The Rise & Fall of Valve

if there's one thing gamers love more than playing video games it's talking trash about video games it's like a historic pastime i've been complaining about sniper jackals for 15 years gamers especially love to criticize the people that make the games we spend half our lives playing why yes i do have over 3000 hours on league of legends wow you must really enjoy that game every company in corpos strives to be three things in the eyes of their sheep i mean consumers respected trusted and admired sometimes one crossed wire one screw up and got blue that's all it takes to exchange your beloved 15-year reputation for 3.50 in-store credit but one company's reputation in the gaming landscape is er was beyond legendary valve these humble programmers were more than just another developer no valve was a revolution [Applause] [Applause] [Music] crystal more folks this is your captain speaking informing you that this is not a super hot fire diss track on valve because i'm not a rapper i'm not a rapper instead i want to examine how valve rose to prominence as the good guy of game developers the great things they've done for the community how they became a sleazy money-grubbing corporation and the way they've fallen in my eyes as a game creator and company i once looked up to likely some of you are devout followers of the church of valve and the title may upset you to these people i really just want to say valve may not be the company you think they are and i ask that you give this video a fair shake before you start throwing your head crabs at me moving on hello i'm gabe newell you've just achieved first blood thanks and have fun [Music] legends say the man known as lord gaben is no man at all but a messiah it is said that he rebelled against the tyranny of microsoft to establish his own studio with blackjack and hookers every developer envied valve but it wasn't that petty like ah this [ __ ] makes better games than me no they achieved a godlike status with millions of dedicated followers willing to wait through years of delays for new releases the church of valve was and still is a thriving community eager to splurge on every steam sale people would smile with pride as they handed gabe their wallets i mean valve was basically the rocky balboa of game developers a perennial underdog who somehow he keeps winning and fought tooth and nail till they reached the top and didn't stop there you remember me who am i but the reason behind the rise of valve and why they became so admired trusted and respected is because they were damn good at what they did 1996 mike harrington and gabe newell peace out from microsoft and invest a few million bucks to form their own game studio 1998 valve comes out swinging baby inspires the entire shooter genre to start writing actual stories and set a new standard for artificial intelligence showing off how npcs could uniquely respond and interact with the player excuse me gordon but i'm rather busy now the new millennium valve releases an unknown gem that i think only 20 people have ever played counter-strike but instead of single player this time they revolutionize multiplayer shooters and ushering the era of one of the most popular video games of all time setting the stage for esports and competitive gaming to become the billion-dollar titan it is today 2004 crowbar attack 2 launches and somehow mr krabs has managed to improve his krabby patty formula showing the world just how innovative and fun messing around with physics can be steam comes out roughly the same time paving the way for digital distribution and games through online platforms 2006 rolls around you ever heard of my boy gary and his mod valve gives the power to the people you can make whatever kind of game you want hell valve might even sell it for you 2007 the red box releases blows off everyone's nut sack creating the sub genre of hero shooters with team fortress 2 hooking it up baddie style with half-life 2 both episodes and getting people to realize your puzzle games are actually lit valve sold 3 premium games and 2 expansions for 50 bucks that was and still is one of the best deals ever in gaming two years later it's coach baby two of the greatest co-op shooters ever made come out back to back 2012 counter-strike is back in black with global offensive 2013 valve snatches dota away from the clutches of blizzard creating the biggest and most lucrative esports scene in the world ladies and gentlemen i'm not even doing all of this justice valve didn't just make awesome games they revolutionized them [Applause] [Music] every major title they put out either broke trends and set new ones or completely changed the way we think and interact with video games valve bought all the right items and had perfect creep score in the early and mid game establishing a firm dominance on the pc market a monopoly that only in recent years is seeing more competition valve would go to infinity and beyond they were much more involved with their fan base than any other developer was at the time do you want to pretend to be ringo yes i do mr newell himself famous for reading every single fan mail my username is gaben valvesoftware.com and my password is mooleyftw and steal my account if you can i get about 10 000 emails each time we release a game and while i can't respond to all of them i do read all of them part of what made valve so easy to love was how relatable they were to the average nerd in many ways valve treated their community as equals asking for help when half-life 2 got leaked and getting nothing but support they encouraged people to mod their games and make brand new ones and would fly out the people behind them like icefrog and min lee to work for valve valve was built up by both its employees and the community they were as innovative as they were consumer-friendly never content with releasing a title the vast majority wouldn't be ecstatic about every scrap of success valve has ever had nobody can deny they earned that [ __ ] with all this money coming in endless opportunities opened up for valve corporation and that's when they really started to feel like a corporation nobody