goes right back to these invisible (and thus, impossible to dismantle) power dynamics.
@@scaper8 I genuinely think you have no idea what your talking about.
A while back I got gifted as a gag a game called "Treasure hunter claire" by Kagura games. Out of curiosity I checked it out. Not only is it anime-esq, it is straight up hentai that has loli characters in it.
And judging by the fact that the publisher of this game has over 30 different games that are just hentai, I don't think anything anime related has any issues making it on to the platform for being "too risky".
EDIT: I just checked again, they have exactly 105 different games published that are all anime and hentai.
Sure does seem anime gets da censorship now does it?
@@ava5030 I know of the many stories of may visual novels getting turned down or demanding edits. The theories are not my own, but those of a number of creators.
Wait. What's Gabe's beef with Sopranos? I think that's the most mysterious thing here.
I like that you mentioned worker co-ops because it seems to me that Valve is trying to get the benefits of a co-op without giving the workers the benefits of a co-op. If your mission statement is about letting people do what they think is best for the company, but then your incentive scheme rates people individually then they're going to look at it individually and not as the company. They will do the things that lead to them personally getting the best outcome, and will burn out and leave if they aren't the type of person to do that. If you had a true structureless worker co-op where profits are disseminated throughout the work-force, then people would be more willing to do the things that benefit the company as that directly comes back to them. However currently it seems like the things that benefit the company and the things that benefit the individual are opposites.
"If you had a true structureless worker co-op where profits are disseminated throughout the work-force, then people would be more willing to do the things that benefit the company as that directly comes back to them"
It already comes back to them in the form of bonuses. The structure appears to be there to actually fix some of the inherent flaws that come with worker coops. There's a reason there's no worker coops who've made any sort of impact on the games industry.
@@peacemaster8117 Pfeh. The inherent flaws with worker co-ops? You mean like the flaw where banks aren't as inclined to lend to you, regardless of other considerations? That kind of inherent flaw? Because the only other one I can think of is that they're still businesses.
@@peacemaster8117 "There's a reason there's no worker coops who've made any sort of impact on the games industry." Completely wrong, the world doesn't work that way. Things like worker coops exist in the same space as the 40-hour work week and minimum wage. They don't just "happen" because they're effective or ineffective, these kinds of things are fought for by workers against capitalists. Capitalists hate these things because it affects their bottom line. The reason worker coops barely exist (especially in the US) is because of laws and regulations that favour pro-capitalist structures like private companies and are against pro-worker structures like worker-coops, and until a large base of working people get politcally organised and fight for better conditions like they did before the 80s that won't change.
The reason why Valve is considered so separate from EA, Epic games, Ubisoft, etc is simply because they don't make themselves stand out when it isn't needed. They don't make stances on controversial topics if they don't need to, they don't get in controversy publicly when they can help it, and they definitely don't make their internal problems public unless rogue employees try to.
Valve sits there in the back doing its own thing privately and quietly which is how they rarely gets the ire of their users but obviously that doesn't make them immune to any criticism / problems as some of the more egregious things in this documentary has shown.
I agree. I think more companies should be like this.
People Make Games has an obvious bias.
Disagree. They get away with the indifference because people like Steam.
Until Blizzard started releasing flops like the Warcraft 3 remake and announcing mobile Diablo, they had a similar untouchable reputation.
The Hong Kong censorship, the workplace sexual harassment, union busting all got largely shrugged off. Overwatch 2 may have been the final nail that opens them up for widespread criticism now though.
People are just more willing to criticise companies or people they don't have pre-existing loyalty to. A 15 year old Steam account with 1000-2000 games probably fosters a lot of brand loyalty.
@@nathandts3401 I think it's probably a combination of both. People like what Valve makes and Valve doesn't comment on anything that could drive away customers if they don't need to.
@@Robospy1 ... Quietly sopping up money until they do something dangerous with it?
Personally I think that companies shouldn't have any responsibility with regards to societal messaging they don't directly influence. When companies put out any kinda of statement it always comes out as virtue signaling.
I instantly think of Pride month. All the companies making rainbow colored packaging as if they actually care about the issue, which they dont, they just want your money
You're describing ___ Capitalism, when companies co-opt progressive messaging and movements as a PR exercise. Most commonly Black Capitalism (racial issues), Pink Capitalism (feminism) and Rainbow Capitalism (GSSRM pride).
My personal favorite is the Raytheon rainbow profile picture but the completely nondescript Kylie Jenner Pepsi commercial is an all time classic too.
I was wondering why this video got a decent amount of dislikes, but at 18:00 I knew why...
I think the central issue here is that valve is structurally averse to taking action in any direction. This is partially because any employee who tries to get the ball rolling will be held responsible for how it goes, regardless of whether its their fault or not.
All large organizations are like this
Im sure its harder with a strict boss over you that wont even talk to you about something he doesnt like
@@alexc4924 that’s not true. Where I work (a large software company) there’s a whole multi person, multi-week process to propose a project, get it reviewed, approved, and scheduled.
If the project fails, the blame is placed on the “pod” of managers that approved, scheduled, and managed it to failure
@@notactuallyarealperson2267 What you're describing *IS* structural aversion to taking action. If taking action requires a multi-week process, a lot less actions get taken.
Yep, but there's no neutral on a moving train.
Now I'm really waiting for a Riot Games video.
I'd really like to see some quotes about the staff culture around the reported sexual harassment and the toxicity of their players.
Agreed. Last couple of months just watching from the outside have been... troubling. :S
Well, steam has the most 3rd world country friendly prices, and that's not even mentioned here. That alone, combined with discounts offered frequently and a LOT of games available, makes it a lot better than any other store
Yeah, discounts are cool and all, but they dont help the people working at valve.
This video wasn't about Steam being a worse video game store than video game store x or video game store y, it was about the way valve as a company functions and what problems this way of functioning causes.
Gabe's "I am definitely not your boss" t-shirt raises a lot of questions already answered by the shirt
My experience with Valve as a security researcher has essentially been what you expect. Be ignored for a few months, post the issue to their forums, get my steam account banned, wait another 3 months for my complaint containing "I told you about this half a year ago, this is your fuckup" to be read and getting my account silently reinstated. Also, they didn't fix the issue (would have been trivial), they simply removed the entire feature.
my guess is that the person who read your complaint, the person who banned you, the person who removed the entire feature, and the person who reinstated your account were all different people. not saying it's justified tho
@@Cyberian_Khatru I'd say that's pretty highly likely considering how unorganized they supposedly are
Same happened to me after getting banned for no reason cuz some steam mod was mad at my comments and made their friends mad at forum only to get unbanned half way through the unban process after directing contacting an valve employee I knew but the person who banned me still work at valve
@@Cyberian_Khatru my other takeaway from that story is that maybe you shouldn’t report/expose a security vulnerability on a public forum but contact them privately.
@@TucoBenedicto Which they did, but valve ignored them for months
I don't know if I can really get behind the criticism of their $10k donation stipend. I feel like there are plenty of arguments against a more strings-attached approach, including them spending a long time coming up with a list of acceptable charities, leaving off charities that may be most important to certain employees, and the factor of your employer being aware of and tracking your philanthropic spending. It just feels like a stretch here to bash Valve for treating their employees like grown ups while giving a really hefty sum for charity.
For some reason they're just desperate to have the corporation echo their specific political beliefs: supporting the employee's right to support their own causes is somehow not progressive enough.
I've recently been picturing Valve as the Oldest House from Control. They've always been so mysterious.
"no no no why isn't valve like the other companies"
This is a good thing even though I still have problems with them.
If Valve doesn't tell me that racism is bad, how am I supposed to know what to think?
As many other comments have pointed out, taking interviews from mostly former employees may have skewed your view a little, although I know you just worked with what you had.
