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[grimshawish]

Yeah I have to say this imaginary billions Valve make is just stupid.
They make money sure; but people massively overvalue them.

On a positive note; this is likely a cock up in that there is no Steambox and no real organisation behind it. Its a fucking mess quite frankly. So I suspect the team got dropped after continual failure; but who knows.

Stick to software Valve. Your not just great at it; your one of the best.
Just focus on what you are best at.


Whatever this is. Something has happened. Am just hoping its not something even more financial than Valve planning long term and not a short term financial issue.

 

[Dennis]

Its alright guys, we still have Origin and UPlay.

 

[Interfectum]

Wouldn't a hardware team, an android team, and a director of business (relations with third parties) actually all fit tremendously well with a service and platform provider though?

This. Something is definitely up at Valve. They've either found a huge partner (Samsung, etc), are getting ready to be sold, or Gaben has decided major change is needed from within.

 

[Tobor]

As they don't have shareholders or a stock price to placate, it's unlikely that they'll say anything until it's ready for the public. There's no reason for them to talk about any initiatives until they're ready for consumers.

In the meantime, wild speculation will continue to run amok.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Uh this is the company that publicly stated they hire talent and then let them decide on their own what they want to go work on. They hire talent and not for a particular position. That's weird. A sizable portion of their staff would be labelled "researcher" anywhere else. Free money! They also have said they have no managers or anything like that.

I posted this in the other thread, but feel it's relevant:

 

[CountAntonius]

Interesting stuff. Too early to panic but it's not something I like to see coming from valve.

 

[ElFly]

Selling my steam games as we speak.

 

[Patryn]

In the meantime, wild speculation will continue to run amok.

But who does that harm? For a public company, that can affect the share price.

For Valve? What can wild speculation do?

 

[Sethos]

I posted this in the other thread, but feel it's relevant:

So they introduced caviar on the lunch menu?

 

[Azih]

Something like Greenlight is needed though. Steam is moving slower for indie games than other storefronts.

 

[Kifimbo]

But who does that harm? For a public company, that can affect the share price.

For Valve? What can wild speculation do?

Worry/scare consumers.

 

[szaromir]

Who ever said it's okay to post "fuck Origins"? People can post constructive and reasoned criticism of whatever company or service they want, whether it's Origin or Valve or whatever. Your post, however, was neither constructive nor reasoned.

"Other people get to troll stuff so I'm going to do it too!" is not a good reason, IMO. I don't set policy here and I rarely post in Origin or UPlay threads. But, without fail, I see you pull your stunt in virtually every Valve thread. To top it all off you seem like a fairly decent poster otherwise.

Yet I never see anyone lumping on those people and there are some who do it fairly regularly. I'll be PMing you two every time someone posts one and I don't see a response from you.
Yeah I want Steam to cease to exist as the idea of most of my games attached to a single account makes me queasy in case that account or the service no longer exist. It would be managable now, but what if that happens 10 years from now?

As for the news itself, there's nothing to gauge really. Probably Valve ditching the ridiculous idea of setting up Steambox which was always doomed to fail.

 

[Salsa]

Buyout incoming?

lol

 

[Tobor]

But who does that harm? For a public company, that can affect the share price.

For Valve? What can wild speculation do?

It only harms my delicate sensibilities. Some of these nonsensical posts are giving me a headache.

I shall retire to the drawing room as I have a case of the vapors.

 

[Guevara]

But who does that harm? For a public company, that can affect the share price.

For Valve? What can wild speculation do?

It can hurt relations with other businesses. Put your indie game on Steam or on XBLA? Which one is more likely to be there in two years, Valve or MS? Confusion is bad for business.

 

[KojiKnight]

Why so much negativity towards steam for firing a few employees? This happens in the course of normal business activities, and the fact that all seem to be from the hardware side, it seems to me Valve has probably just realized the concept of an in-house designed/manufactured steam box would be a bad idea.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

Yeah I have to say this imaginary billions Valve make is just stupid.
They make money sure; but people massively overvalue them.

you don't think they make billions from taking a third of sales from games from companies that make billions?

it's not hard to all to imagine billions when you take a third of 2K, Bethesda and Activision's biggest hits...