stays in the same place forever except that kind elderly lady that bags her groceries at safeway you wish she could just retire but for some reason she can't but to understand the secret behind valve's success and their new identity as that company that used to make kick-ass games we have to look at how they're managed what's the secret sauce gabe uh disclaimer i don't work at valve i'm not pretending to this is just how my tiny monkey brain understands everything valve is so fascinating because they've made tremendous achievements with the most unorthodox methods up until 2004 they had a standard hierarchy you know boss is telling people this needs to be done by then they were releasing physical games through other publishers valve was run like everyone else when half-life 2 was finished and steam launched valve became their own publisher and transitioned to a flat structure which pretty much means they got executives at the top but nobody is really bossing around other employees employees at valve can work on any type of game any part of a game or no game at all the idea is people are going to be more productive and enjoy their work if they choose where to put their efforts for many it sounds like a dream job a magical land of chocolate and strawberries where bad things never happen no forced crunch time or 80 hour work weeks perfection valve was and still is in a unique position as a privately owned company that published their own titles there was no middleman no investors to please no deadlines you absolutely have to meet even if you're committing mass fraud by releasing the game go away johnny we're still a privately held company and the reason for that is we we want as few people between us and people who are consuming their product as we possibly can when you start taking outside financing those are often the people who are going to be perturbing your decisions in ways that sometimes are helpful and sometimes are you know the death of your company between steam and the flat structure valve had the luxury of being able to dump millions of dollars into a project and abandon it at will i mean the great great thing about valve is they're sitting on top of a money fountain and they don't have to be super efficient and other companies don't have that luxury they make so much money and answer to no one if they cancel a game or it flops harder than lebron whoa they just take the hit and move forward the company always stays afloat because steem dota 2 and counter-strike keep them very much alive of course this style of work doesn't work for everyone as teams got bigger drama began to unfold now i will say based on reviews from employees it sounds like valve genuinely takes great care of the people that work there with good pay amazing benefits but amazing compensation doesn't always translate to an amazing work environment you can really get a grasp of what valve values based on the policies they do and don't enforce while they have a hands-off approach to most things they're very strict when it comes to secrecy especially about what working at valve is really like again i'm not pretending to know all the details it could be a [ __ ] chinese sweatshop or disneyland for all i know in the past we've seen numerous ex-valve employees detail their experience at the company one post on reset era said that valve had almost entirely shifted all of their focus from game development to cosmetics and microtransactions you don't say this post also says a senior valve employee stated that the company would never make another single-player game because they weren't worth the effort i put these financial projections together and try to pitch them internally be like hey with you know valve's marketing prowess and budget we could have 200 million dollar first year it'd be amazing wouldn't it and then i would get responses like that's zero billions of dollars like that's kind of the how they think about it zero billions the problem with a company with no defined job titles or explicit seniority is that there is still seniority but it is invisible and thus deniable if we believe this guy then valve's flat structure in the pizza shop are a front for a secret hierarchy and drug den in the back anyone in the secret hierarchy with authority could simply claim to be a regular joe when it's convenient for them or take responsibility for other people's work side note a verified valve employee did respond to this post another former valve employee jerry ellsworth was fired in 2013 following a mass layoff that she said forever changed the company for the worse she gave an in-depth interview on tyler mcvicker's channel and in it she says when valve fires someone they offer a severance package in exchange for them signing an nda that prevents them from speaking publicly about their time at valve be it positive or negative you're fired get out here's some money don't ever run your mouth again i imagine the nda is why we see so many people come out anonymously she also reiterated that there was a hidden management team behind the scenes i don't think valve's problem is necessarily with the flat structure it's proven it can work in the past with small groups but valve is no longer a small company so the traditions and methods they cling to are effectively neutering their artistic growth and creative expression it does kind of seem like the culture of valve has been contaminated with so many people working on different projects the core values they used to have don't seem to be shared across the board another ex-valve employee jeff geldreich said that valve's payments were heavily based on incentive bonuses basically chaos is a ladder and every employee's trying to climb it and with their hands-off approach this led to quote some particularly nasty devs who would do everything they can to lead you down blind alleys or just give you bad information or bogus feedback to prevent you from doing something that could make you look good so that's pretty [ __ ] up jeff said that valve higher ups would hold your bonus hostage or claim your work as their own and that it was basically company legalized extortion now as i'll