True, but any time on a employer review site will show you that spurned employees are pretty obvious to spot.
Most of these quotes seem largely considered and have positives to say before getting to the negatives.
Great presentation.
I'm saying this as a black person who lives in the United States. I don't think it is Valve's responsibility to support political stances and certainty not organizations like BLM.
Steam's regulation isn't perfect, but I also think that what you imply is similar to the arguments used to claim gun violence is linked to/caused by games which worries me about the precedents it would set to police these games in a market place as ubiquitous as Steam.
FYI BLM isn't an organization (even though someone stole the label and made it the name of their organization)
There are non-racist reasons as to why certain people don't like BLM, mostly that right wingers are afraid of property damage more than people dying. Most are racist, but the ambiguity should probably let it pass it openness is what Valve want to do.
That being the case, general racism, sexism and homophobia are just objectively immoral and should be banned. Harmless characteristics you were given at birth should be protected.
Sir, there was a post of a tumblr screenshot I saw not too long ago. In it, someone explained that they had a friend who was deaf and liked Little Mermaid. The show for that movie came out, and when the episode with Ariel's young, deaf, POC friend was introduced, previously mentioned young deaf girl nearly cried in delight of being represented, and in a positive light, no less.
... Correct representation matters. If Disney could squeeze it out of it's constipated ass, so can Valve.
@@AngelicDirt So your argument for including skin colour as a factor in Valve's hiring process... is because you saw a tumblr screenshot where someone told a story about a deaf girl crying because she saw The Little Mermaid?
You really need to rethink your perspective on these issues mate.
"I also think that what you imply is similar to the arguments used to claim gun violence is linked to/caused by games"
Excellent observation.
Company makes shitloads of money, doesn't want to change the way it works. Shocking. Well not that shocking. In fact, kinda makes sense. You can't argue with results
Okay, but like, they're defining success by a single metric. Money. Which is sort of a problem - or at least, can lead to problems arising - when the world actually has things in it *other than money*.
@@Argusthecat yeah, other things like... quality? like creating games that are both by fans and critics widely regarded as some of the absolute best of all time and doing so consistently, time and time again, over the course of multiple decades? like creating a holistic gaming hub and, against all odds (launcher based, forced to use for a lot of modern games, etc... - steam is to this day the ONLY platform of its kind that people actually enjoy using), succeeding in doing so, a platform that an immense amount of players have for more than a decade cherished and adored "as its own thing" and not just as a shallow utility to play games - things... like that?
Nothing and no one is beyond criticism but reducing valve to a dull money printing machine is so far off the mark that I'm seriously wondering if your comment is ironic
@@Hoichael Perhaps, but also perhaps things like how employees feel about their workplace and job security; how well they can exercise their legally protected labor rights; how equitable and fair the hiring, review, and firing processes are; whether they even have the ability to actually negotiate their salary as opposed to just having to accept what the boss says; the responsiveness of management to employee concerns about the business, the work environment, and the company's wider world impact; you know, things like people.
@@dominateeye Are we talking about mcdonalds or valve?
@@Hoichael Why are you arguing with these people who obviously have only bad faith arguments to put out?
I think giving your employees the money to donate to causes (perhaps controlled) by the company is a much better way to do it than the normal model. And the part later in the video that critiques it be because "they may give the money to groups I don't like" is a bit silly.
American culture around not talking to colleagues about pay & conditions is why bosses have been rorting the absolute living shit out of you for 40 years.
I feel like Gabe it's not your boss in the traditional sense that he's gonna come to your desk or team and tell you what to do but I can guarantee that if he has a certain opinion on a topic and you actively disagree on that opinion your chances of getting fire may increase a lot.
Another thing to note is that structure of the company kind of limits the size of the company. You can only spread so far laterally in this kind of distributed manner until you face some very serious inefficiencies. This is why they focus so much on the hiring process. I'm honestly surprised they aren't in crisis over how many people quit or get fired.
edit* i guess that sweet sweet steam revenue makes that a moot point, though lol. still, considering their absolute focus on profit over people, it seems surprisingly inefficient.
How is this an issue? Ideally private corporations should have an upper limit of growth.
@@gatocochino5594 It's not really an issue, just an interesting aspect of the way the company runs. I'm not sure if there should be any kind of limit on growth, but definitely should be some sort of limit on compensation.
"considering their absolute focus on profit over people" you cant even compare private companies to publicly traded ones
@@irek1394 why not? lol. just because they're not publicly traded doesn't mean they can't model their incentives and finances similar to any other publicly traded s-corp.
@@snowballeffect7812 What I meant is that at worst they could be comparable to most publicly traded companies and if we believe what the video said they arent.
Man - I despise "stack ranking" so much. This is such a weird technique.
I can't imagine my office job with such a system in place.
Conversely, I can hardly imagine being offered an above-industry standard salary, complete freedom to pick what to focus on, no crunch or overtime whatsoever and chances for earning a lot in extra bonuses AND spend most of that time at the company freaking out about if you "are being value enough", rather than trying to actually do some shit.
@@TucoBenedicto absolutely! That doesn't mean I can't still despise "stack ranking" - beats working at Blizzard, that might be true.
@@TucoBenedicto I can hardly imagine spouting the company line to shout down people shocked by poor labor practices, when the docu provides ample examples of exactly how terrifying this kind of nebulous pay scaling can be to employees with less security in life than their peers. Show a little sense or sympathy, especially when you only stand to defend your favorite toy-maker, cripes.
@@AmnesiacDoe I’m sure you can, tosser. Spare the grandstanding “holier than you” attitude for someone who cares.
@@TucoBenedicto i really can't!! my own livelihood depends on a nebulous impression others have of my work separate from its actual quality or throughput in a way that is borderline inactionable as feedback without driving myself insane!! plenty of people live like this, and you don't just get to ignore we exist, lol.
Something that always bothers me about people on the side of censorship is that they claim the people against censorship "aren't taking a moral stance" it shows a complete lack or inability to understand the other person. It shows an incredibly narrow view of what morals actually are. One's personal morals are not the only morals in existence and are not automatically the best options. For the people that believe strongly that censorship is an evil act refusing to censor what isn't illegal is a moral stance. You can absolutely disagree with someone elses morals but don't dehumanize them by claiming they don't have any.
Right, from their perspective a moral stance is either "Supporting Black Lives Matter (Good)" or "Opposing Black Lives Matter (evil)". The idea that morality could be more complex than that just passes them by.
@@peacemaster8117 Centrism is also bad. There, fixed it.
I didn't realize at first that some of the animations I'm looking at aren't by Valve but by Anni. Nice job!
Fascinating video. I can only help but wonder what happened to stack ranking / salaries of the team that made Artifact given how that game turned out financially
The lack of a second set, despite it being finished from a design standpoint, says it all. Almost the whole team scurried like rats from a sinking ship. Anyone who stayed on to help risked being tainted by association with that failed project.
I don’t think the implication is that working on a single stinker will get you fired, generally speaking.
It MAY be what the involved employees fear/worry about, on the other hand which is something that probably cripples the company’s creative output in the long run.
@@TucoBenedicto It's not that it'll get you fired. It's that you'll get paid less. Worse, you may be seen as being responsible for the overall bonus being smaller for everyone.
Im not finished yet but it seems like instead of the intended idea of something like a woker’s co-op where everyone works together, its more like a system in which everyone is working for themselves
it's not a co-op, it's pvp
So worker multiplayer solitaire?
We can criticize “the fit” but if you do operate in a largely self-motivated structureless operation, (for example volunteering)
You will realize that certain people need to be told want to do, they won’t decide to go do some thing they’re always looking for someone to tell them.
Those don’t work in a company like that, and that’s really what this is targeting.
