A few months ago, PMG -a YouTube channel dedicated to reporting on the
video games industry - released an deep-dive into how games publishers
have either ignored or embraced gambling mechanics to bolster their
finances.* At the time PMG noted that the opaqueness of Valve's
internal business made it harder to report on the issue than he'd
like, and suggested that itself might be worth another video.
Well, here's that other video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9aCwCKgkLo
While this new video is interesting, in truth it adds very little new information to what is already known: that Valve has a flat management structure (that still manages to be dominated by its owners), that it
has a severe diversity issue, that getting the company as a whole to
move in any one direction is extremely difficult, or that its ranking
system is problematic. All of this has been reported before, and
although statements from (anonymized) employees add some depth,
this deep dive still remains - by nature of the company's secretive
nature - still fairly shallow. Still, if you aren't the sort to follow
this sort of news, the video makes a good introduction to the company.
Unfortunately, the video also focuses a bit too much on the diversity
issue at Valve (specifically, the lack thereof). Now, I earnestly
agree with the reporter that this is a serious problem, but it is also
a very divisive one; I'm sure a lot of people will complain about how
it's too 'woke' or whatever the derogatory word du jour is being used
by the right-wing these days. It also has the effect of making it seem
like that's the only problem with Valve; that if only there were more
women or people of color, there'd be no issue with Valve being such an overwhelmingly dominant force in the marketplace. But as even PMG's
last video showed, that's not the case; its blindness to gambling is
just one of the problems. Still, I suspect this focus on diversity was
largely a result of the responses he got from Valve employees; that
was what they talked about to him, so that's what PMG passed on to us.
But I do wish he'd cast a wider net.
My take on the whole thing? In many ways, Valve seems very cult-like,
with a distant, often hands-off 'father figure' and worshipful,
self-important and like-minded employees supporting the status quo.
It's certainly not the sort of place I'd like to work. It also doesn't
seem a very stable business; it's current practices are afforded
almost entirely by the massive income generated by Steam, and were it
to actually face any real competition, the whole thing would collapse
pretty quickly (which makes the way it has more or less ignored the
rise of services like Epic all the more troubling).
Flat management schemes work well enough for small companies, but past
a certain point - more than a hundred employees - they're usually more
trouble than they're worth. They don't allow flexibility and
responsiveness, and it's only that Valve lucked out with Steam's
popularity that allows them this leniency. But popularity is fickle,
and - as many an tech company has discovered - can turn against you
almost overnight.
Anyway, I thought the video an interesting enough documentary that it
was worth mentioning here (and one that might hopefully spark some
discussion). It's 47m long, but it's bookmarked so you can jump to the interesting bits and, anyway, isn't particularly visual, so you can
just have it run in the background and listen rather than watch. So if
you're at all interested in how one of the most influential business
in PC gaming works, give the video a look.
* I wrote a post here about that video on Nov 7th called "Video Game
Gambling", if you want to hear my take on that issue, or see the video
itself here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMmNy11Mn7g
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