talk about later valve is not above extortion of its employees or its fans so i really don't know if they deserve the benefit of the doubt here now when looking at all these statements from ex-valve employees i noticed one thing every single post came out after 2011 which leads me to believe there is a huge shift in the company's culture whether or not you believe everything that's said on the internet i think all these posts are indicative of a really unhealthy environment at valve corp the sheer number of rumors allegations lawsuits and shady stuff going on should tell you something's not right something's not right there may yet be hope for valve and i'll be excited if they ever start to make non-vr video games hopefully before the death of my firstborn child but generally speaking companies that go down the dark path of profits over everything don't often tread back into the light so we kind of debunked the facade that valve is the greatest place to work at but the drawbacks of the flat structure become apparent involves game releases delays and failed projects uh the big question remains when you might do your next single player game um we have made no formal proposals to anyone without any any anything beyond uh team fortress 2. so this interview is from 1998. you haven't changed a bit from half-life to portal 2 is what's known as ye old glory years 2011 would be the last time valve released a single player game for the next nine years we were now in the dark times valve is the type of company that will either put out a masterpiece or nothing at all where publishers like bethesda activision ea and ubisoft are more than willing to annualize franchises and pump out loads of garbage valve doesn't have to and thankfully they've never stooped to that level like we don't just crank half-life titles out because thankfully not because it helps us make the quarterly numbers right we deliberately avoid imposing that constraint on how we approach stuff this structure no doubt attracted some of the best programmers in the industry so it's no wonder why they've had such enormous success their methods work unfortunately they're not consistent where most people complain about valve is how they've steadily been releasing fewer and fewer titles as time goes on where's left 4 dead 3 where's portal 3 where's team fortress 3 the world may never know it's gotten to the point where it's beyond memes it's we're now at super memes okay valve very much takes ownership of this and apparently it hurts their feelings hey is that about ready these things they take time in the last 10 or so years i'd say half-life alex is the only brand new game that anybody has even remotely cared about from valve you remember the phrase valve time yeah it was used to indicate the actual release date was going to be later than whatever they said it was but most people were willing to wait and let the magic work itself this is valve after all let me do us all a favor and get half-life 3 or should i say half-life 2 episode 3 out of the way the third and highly anticipated final expansion was meant for release in december 2007. so i've got one question anyone want to tell me how in [ __ ] name the six month period turned into 15 goddamn years i'm old now it's been 84 years to this day valve still has not made any official announcement canceling half-life 3 or episode 3. and honestly it's kind of a dick move valve can one thousand percent be criticized for their communication and radio silence half-life 2 episode 3 where is it so we tend to view ourselves as subject to valid criticism on our ability to manage our schedules do you have a goal uh i got nothing to say about half-life okay do you have a generous time frame i have nothing to say about half-life can you is there some speck of information you can share not i'm not saying anything about about episode three okay fine do you have any intention whatsoever of fulfilling the promises you made years ago or are you just gonna brush these types of comments off for the rest of your life i can't not ask this while i'm here can you tell us anything about when we'll see episode three are you still even working on half-life two episode three ask you the world's shortest question ever uh half-life two episode three thank you you aren't gonna make crowbar simulator 3 fine but just [ __ ] tell us dude tell me it isn't ever coming out so that molecule of hope within me can finally disintegrate and that goes double for you george i know half-life alex is a thing but in no way has it replaced the hole in our hearts where half-life 3 is meant to be so i'm sure some people are like great you're doing half-life we're super excited that's happening but like why does this have to be vr only which is a fair concern for people right it's like are they forcing me to buy a vr to have the next half-life experience trust me i get it this is their ip and they can give gordon freeman the captain falcon treatment if they want it's ironic because valve moved to episodic content to cut down on the time between releases and it wouldn't have been such an unbearable period if valve was out there making actual games or giving us legitimate progress updates to be fair for a moment we've finally gotten an explanation for why half-life 3 doesn't exist and that whole show i was just putting on is how people must have felt during that whole time there's a lot of valid reasons why half-life 3 and bigfoot hang out together and we know now that many other sequels had been in the works but also fell apart and the truth is we'll never know what really happened behind closed doors half-life is near and dear to the heart of valve pun intended it was their initial spark and they wanted to do it justice in an epic finale but it quickly grew beyond the scope of reality apparently valve had to drop their classic flat structure and go with a hierarchy just to get the team to finish half-life alex because they cancelled five other half-life games in the process i guess i imagine in that regard uh maybe the the time between episode two and and alex was maybe helpful in that way and that it gave you a no that's all right