If you want to run an organization, any organization, you need to identify employees that will work with your way of working.
The army wants people who will except orders even if they lead to death.
Valve wants the opposite they want people to think for themselves and make intelligent decisions without being told what to do.
Most companies are somewhere in the middle.
And honestly I think it’s OK that not everyone is able to work at valve or in the army, or any other business.
I wouldn’t want to be in the Army, I wouldn’t listen and I certainly am not going to run into military gunfire,
And by not doing that I would endanger many more other people, I think it’s acceptable to see the way we work requires a certain type of employees and so we hire for that.
I presume that at people make games you have standards you hire for, and those standards by definition excludes some portion of the population.
But someone who doesn’t have an investigative mind probably isn’t a good fit in your company. And thats ok.
That said that tyrone game, hooolyyyy shiit, thats not ok…
I can understand not wanting to take a political stance, What do you comment on what do you not it’s a never ending task and you’ll be hated every step along the way.
But if you take the step to ban any games that game has to be banned.
Either be like Google and literally just carry everything, racist or otherwise.
But if you choose somethings are too spicy for you that clearly crosses the line.
Disgusting
This. I find the percentage of world population comparison a bit short sighted and sensationalist as well. They didn't even use the working age population either, and what percentage of the world works in game development in the first place?
I’d start a ‘Richochet remake’ team, now that’s valuable 🤣
"One of Gabe's arguments was that these games will make a bigger splash if we say no to them, rather than if we say yes and then nobody buys them."
There is enough history of that seemingly happening (As far as I saw it, anyway) to compel me to find agreement with that as I almost feel that more people know about the game 'Hatred' because not only did it get the rare A for Adult by the ESRB (Which is a distribution death-sentence compared to other regional equivalents like the more confidently-used PEGI 18), but it was pulled from Steam Greenlight only to then have it reinstated on the platform with an apology from Gabe Newell. Nowadays, the game is mostly looked back on with a "That was a lot of fuss made over a rather unremarkable game, wasn't it?" when it's not getting jokes made about it by the developers & audience for the 'Postal' franchise (Again, as far as I've seen it), but there are other examples of "Games getting a moment of attention due to, intentional or not, their subject matter causing platform holders to be hesitant to distribute them" in the past, of which I must admit I can't provide immediate examples of besides me saying "Go see what the likes of John 'Totalbiscuit' Bain or 'Jim F------ Sterling, Son' were covering during Steam Greenlight's busier days".
But of course, that means that Valve is ultimately leaving those judgement calls upon the Steam customer-base, which can leave one with the question "How well are Steam's tools whether user, community or algorithmic helping customers curate their personal shopping experience if not curate the shopping experience platform-wide?". In my personal case, it's been a very long time since I saw a game on Steam during my daily use that was being "overtly racist", "a clear-cut scam" or "intentionally looking to cause a fuss" besides 'Sex with [WWII Dictator I think TH-cam doesn't like you mentioning]' or 'Furry [Aforementioned WWII Dictator]' getting a bit of a fuss mostly via joke reviews (Plenty of sexually explicit games via the 'New & Trending' or 'Popular Upcoming' pages on Steam during quieter periods, but not a lot that I otherwise don't see arrive on GOG or gives me the impression that it crosses lines of legality, regardless of their spectrum of tastefulness and/or mechanical substance), but this could be due to the 31 games I currently have "Ignored" (Much of them are games like FIFA, NBA 2K, WWE 2K, Red Dead Online & Infestation: Survivor Stories 2020, but there are some sexually explicit games on that list that I must've found particularly distasteful or reportedly shallow beyond their explicit nature to add them there) contributing to what I see splashed at the top page beyond what my current Steam Library, Wishlist or other data already is. But I'm only one among 28mil peak users at the time of writing, so I'm barely even a paint-stroke in that whole picture. And that's not accounting for the developer's experience of using the platform, of course (Of which I do actually have one friend with a game on Steam, but nothing too useful to add here).
I guess the long & short of it is; It does seem that Valve would rather leave the answers to more complicated questions in the hands of it's customers & tools or not say anything that they can't materially back-up in the present (I'm pretty sure 'Half Life 2: Episode 3' was what made them ultimately do the latter much more consistently if they weren't doing so after Half Life's many delays or Half Life 2's development hurdles). But that's so much more frustrating & unhelpful when you're among the staff working within Valve's offices on their payroll or it's becoming clear that a complicated problem requires a solution that Valve themselves must make the call on what that is.
Only the first few will make a splash, if there is a consistent rule system, news articles will quickly fall off. This is done with other media.
This video is a prime example. Has anybody ever heard of "Tyrone vs Cops" before this video? Now it's got the attention.
@@maessof91 You do raise a good point. What is also worth mentioning is - as a comment here reminded me of - that Steam actually does have a "What you shouldn’t publish on Steam" as well as a "Accepted types of Content" list publicly available in the Steamworks Documentation under 'Getting Started > Onboarding > Rules & Guidelines', which as far as I recall last made headlines when "13. Applications built on blockchain technology that issue or allow exchange of cryptocurrencies or NFTs." was added in '21 or '22 during the height of the NFT buzz.
I don't know if TH-cam comments will tolerate a URL for that, but I can copy-paste the contents and hope the aforementioned information can lead you direct to the source via search engine (How well it is enforced by Valve for releases before or after the writing or updating of this document is not something I can chime in on, though):
*What you shouldn’t publish on Steam*
1. Hate speech, i.e. speech that promotes hatred, violence or discrimination against groups of people based on ethnicity, religion, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation
2. Nude or sexually explicit images of real people
3. Adult content that isn’t appropriately labeled and age-gated
4. Libelous or defamatory statements
5. Content you don’t own or have adequate rights to
6. Content that violates the laws of any jurisdiction in which it will be available
7. Content that is patently offensive or intended to shock or disgust viewers
8. Content that exploits children in any way
9. Applications that modify customer’s computers in unexpected or harmful ways, such as malware or viruses
10. Applications that fraudulently attempts to gather sensitive information, such as Steam credentials or financial data (e.g. credit card information)
11. Video content not directly related to a product that has shipped on Steam.
12. Non-interactive 360 VR Videos
13. Applications built on blockchain technology that issue or allow exchange of cryptocurrencies or NFTs.
*Accepted types of content*
We are primarily accepting games for distribution on Steam. Non-game software may be accepted for distribution if it fits into one of the following categories:
- Animation & Modeling
- Audio/Video Production
- Design & Illustration
- Photo Editing
- Educational & Tutorials
- Finance & Accounting
- Player Tools
- SteamVR Tools (Drivers, Overlays, Utilities)
Their reasoning is almost certainly that they'd prefer to just take their sale percentage whilst being untouchable by pointing to the policy.
Not giving a platform to the game may make people talk about it more, but those people aren't going to leave Steam to go buy that game on the developer's website. Principles matter to me and they should have certain restrictions in place.
@@nathandts3401 But as another comment mentioned, it'd probably work for a few then drop off. If you were to buy a few "outrage games" and they'd all be serviceable at best and absolute dumpster fires at worst, you might be less likely to buy more of them.
The straight up trolling comment sounds like it may have been pointed at the steam greenlight submission game "Missing Information" which was a game based on the Half-Life 2 Beta leak content with stolen assets from valve by the dev team called "Gabe's Love Tub". The game was approved by Steam Users but valve did an extremely rare move and intervened to block it going on Steam without stating why. The publication regarding "straight up trolling" was realised shortly after that incident. It is believed that Gabe Newell intervened directly in that case as the HL2 leak was still a sore subject.
Stack ranking sounds like my corporate nightmare.
Also, a company without hierarchy is a wonderful way to avoid responsibility.