And that's ignoring hats, which is a nice couple million.

 

[Patryn]

It can hurt relations with other businesses. Put your indie game on Steam or on XBLA? Which one is more likely to be there in two years, Valve or MS? Confusion is bad for business.

Ok, this is a good point. But this is an argument for being more truthful with business partners, not with the public.

 

[UberTag]

Shareholder's report? The company isn't public.

Edit: Beaten so violently.

Thanks for proving my point. Then, how exactly do we know they're doing so great? We don't. They could be bleeding money.

 

[Magpul]

My body is ready.

wut

 

[Kalnos]

They make money sure; but people massively overvalue them.

How are they 'overvalued'? They're a private company and practically control the digital distribution market for PCs.

 

[Zuhzuhzombie!!]

Can someone in a non sarcastic way tell me whats really happening to valve this last few days? And what is it related to? It seems to me they were/are doing just fine with steam etc?

Several high profile people abruptly quit/were fired. Specifically related to their relatively new hardware division, even more specifically an employee who was tasked with coming up with a good way of moving PC/game input from desk/kbm to couch/controller.

Jeri wasn't even a figurehead at Valve.

Hardware engineers aren't exactly bottom floor employees either.

Again, not necessarily a bad thing. It's confirmed to be a restructuring of priorities of some sort. Usually shakeups like this are exactly what a company needed, which is why they happen in the first place. They're almost always positives.

If this is Gaben stopping that before it affect and change the company then it's actually good move.

I think people are viewing this in a negative because it seems to impact their hardware division, which Gabe was hyping to fuck all as close as just a few weeks ago. It's "a negative" cause folks were anxious to see what they'd do.

But you're both right. It probably IS a positive. It's no secret I thought Valve's hardware strategy was pie in the sky nonsense. It's kinda strange though. If hardware really IS on the way out, why did Gabe Newell go on such a big PR push for a paradigm change and tell us how Valve was gonna help make that change?




ed

Thanks for proving my point. Then, how exactly do we know they're doing so great? We don't. They could be bleeding money.

There are ways, and there is information that is on public record as well.

But the best tell that they're not hurting is that they're expanding/hiring/etc without asking for loans to do so.

 

[gabbre]

Something like Greenlight is needed though. Steam is moving slower for indie games than other storefronts.

A better Greenlight maybe, one with weekly releases

 

[Fragamemnon]

Wouldn't a hardware team, an android team, and a director of business (relations with third parties) actually all fit tremendously well with a service and platform provider though?

Hardware? Not really. Better to partner with someone else to mitigate risk and piggyback off existing gaming technology that's relatively proven.

Android? You can move into that space when someone actually breaks it open. In the meantime, it seems like a distraction and step away from the kind of experiences Valve is looking to create. DOTA 2 and even TF2 are very much the polar opposite of mobile game design.

As for this director, that's what is puzzling. What I can say is this-at a company like Valve, where everyone is a superstar, being a good performer in a breakout situation a few years back doesn't mean that you might not be one in comparison with your peers now. Anyone at a dynamic company with a lot of talent is aware of that.

 

[MooseKing]

Clearly fired, but allowed to "quit".

Steambox is dead.

 

[StuBurns]

Thanks for proving my point. Then, how exactly do we know they're doing so great? We don't. They could be bleeding money.

They're not, they're making obscene amounts of cash.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

been just informed from a friend of mine who knows them:

Moby Francke, the art lead of TF2, is gone
Bay Raitt (lead of SFM) is gone too

._.

 

[FordGTGuy]

A better Greenlight maybe, one with weekly releases

Definitely agree with this, there are so many Indie games being developed that anything slower than weekly releases is just not going to work.

 

[Interfectum]

Thanks for proving my point. Then, how exactly do we know they're doing so great? We don't. They could be bleeding money.

The problem with Valve is not the present, but the future. With every platform holder introducing their own closed garden Valve is feeling the squeeze with Steam.

 

[UberTag]

They're not, they're making obscene amounts of cash.

Which we see where?

They're generating obscene amounts of revenue. We know this.
Revenue does not equate to profit. We have no clue about this.

The United States makes obscene amounts of cash and has 15+ trillion dollars in debt.