@@KingThrillgore reminds me of how some sales planners can sabotage the PPIC by purposefully under or over planning, then blame the PPIC. Imagine how bad it would be with stack ranking
The funny thing about the concept of Valve’s lack of quality control is that they’re actually incredibly inconsistent regarding this. They’ll straight up ban games that got ESRB ratings and are sold at Walmart or GameStop if someone at the company has a personal distaste towards it, while they’ll allow low-brow stuff like Cuckold Simulator, Omon Simulator, and Sex with Hitler.
Of course there’s also the entire discussion around the lack of quality control (in the correct way) on Steam resulting partially in the problem of bad game releases, there has been cases where games are still sold on Steam despite missing an executable file as an example. Or any of the Arkham Knight situations that Valve seemingly hasn’t learned from.
They’ve fairly recently been starting to raise eyebrows, and that’s even without the other things in this video.
hey! sex with hitler is clearly an incredibly complex videogame with a very comple who am i kidding it's sex with hitler
>They’ll straight up ban games that got ESRB ratings and are sold at Walmart or GameStop if someone at the company has a personal distaste towards it
Can you give examples?
A prime bad game release is the GTA definitive edition. Mutahar did a whole video as to why it is absurdly awful & has no active development into patches/updates.
@@FigmentForever I just watched that video yesterday lmao
Tf are you talking about
NGL, but I got no problems with a company just saying nothing.
..and "content creators" get to benefit from it too because they can pad their videos with outrage about nothing being said.
Saying nothing is fine. Hosting the crap, that nobody else will, makes it look like you agree though.
@@nathandts3401 That's a different thing
The claim made in the video that "Valve's attitude towards BLM challenges the idea that Valve is a structureless company" is hilarious. No matter whether you think Valve should make a public statement about BLM or not, it is clearly stated in the video that there is no consensus in Valve about whether the company should say things about BLM. So the silence towards BLM is a direct consequence of the flat structure in Valve, not the opposite as the video suggests. Because there is no consensus, no actions are taken. It would however take strong management motives (which Valve clearly doesn't have) to make a statement about BLM under such circumstances. If you think it's a shame for Valve to not speak up about BLM, then you should also blame its "structureless". Just because the flat structure is something you don't want (or don't dare) to criticize doesn't mean you can just attribute the good things to it and bad things against it. That's not reasonable
some people claim they want the workers to have more to say in the company but at the same time complain when those people arent a hive mind
Yeah the entire section on the BLM and the free speech stuff was pretty biased. This is all old news at this point. They still spun it as a negative even though Valves collective *actions* literally spoke louder than any tweet from another shitty corporation. Despite the best effort of the People Make Games, the premise of the video was always meant as a loaded rhetorical question. Frankly if the most dirt they could dredge up on valve is that they're **not** discriminating on skin color when hiring? Fantastic, one more reason to like Valve. In addition to that, Valve is still significantly MORE diverse than the city it resides in. Bellevue Washington demographics show the population is only like 2% black where as the number of black valve employees is 8%. They're successful and their structure works. Look at the tech industry right now, amazon fired about 20,000 tech people, and google, microsoft, and facebook each fired about about 10K tech people each. This is really just a sneed video about Valve being too rich or too libertarian or too white. Yawn.
A flat structure doesn't mean there can't be company values, it just means being able to work without management.
Why would you look to a faceless producer of goods and services for political validation?
@@shiftymcgee4183 Your point about their demographics would make more sense if Valve only hired from the Bellevue area. Since they definitely don't, you have to look at the demographics of where they do source people (presumably, anywhere, if they're truly fair), and in that situation, their demographics are wildly off.
If the response is, "well, they're not sourcing from ANYWHERE, they're sourcing from areas they know to look, and people they trust" -
- that is where implicit (aka, unintentional) discrimination comes in, and that's how you end up with a company with mostly white dudes, when the rest of the world is mostly "not white dudes."
Definitely shows a lot of the flaws within Valve's structure, but them not virtue signalling for stuff like BLM is hardly a cardinal sin or mortal crime. Especially considering stuff like business lip service only depreciates such things, as Malcom X warned about.
The issue wasn't even BLM, it was the fact that it was one of the few times Gabe, someone who is according to the Handbook "not your boss", overrode the wishes of the staff.
"Everyone is the boss" is a recruitment tool that Valve uses. In practice there is a very powerful hierarchy that is further directed by stack ranking. Even if one doesn't care about the company making a statement for social causes, as a consumer this still has effects on things like "why hasn't there been Half Life 3?" or "why did they let TF2 die?".
Valve has a broken structure that is shielded by their rent-seeking via Steam.
@@KoolAidManOG You're certainly not wrong, that is absolutely one of the vital issues wrong with Valve. I'm just saying that's not the takeaway from this vid some some people on the left and right are gonna have. But I do agree with you.
@@gordonfreeman8109 Yeah, I think people are getting lost in personal culture war grievances while ignoring that this is symptomatic of their "some people are more equal than others" structure. It is filled with contradictions that lead to things like massive content droughts, incredible turnover and attrition rates for top talent, popular products being neglected or even abandoned despite customer frustration, etc.
The "Everyone is equal and there are no bosses" handbook pitch of a worker co-op paradise is a far cry from "Gabe/The Board will shut you down".
I've long felt that they need to spin off a separate gaming company and a company focused on maintenance and customer support, because trying to do it all under the current structure isn't enough. The problem is that Steam is so insanely profitable that Valve is shielded from all negative consequences of not serving their customers properly.
$10,000 < virtue signaling Twitter post?
🤡
@@KoolAidManOG "The issue wasn't even BLM"
Tell that to the guy who wrote the script for this video, since the BLM rant at the end completely overshadows the actually interesting topic of Valve's structural issues.
I feel like you just made a video about difficulties of owning a successful company in the video game industries.
At the end you didn't even talk about the Streisand effect or whether those harmful games were successful or not or and whether Gabe was right.
I trully believe you should do an investigation about the horrors that happened in Blizzard for the past 10 years, or about how EA, Bethesda treat their employees... You'd be surprised of how good of a company Valve actually is.
Hm, actually agree with Gabe at the end there.
I get the feeling that the recent Blizzard story about "stack ranking" lit a fire under the editor to get this video done. 😀
I feel like the critiques of the structure of valve, and the diversity/social outreach would be better served as two separate videos. They don't really have anything to do with each other.
I appreciate the in-depth look behind the scenes of Valve's work-structure. Can we get a couple of these kinds of videos for Epic Games next?
god I've been craving this video subconciously. been getting into tf2 again and wanting to know why nothing ever happens
basically the old veteran didnt see any value in TF2
@@danang5 how? tf2 hat market is really damn good
my entire steam library was bought using tf2 unusuals, and valve do make a decent cut
@@God-ch8lq ask the old veteran valve employee that does the yearly evaluation,not me
The money is in DOTA 2 would be the main answer.
TF2 is occasionally bringing in hat revenue, but was mostly superseded by Overwatch for general hero shooters and CS:GO for Valve shooters.
TF2 is a hat collection game and there are many better class based competitive multiplayer games on the market. Valve would be better off making a new game from scratch
Not sure if anyone mentioned this before but these voice actors in these videos are incredible, like truly amazing job!
A nice touch.
Though the passive aggressive dubbed former employee complaints during the diversity segment honestly left the impression Valve's approach was pretty acceptable.
+1
The employee structure does sound odd. In terms of appraisal, I would imagine it would become a popularity contest. As for the "no manager" approach it is natural for a hierarchical structure to develop anyway.
I would say Valve being apolitical is the right choice. In my opinion, companies should stay out of politics and focus on the product or service they're giving. With regards to hiring practices as long as it is a meritocracy, that's fine.
As far as what games are published to their platform, there is an argument to curate the content in terms of quality of the game.
Think a little farther ahead. Companies have money. Companies like buying companies. Said parent company can come in and change how child company behaves. DRASTICALLY.
... Imagine you work at the child company.
The way diversity is discussed in this video is bizarre to me. One thing Valve does is it doesn't hire people straight out of college like tremendous companies (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter, etc.). Instead, they only hire people with a ton of experience who have proven themselves already, perhaps with 10 to 20 years experience climbing high at another company. The simple fact is the percent of people who are women or not white working as a software developer 10-20 years ago in America was close to 0%, so yes, when they only hire people with 10-20 years of rockstar performance, they're going to have a vast majority of white men. In another 20 years, I'm sure the ratio will get a little better. It will really depend on how many highly successful women there are with that much experience who want to work at Valve.
Even just about 10 years ago at my college, there was about 2 women total over all my courses, and the rest were all white men. It has gotten better more recently, but like I said, Valve doesn't hire recent graduates. It will see improvements in diversity by a lagging factor of 10-20 years due to its high standard of entry.
This isn't a problem with Valve. If you think it's a problem at all (women are free to pursue whatever profession or lifestyle they want), the problem is with parents, schools, government, the attidue of a woman's friends, etc. The end result of a company picking from valid candidates is not the problem. This is being conflated with stuff like racism in the 60s where being black actually meant, no matter your qualification, you will not get hired at many places. I'm sure people in power sometimes decide things either consciously or subconsciously based on gender, but you have to demonstrate that has happened. Valve hiring mostly white men out of a group that is comprised almost 100% of white men is not evidence of that.
It could also be that some of the women who DO have that experience level just didn't have a good time in the industry and left it for good (after all, the games industry is known for being absolutely grinding on the soul). There's a HBR article about why even though women make up for a solid portion of college graduates in STEM fields, very few stay long in their industry of choice. And from their anecdotes received from surveys, most of them said it was due to the misogynistic culture entrenched in those specialized fields. Things like getting tasked admin work during their internships even though they were hired to do specialized STEM tasks, which is absolutely asinine, while their male colleagues got tasked the more challenging STEM problems(even if the women were equally qualified).
I am still sad they bought Campo Santo. We’ll never see another game from them again.
Especially only a few of the Campo Santo team members are now still at Valve, and the rest of them already left the company.
A private company hired the very best employees it could, and chose to remain mostly apolitical, except for giving $10,000 to every employee to donate as they saw fit. Steam is incredibly successful with incredibly talented employees cobbled together in a unique structure.
This video is a miss.
So glad you do what you do. The video games industry is in desperate need of some high quality investigative journalism. Been here since the early days and it makes me very happy to see you growing so much covering such important topics. Keep up the good work friends!
I don't like this guy. He can take ANYTHING - ANYTHING - and very subtly manipulate it into something negative. I haven't heard any positive words about how people are fired. OH, REALLY? You know what, you little click-hungry manipulative wannabe-journalist? I DON'T LIKE YOUR BROWN SWEATER. Yes, these are CAPITAL LETTERS, IMAGINE THAT. I don't think specifically your brown sweater is inclusive in respect to vegans, slow-eaters, different binary-shminary non-binary folks, bird lovers, whale lovers, cat lovers and tree lovers. So go on, get off the youtube, you've been split wide open, now everyone knows your brown sweated ain't cutting it. Go on, take your manipulative FINDINGS elsewhere.
Journalists would probably start bitching about there being too many white people in those companies. They have turned their profession into a joke a long time ago.
There is a lot of such journalism, which is saturated with strongest political propaganda and bias, now in the gaming industry. In fact, now almost all game journalism is exactly like this, and no one conducts investigations about games and their real problems, which major publishers are very happy about and contribute to this in every way.
Really enjoyed the in-depth look into Valve's structure but this one felt much more a critique than a journalist report. A lot of statements that were made painted the picture way darker than it would've come off if you just stated the facts. This type of approach takes away the viewers capacity for judgment. The idea that big companies are morally responsible to be the guiding forces in our societies came of as a given but I don't think this is an outlook that everyone agrees on and if they do there are a lot of views as to what degree of responsibility. I really appreciate the honest work but I this time I felt like I was not allowed to make my own opinion based on the facts presented, the opinion was already made for me.
I kind of like Valve more for not putting out a "Black LIves Matter" statement like many other companies did at the time. It's not like most of them cared about the actual issues, they just put it out to curtail to current opinions and thus perhaps sell more products. In very few cases do I really believe that large corporations actually bother about such things when they make statements, they do whatever makes the most profit. It actually got to a point where it was laughable, like they just suddenly crawled out under a rock and just made a "#BLM!" and then disappeared again on social media etc.
When a company makes a tweet like that it usually comes across as virtue signaling. A tweet wont change anything, companies need to put thier money where thier mouth is, and Valve did exactly that.
I agree. I also feel like this applies to people's complaints about diversity. Valve hires people based on skillset, rather than race, religion or gender.
Why make statements on political issues your company isnt involved in when doing so just makes you look soulless? Its more respectful not to say anything rather than have your merketing tean put together a new flavour of the month virtue signaling campaign for max profit.
These 2 reasons are why valve is a much better company than Bethesda, Ubisoft, Epic, Riot, CDPR Is their entire staff actually has marketable skills for the industry. Ever other company is bloated by 80% diversity hires and people who have no idea what they are doing and are fresh out of college.
Hence why AAA games are all garbage and poorly optimized now is these companies waste millions paying teams that get NOTHING done and have no talent.
donations plus statement isn't just a PR move
@@HonkieWithaBoomstick >literally blames diversity for poor game quality
>only mentions companies that fight against equality
ok boomer
@@DanielGriffiths Really agree. I think it's even worse when megacorps like Nike do it. The outrageous hypocrisy of putting out a statement like that while exploiting and slave waging people in East Asia and around the globe in sweatshops and other inhumane working environments is quite unbelievable.
By the numbers, the Coast Guard Search and Rescue is harder to get into than the Navy Seals.
More beneficial to society as well. Just more valuable overall.
Important and interesting video, but I think it’s beyond unfair to bash Valve’s structure and their libertarian nature. Sure, they will block whatever hurts the store the most, or evade anything if it may hurt the company’s image, but this stance makes sense for me.
All of this diversity discussion makes sense for the USA, and maybe a bunch of other countries where people claim “white folks rule ’em all”, but there are way more other countries. I can understand the diversity issue if we talk USA specifically, because Valve is based in the US. That being said, I’m not from the USA, and I cannot quite comprehend why Valve should give additional benefits to people of color or claim white folks being bad. Anyway, I think helping people from different backgrounds is good - a person’s race shouldn’t give them benefits, but the background. White folks come from a poor background, black folks too, the same can be said for everyone else. And all of them might come from a rich background. Why only non-white people should get some sort of privilege? I don’t quite understand it in this case.
Adding to this, Valve’s structure allows everyone to agree on certain decisions, but people need to accumulate these opinions. I can imagine it might be hard, but invite your friends then - if you cannot do it just because of the colleagues are racist or something like that, then there’s a clear issue here.
Ultimately, my main point about Valve’s political standing is to emphasize with them. Keep it in mind, I’m talking globally, not US specific. Steam is a global store, after all. If Valve starts making political decisions and align with certain sides, then what’s good can come out of it? Some will be happy, most others won’t. Gabe made a good point about the show that was described in the video.
Also, let’s say, Valve says “We support BLM” and stuff like that - what about other issues in the world? Russia vs Ukraine? Armenia vs Azerbaijan? Racist and bigotry attitude to influx of people fleeing wars, for example, Russians in particular? They are facing issues in other countries just because of their passport color, but they left their home country because they disagree with the gov’s politics. Why they are being targeted and yelled at? Why locals and others tell them to go back? Again, what about the other issues like, I dunno, situations with ethnicities in China? Or even racist behavior of some locals in China who target foreigners as the main reason behind the outbreak in China?