 

[Kifimbo]

been just informed from a friend of mine who knows them:

Moby Francke, the art lead of TF2, is gone
Bay Raitt (lead of SFM) is gone too

._.

If true, now I'm really worried.

 

[Dennis]

How is the GameStop trade-in rate for Steam games?

 

[shinobi602]

Jeri wasn't even a figurehead at Valve.

Not literally, but she was a senior hardware engineer, not a small time fry.

 

[Jibbajabbawockky]

The truth is that nobody knows.

The indication and speculation is that Valve is reversing course on their hardware initiative, so we may never see the fabled "Steambox".

Do we even know that the hardware people let go were working on the "Steambox"? Or how many hardware people Valve has? Maybe it was some other hardware initiative that stalled out? Hasn't Valve been talking about biometric controllers and stuff in the past? Maybe it was something weird like that?

Edit: And regarding Jeri Ellsworth, according to her Wiki page (yeah not sure how reliable it is) she was only hired by Valve in early 2012? So its not as if she had been there for a long time or anything. Seems possible maybe they brought hardware people like her on and whatever they were doing wasn't seeing the results it should have and they decided to cut their losses.

 

[Patryn]

been just informed from a friend of mine who knows them:

Moby Francke, the art lead of TF2, is gone
Bay Raitt (lead of SFM) is gone too

._.

Worrying if true.

 

[Maztorre]

Thanks for proving my point. Then, how exactly do we know they're doing so great? We don't. They could be bleeding money.

The company has an enterprise value of approx. $3 billion dollars. Gabe Newell is worth $1.5 billion.

 

[Matt]

been just informed from a friend of mine who knows them:

Moby Francke, the art lead of TF2, is gone
Bay Raitt (lead of SFM) is gone too

._.

Well that certainly changes things.

 

[GrayFoxPL]

Maybe he didn't left. Maybe he was eaten.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

I'm trying to push a bit more, to see if he's got any proof

 

[Jamie OD]

What an odd day.

 

[Zuhzuhzombie!!]

Something like Greenlight is needed though. Steam is moving slower for indie games than other storefronts.

Greenlight is definitely needed. Valve alone can't produce enough content to make the Steam platform truly ubiquitous.

I read a great article earlier today about how the next Xbox will flounder if MS keeps it's digital distro policies in place (no sales, relegating indie games to the ghetto, depending on their new NOT game developer to satisfy consumers). I agreed with it to a certain amount.

 

[Dennis]

Its like Valve is imploding right before our eyes in real-time.

 

[subversus]

been just informed from a friend of mine who knows them:

Moby Francke, the art lead of TF2, is gone
Bay Raitt (lead of SFM) is gone too

._.

well, now this is baaaaad.

 

[BrokenEchelon]

been just informed from a friend of mine who knows them:

Moby Francke, the art lead of TF2, is gone
Bay Raitt (lead of SFM) is gone too

._.

 

[DaBuddaDa]

What is "SFM?"

 

[CheesecakeRecipe]

been just informed from a friend of mine who knows them:

Moby Francke, the art lead of TF2, is gone
Bay Raitt (lead of SFM) is gone too

._.

That is very worrying.

What is "SFM?"

Source Film Maker, the internal tool they've been using to make all of their promotional videos for the past few years ever since the TF2 "Meet The" videos started. They released it to the public as they promised, but still it was a pretty huge project and it's weird to see him get let go.

 

[Interfectum]

been just informed from a friend of mine who knows them:

Moby Francke, the art lead of TF2, is gone
Bay Raitt (lead of SFM) is gone too

._.

Valve would not let this talent go unless they had a reason. Something big is coming. aka buyout. Mod me if I'm right. :O

 

[Kalnos]

What is "SFM?"

Source Filmmaker.

 

[Zoramon089]

Jason: Hey Gabe, can we make games again?
Gabe: NO
Jason: Okay...*quits*

 

[panda21]

i don't get why everyone is saying its just hardware related when it says

Holtman acted as one of the company's primary points of contact for devs using Valve's digital distribution platform Steam, playing a key role in developer relations at the studio, and has worked at the development giant since 2005.

that doesn't sound anything like hardware development to me.