If you think some examples above isn’t even related to Steam, then why the rest isn’t? Why Valve should focus on Russia vs Ukraine, or just BLM? Why Valve should focus on the US, that’s just stupid. If you say that they should do it just because they are a US based company, then keep in mind that their statements will be thrown at a global audience. When I see events that aren’t even related to my region, I may wonder why I am even seeing them - why someone shows their political views onto me?
I want to keep this discussion civil and hear your opinions. I feel Valve’s stance, and maybe it has hidden meaning, but it still makes sense anyway.
Good comment!
I agree some parts are meh and not good about valve. But about politics, i agree with valve here. Its a video game company and a video game distributor. It shouldn't matter much for it. What should is profit and adequate work environment and pay.
SANITY
why is it always some far-right literal ghoul spouting this "politics shoudn't matter" BS?
oh right it's because you know your politics are utterly 100% indefensible so this is your best shot of sneaking it in, gotcha.
Never forgive them for buying Campo Santo and putting In the Valley of Gods on perminent hold T_T
They might have saved us from some real cringe. Campo Santo's artists did great work on Alyx, so it's a win-win.
Honestly this video was a bit of a miss for me. It could have been a really interesting look into how Valve works internally, and you guys touch on that a bit like with things like the stack ranking system. However I feel I didnt really learn much about how Valve works from this video, it focused too much runtime on the diversity aspect.
I will praise the animations though, they were top notch.
The first half was neat at least! A few tidbits here and there about how the company operates. I generally agree though, I would have appreciated a video that spent more time looking at the inner-workings of the company and history versus complaining they won't return your emails after bombarding them with the same loaded questions and expecting a different answer
But that's not what this video was supposed to be about. He's an investigative journalist, not a propagandist for valves hiring team.
@@AfutureV If anything the negative things in the video are pretty understated. Everything he talked about with regards to how their structure and compensation system leads to a toxic environment that impedes Valve's ability to ship new product has been an open secret in the game industry for a very long time. The results speak for themselves, just look at how terribly supported things like their forums, tech support, and free-to-play games are.
I'm actually surprised that a video like this has taken so long to come out.
@@Johnny-mp2ew Nobody who genuinely cares about games cares about forced diversity quotas and Fentanyl Floyd. Such garbage has nothing but damage everything that they've tainted.
@@AfutureV Valve has allowed itself to be hit by pieces such as these. Their lack of openness invited unfavorable views.
Why does a video game studio need to make a statement about BLM? Why does any company need to? Do shoe companies need to make a statement? What is the point?
Watched the rest of the video, I believe this was most of their points
1) no statement about BLM
2) flat structure bad, people need to rate each other :(
3) Valve allowed every employee 10k dollars to donate to whatever they want, some may support things they agree with and not what we agree with :(
4) Diversity is low and they tend to just keep employing white men
5) They take a 30% cut of all profits when other companies don't take as much :(
It's a private company and one of the more successful ones out there, if they were really doing badly they would change. Business is just about making money and they are doing fine, what's the problem.
I think the 10k to every employee is a great idea. Some can be selfish and keep it but how do you know they don't actively need that money? Others can donate it, it's a win win. You shouldn't dictate where the money goes, they don't even need to donate anything.
30% cut has been the norm for a long time and it's probably due to the fact steam has the highest users and can afford to do so. It's just part of the price of doing business. If it failed them, they would change it. Epic games haven't really made a dent despite taking (12%?). Seem it's not a problem.
As for the diversity, diversity shouldn't exist for diversities sake. There's going to be plenty of talented game devs that aren't white men and they will find a job somewhere. Talented people will get hired. This will become Valve's jobs when these people help create a fantastic product that outshines them. They can hire whomever they want and if they suffer, they suffer. We don't need to put pressure on them or any other company to change just because.
Honestly the worst thing about this video was finding out Gabe thinks the sopranos is shit. He has such poor taste. Rest of the video is the usual garbage but come on Gabe.
Exactly why would a games company care about race or identity they care about making games
Support black employees.
Encourage black customers that you're a place to shop that doesn't agree that American police should use lethal force just because of the person's skin colour.
Both pretty valid, wholly business related, reasons.
I don't believe companies when they release those statements or slap a rainbow background on their social media pages, but there's clearly a financial reason to trying to ally. Even if you're a company full of middle aged white men
@@nathandts3401 So you want companies to virtue signal.
Not only is that misleading people to believe a company is an actual ally and promotes change, when it isn't, it also removes them any social responsibility because hey you can't criticise them, they support x movement. They slapped a rainbow on their logo for a month or made a public statement on how diversity is important, even though the stats show the leadership and top earners is always people from wealthy backgrounds. No company would seriously support defunding the police and lobbying for such changes out of pocket because diverse customers want their products, not their social views.
@@Greg_tf2 Because they want to sell their games to the largest amount of people, so also black people, women, LGBT+ community, people with disabilities etc.
@@NuiYabuko that's that sad truth of it
I’ve always wanted to know about how Valve worked, thank you for this
Honestly, I miss the old valve. The Half-Life 2 Valve, the TF2 Valve, or the Portal Valve. I miss their games and I miss them. Maybe one day we'll actual get HL3.
Stop using Steam and they might put out something to get you back.
The PS3 had a failed launch, but a price cut and heavy investment in games like Uncharted, Last of Us, Infamous, etc led them to take over the Xbox by the end of that generation.
@@nathandts3401 When other game launchers get as good as Steam, then I'll consider.
@@jianng7795 All of the others have a significantly better ratio of good games to bad. That's a start.
Who gives a shit? You're not forced to buy, play, or even look at them, so why would they matter for people looking for the best launcher?
@@nathandts3401 Here's what Steam is to me, a storefront, a game launcher, a forum, a trading marketplace, and a mod workshop.
Epic Games Launcher is a storefront and a games launcher, and they're not better at it than Steam. It doesn't have written user reviews (Steam reviews are kinda rubbish but they're there), it doesn't even track my achievements properly.
Origin (back when it's still online) is even worse, its top Google search is "origin not working" for crying out loud.
Steam has their competitors beat by a mile, the occasional porn I see in the store is not reason enough for me to give up everything else.
really great vide, so cool to final learn a bit more about how the studio functions. between you peeps and no clip It really does feel like a game time for games journalism
As a visual novel player, I am somewhat happy that Valve doesn't police these games too hard but I would love if they're even more laissez-faire. I still want Fullmetal Daemon Muramasa and I'd love for less cases like Chaos;Child Noah and Evenicle 2 where permissions are given and yanked randomly. Yeah, the junk games making it through is hard, but I want to buy these games legally because it's more convenient than pirating them and I don't have the money nor patience to import them. So for me, all I want is just better consistency instead of praying whoever does the checking doesn't hate the game for a random reason.
I mean this whole process sounds kind of confusing and opaque, but I also think that is the point? The status quo has been working for Valve. Not saying thats a good thing! Don't really have an opinion on the status quo. But why change when what they have is working? If Valve or Steam starts failing then I think we might see some changes.
@@bunshine ASK ME ABOUT HL3
I think this video brings up both a lot of valid issues, as well as a lot of non-issues.
If not saying anything, but giving money to the employees to chose who to donate to, makes you the bad guy.
Then you can’t win, might as well not say anything. It’s literally the only outcome, because you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. This video proves that.
Thoughtful analysis regarding the benefits and drawbacks of Valve's flat structure, the video production was fantastic too! However, I find your arguments regarding Valve's politics heavily flawed.
I agree that Valve should have clear policies about what is and isn't acceptable on Steam and within Valve's development studios, because their customers (both consumers and developers) and their employees need to know where they stand.
What I don't need is for Valve to make political statements about things they are not responsible for. That is why we (hopefully) have democracy, and platforms where we can speak our minds. We can choose to make our own statements as individuals, and Valve's employees are free to do so on their own social media accounts among other venues. Valve even gave their employees money with the specific purpose of letting them make a difference as they see fit, as highlighted by your investigation.
Where should Valve draw the line? There are countless topics that they could make statements on, why stop at BLM? They would have to make statements every single day to comment on everything that's wrong with society. There is also no guarantee that you would agree with the topics they took stands on. It seems more like you want them to make statements on what YOU think is important, and I doubt you would ever be completely satisfied.
It simply doesn't make logical sense for them to spend energy satisfying the daily whims and demands of political activists when they can focus on what they're good at; making games and services.
Valve is not flawless, every company has structural strengths and weaknesses. However this video did not convince me that Valve is in crisis, it did the opposite, and though I agree that they need to work on their weaknesses, I would work for a company like Valve without hesitation.
I think the main point you're missing in your rebuttal here is that you assume it is possible to be apolitical, and that that is preferable.
What counts as political neutrality? That is inherently a political question, especially when a heavily used political tactic here in the US is using extremism to push "political neutrality" more in favor of your party by the simple act of comparison.
Therefore, defining apoliticality and political neutrality is political. "Everything is fine unless we're going to be put in cuffs over it" is inherently a stance that lends credence to, and cedes power to, those who already have power, those people who are writing and enforcing the law. It is effectively enforcing a specific status quo, which seems perfectly palatable when the status quo is not threatening to you, not actively trying to suppress your existence.
The slippery slope argument for where to stop with public statements and political advocacy is similarly missing the point. Anywhere that threshhold could be placed is in itself a political statement that benefits some people more than others. Valve is not being silent, even if it says nothing. It is a massive company that has a massive impact on the industry regardless of what it does, because of what it ALREADY does.
Taking a 30% cut on almost all games on the platform is a form of speech, it is a statement. Remaining politically silent and unavailable for comment on actions the company takes is a form of speech.
In case you're in disagreement about what quantifies speech... Let me give you an example. If I built a castle on my property in a suburb, and outfitted it with loaded ballista and vats of boiling oil on all sides, and started performing "defensive tests" in my driveway on wooden dummies, that is a form of speech. It doesn't matter if I've gotten approval from the HOA and had everything inspected and permitted, *I am definitely saying sonething.* If I then refuse to speak to my neighbors on the topic except with vague evasions like "It's all to code," I am ALSO saying something. What, exactly, is up to debate, but one might expect I have violence on the mind, and may somewhat understandably be worried about living in the shadow of my indomitable stone walls, with no real reassurance that I'm right in the head and have everyone's best interests at heart.
Now suppose I invited my neighbors over for a larp-style barbecue, and made a public statement that they're all welcome to take shelter with me if anything happens. That is a very different form of speech, isn't it?
And suppose we delve further into this ridicous example, and I single exactly one person out to deliberately pointedly exclude from my previous offer. That, too, is a form of speech.
My example is not meant to correspond 1-to-1with Valve as a company, but I do feel that the parallels should provide some constructive food for thought in relation to your criticism of the video.
The political IS personal. Companies are not people. Speech is not just words.
Have a good day.
@@Woodledude If you are a bystander to a crime, are you complicit? Genuine question.
@@Woodledude I hate this talking point, everybody knows that apolitical means not pushing for change and it benefits the status quo, that's not a big revelation, it's in the definition
I don't understand criticizing Valve for not being openly pro BLM. Why does every public company have to be outwardly progressive? The Valve employees that were against a public statement make a really strong point about where to draw the line. Besides, I'd argue that the majority of companies that look progressive are simply virtue signaling and just doing it for good press. Does Nestle really care about BLM when they go and enslave children to make chocolate? Valve paying employees to donate as they saw fit is miles better than most companies, and it makes complete sense given their company philosophy, although I agree that the money should've been required to have been donated. The idea of a closeted racist pocketing 10k off the murder of a black man is gross.
It's the political climate in America. You can no longer be apolitical or moderate. Either you go all left or all right, anything in between is lambasted by both sides.
@@unknownpotato8691 I haven't seen any people on the right criticize companies like Valve that try to stay out of politics and let their employees make political choices on their own. There are probably some people, but people on the American left are definitely more in favor of activist companies than people on the American right.
@@flashfire4 The people on the right like the status quo and generally seem prefer the even more racist and awful status quo from 100 years ago, when people had far fewer rights. In pretty much all areas they prefer 'don't ask, don't tell' as it means nothing gets challenged so everything can stay the same/go backwards.
Plus, 'go woke, go broke' and similar seems to be constantly trending on twitter whenever bc people on the right hate companies that do speak out and then they try to organise boycotts, burn their Nikes, etc. Or worse, look at desanctis with Disney in Florida. They also seem to love Trump's crazy pillow guy. Activism exists on all sides.
I think the larger point is that it is a data point that indicates a trend. When you look at not wanting to speak on BLM, and you look at what they allow on the store, and you look at how they handle diversity, and you look at how they handle moderation of their built-in communities, and you look at how they prioritize and value work, it paints a specific picture.
Valve has chosen over and over to not take a meaningful stand against even egregious racism *on their platform* (among other problems, to be clear!), and inaction is not a neutral stance these days. It's questionable if it ever was. The BLM example is just a high-level touchpoint for this larger topic of how Valve allows or disallows certain ideas to spread on through their platforms.
Valve absolutely has done some great things. I don't think the point of the video is to say "Valve is the bad man". But I think it is saying we should be concerned when such a massive player in the industry is unwilling to do much regarding even the simplest moral quandaries. I don't *need* Valve to comment on BLM, but we do kinda need them to do something about the disgusting behavior they allow to propagate on their platform.
@@Eibon which disgusting behavior?
Hiring based on the idea of diversity requires that you consider a candidate's skin colour. But if you hire someone based on their skin colour then doesn't that make you a racist?
Not being racist isn't being colorblind, it's not degrading people for their race. MLK never said "treat everyone equally" on a policy level, he actually advocated for helping black people specifically.
If you have two drivers in a race, and one of the racers gets a 30 minute headstart, just because now they are going at equal speeds doesn't make the overall world "equal"
@@internetguy7319 mate and look now what have happened to majority of black population stuck on repetitions that don’t go and improve their lives themselves . The answer is the same as with people who got constant Covid check or people who will 100% get their pensions. No matter what this sort of help doesn’t help you need to just give people the opportunity and treat them the same form base level to the highest. Merit of what valve and all companies should strive for. And valve is right to higher people based on their merits of their characters then on their skin.
Wow that steam page snapshot near the end is real recent. Steamworld Build was just announced like 2 days ago XD.
Good documentary but as a black man, I do not care what Valve has to say about diversity. Let Valve do what Valve does best. I truly fear what will happen to Valve and Steam when Gabe passes away. All Hail Gaben! May he show us the way!
Nicely put, Kay
gabe doesn't fucking do anything anymore, he practically already has left, stop worshipping him, it's weird
Soo thats why nobody filters the store front and just every gargabe gets released
What appears on the storefront is mostly automated and based on popularity OR your browse history. Ergo, if YOUR storefront is filled with “garbage” it’s because that’s what you search for.
@@TucoBenedicto thats not what i meant. Games about killing and torturturing gay/black/whater people, games without exe and other no quality garbage etc gets on steam. There was a time when getting on steam was a sign of quality. The flood of unfiltered crap leads to what we have now: big studios dominate the storefront. My recommendations look pretty bought (eg. Fifa, i never showed interest in football or ea)
I swear this didn't showed up in my in box, I have to search this video for the follow up
What's wrong with a company wanting to remain neutral on an issue outside their industry?
Except a significant amount of the employees there didn't want the company to be neutral. Maybe watch the video lol
well i would say that as a company as popular as valve is they have a lot of social authority on the culture as a whole and should therefore be encouraged to use it responsably
@@Sepko Except a significant amount of the employees there did want the company to be neutral. Maybe do your homework lol
@@marl0e Tell us more about this imaginary homework I have to do that debunks what I said, champ
Why does a corporation need to represent the political beliefs of its emoloyees? Corporations serve one single purpose - generate revenue at all costs, bolstered by the bodies of their employees. Not even your workplace is your friend.
Some pretty well designed motion graphics. Whoever made them, you guys picked a good person for the job
Working at Valve:
If you say the word 3 you are immediately fired.
Valve almost seems like a company that worked hard and got lucky to become a standard for pc distribution, and is now sitting on that hoard of cash and having fun.
Accurate. Until Epic, they had a de facto monopoly. The libraries people have built ensure people won't leave so the service can be terrible and nothing will change.
Pure stupidity. They don't have a monopoly in any sense. Having a library does not in any way prevent you from buying games elsewhere. Even extremely walled gardens like Xbox and Playstation can't prevent people from switching, so, by what mechanism is Valve preventing people from buying games elsewhere.
If Steam truly had a monopoly, then Fortnite, LoL and WoW wouldn't be three of the biggest games in the world.
@@aolson1111 I think you're kidding yourself if you don't believe splitting games across launchers isn't a factor for a lot of PC gamers.
PC is an open platform and there's no real reason to dislike Epic exclusivity agreements with the exception that people want all their stuff in one place.
If you've had a Steam account for 10-15 years then you're probably sitting on 1000+ games. I console game, but I'd struggle to leave Steam if I had that much of an investment into that account.
Saying Valve got lucky is just wrong. At the time, most people play games on console of either Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo (and maybe some smaller company like Sega). Companies like Epic even actively reject PC because of piracy reason.
So the PC space then only got support from Valve and they have years to build the steam as the PC platform as it is now. They are not lucky to be the standard, they were there from the start and were the one who shape the PC platform
@@nathandts3401 I mean, exclusivity on an open platform like PC _is_ very much an anti-consumer practice, because it reduces competition. When you make the investment into a platform with the understanding that the barriers to your experience that you see on other platforms, like consoles, will not be present, it is not a good thing for someone to try and flout that understanding. Valve very clearly has problems. Epic has different but just as numerous problems.
honestly this piece was pretty fluffy. Parts of it were interesting but definitely not as hard-hitting as the rest of what you guys have made.
Yeah, it's pretty toothless overall.
This video, with a whole section dedicated to stack ranking, released *days* after Activision Blizzard stack ranking became a major news story. Iconic
except blizzard hasn't done anything good in a decade, meanwhile valve is in another universe.
Well at least Valve doesnt seem to require fucking some people over
What games allowed on steam feels like a joke sometimes... Visual novels in general are in a weird position... They either have cut content or outright rejected for unlcear statements. The song of saya is on steam with 18+ content cut, but it's on gog without any content being cut. evenicle 1 is on steam but 2 has been rejected while it's just more of the same. Chaos;head Noah has been rejected while the sequel Chaos;child has been out on steam for years, and chaos;head noah is on the f*cking switch without any cut content and it needed a ton of news site telling excatly this and a petiont for steam to allow it on store... But outright porn games, furry porn games, and shit like sex with hitler is fine... I just have no idea if thier what's allowed rules are unclear to even the employees themselvs or someone who does it just hates visual novels in generel. Because if it's allowen on other store(not even vn specific ones like as I mentioned gog before) it surely can't be illegal.
we have the same jumper.
I wonder if a lot of the issues are persistent in other organizational systems as well. There's definitely a lot of things that are particular to this structure, but I wonder if this isn't a structure that more often just enhances problems that are already rampant in traditional hierarchies?
I’m about to enter college next semester for a degree in game design. I’m really passionate about games and the industry but I really think these sobering dives into the issues with both are invaluable.
This channel is an excellent resource and I thank you dearly for what you are providing.
It seems like valve is going more and more into the google route of developing something, if it doesn’t instantly become a hit they abandon, because its not worth it to those who already have been there a while to work on those projects.Doing so takes away from new ideas which would give them more credit, more money, more success in general.
It's been like that for a long time now. Valve has had tons of game projects that have been abandoned at various stages of readiness. Basically if you want to release at Valve, you have to have a project that is a sure hit.
Remember that if a project gets abandoned it's because literally no one cares about it. Forcing people to work on something they don't care about won't lead to success.
Seems like the problem at Valve is that people don't like people bringing them problems. The issue is that, if you have noticed a problem and don't know how to solve it, the only way to potentially do so is to bring that problem to someone else's attention. That way, perhaps they will have a solution or might know somebody else who could have a solution. If you don't want to be working on a solution to somebody else's problem, as a kind of company-wide unwritten policy (AKA human nature), then those problems never get solved at all. They could fix this by rewarding employees for fixing problems, specifically problems with the company rather than bugs in products or stuff like that, at a higher "value" than other things I think..
Of course, the other problem is that some people might not consider something a problem at all, which I think could be fixed by allowing company-wide anonymous votes on issues any single employee could put forward (also anonymously) perhaps at a rate of one submission per week or two. Employees could then look over the list & vote for, say, which 5 they believe are the most serious or urgent at that time, & they're all ranked at the end of whatever period of time.
These submissions wouldn't need to be highly specific, but could be more of a short general statement written in such a way that it appeals to as many people as possible. I think, over time, this could solve the lack of diversity organically as those who care about it find the right words to appeal to those who don't. As this happens, these issues climb in the rankings of these problems & are thus seen as having greater importance, and thus value, to the company as a whole, which then feeds back into their solutions having greater value to any given employee.
There are ways to make solving problems productive and something that people are eager to do, rather than a chore best avoided; somebody just has to make it happen.
Sounds like a fantastic company to work at! Right values that you should be a high performer and not focusing on energy draining stuff like diversity or political stuff, focus on the core to build a good business
I'm not sure I like a lot of the reporting of this video.
A lot of this video seems less about "this is what it's like to work at Valve" and more "This is how I personally want Valve to be run." Not that I generally disagree with your stance on a lot of things and a lack of diversity in a group consensus situation puts some people at a clear disadvantage. I just think this video could of been a lot more informational on a company with a unique but not flawless structure.
Too much of this video is "here is me briefly explaining how the setup works with actions needing a consensus from people with differing opinions, and now let me spend 25 minutes saying they should only listen to the people I agree with." and I think that leaves a rather empty call to action on what they should do differently.
Like overall this video came off as kind of a bait-and-switch to me.
29:40 if I'm don't remember much but someone on the portal team has a health problems during development gab just told them to come back when they're feeling better, it's took them like almost a years, Pretty sweet.
Edit : en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Wolpaw
Here!! It's was the script guy
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Wolpaw
That just mean white, cis, males will support white, cis, males.
And this is exactly why Gabe and Valve are awesome, most organizations wouldn't be able. To do that
Wish you talked more about the pay discrepancies. Does Valve not have an HR department? Surprising that there's not more transparency when it comes to compensation.
this is completely unrelated to the video but several parts of it had me looking at my phone because the background audio sounded like the default ios notification sound
I admire your dedication to investigating difficult subjects, and support your in that endeavor! But if I'm totally honest, I also long for more of the lighter and funnier videos, like those on blaseball or comic wars. There is something magical, wholesome and encouraging in seeing fellow humans express themselves in such positive ways. Something I definitely need more of in my life. In all cases, keep up the amazing work!