no okay that's valve's achilles heel without any kind of structure projects momentum and motivation can fizzle out easily nama be real the lack of half-life 3 is kind of a middle ground a terrible half-life 3 on par with duke nukem forever would be a permanent stain on valve's legacy an insult to their fans and even worse the half-life name maybe jesus was right and everything happens for a reason but you know some people on this crazy planet think halo 4 had the best multiplayer some people even enjoyed paper mario sticker star but nobody has ever enjoyed half-life 3. what i'm trying to say is with everything else valve is doing this really shitty it would at least be more bearable if they were making games which everybody wants them to and not just multiplayer shooters so you can sell hats and weapon skins more than anything i want to see them return to those narrative-driven single-player games they were known for which it appears like they're trying to do i hope this is the case but i'm not holding my breath but i so desperately want to be excited again about valve games so valve has no doubt fallen as a developer but what about as a company but hey act man they might not be releasing games but at least they're still treating their consumers nicely right [Laughter] as the way between releases has gotten longer and longer valve's money-making tactics have gotten more and more aggressive but where to start how about if i buy a game that sucks ass what can i do with it historically valve has given little to no [ __ ] about this question in fact they've had quite a few fistfights with consumer protection groups which is kind of like challenging mr rogers to wwe smackdown in 2012 the european union supreme court was like yo why can't people resell or trade their games in on steam valve was taken aback by this and decided the best thing to do would be to update the user agreement to nullify any ability to transfer a piece of software i.e no reselling no trading no giving all games are restricted to a single account and if you didn't agree to this user agreement then all your games were locked some might think it's silly the idea of reselling digital goods but think about it you buy a pack of cards or any physical product you can do what you want with it i can destroy that freaking vacuum cleaner over there if i want to it's my right to do it i bought it so why would this only apply to physical goods more importantly why would valve try to fight against giving people fair refunds money in 2015 the french were up in arms and sue and valve for forbidding users to sell their games and there was also no way to get your money back from your steam wallet if something happened to your account rather than trying to work out their differences once again valve stepped into the ring all right i don't care what you think of valve but we got laws for a reason bro just just follow them you ever heard of geo blocking well just last january valve and five steam publishers were fined over 10 million dollars by the european commission geoblocking is when you restrict content or products in certain countries here's this diagram if you want the full idea about 100 steam games were geo-blocked and when confronted with the fine the five publishers decided to comply for a 10 reduction in their fine what do you think valve did put on the [ __ ] boxing gloves again baby let's go who wants a refund baby valve's boxing career would extend to down under say you bought an early access survival game and it's barely playable you should be able to return it no refunds this bout between valve and the accc lasted four years because steem didn't have a refund policy from 2011 to 2015. uh why money european and australian laws state that people are entitled to a 14-day refund period in light of another possible fine valve said all right we'll update the user agreement happy uh gabe this new part you added says customers have to waive their right to a refund when they purchase a game that's right you didn't change anything yes we did valve's response to the lawsuit hey man just because we like sell goods through steam to people in australia it doesn't mean we do business in australia you know what i mean so your lawsuit is totally whacked man given that there's 2.2 million users in australia this argument did not hold up in court valve had to cough up 3 million in fines for making false or misleading representations to consumers in relations to its online gaming platform steam lesson learned don't disrespect the dingoes that's a bloody outright kitties so valve updated their refund policy except now it screws over other developers one way or another valve wins and even if you get your money back guess where it goes into the steam wallet and while they get 30 of every sale on steam they get 100 of every refund other developers get no cut valve may do sales in events that offer great deals but in so many of their policies they're quite literally anti-consumer and that's been a hard pill for me to swallow what bothers me is how valve opposes all these policies which are undoubtedly good for the 70 million people that use steam but what speaks to me about their character is how they react to it after losing the refund dispute in australia this was part of valve's statement steam voluntarily offers refunds to all of its customers worldwide in a way that is much more consumer-friendly than our legal obligations pretty bold words for someone who is just caught breaking the [ __ ] law having really clear understandings of who the customers are how you're not trying to act as a proxy for the customer you're just like we're just going to build tools that are useful to you we're not going to try to start interpreting or defining or or manipulating the decisions you're making that's what you call ironic valve's history with their community is one of the keys to their success and coincidentally part of their fall from grace i'm referring to workshop content for cs go dota 2 and other steam games in 2014 valve set up a creator workshop for dota 2 where artists could make their own cosmetics fans would vote on them and valve would decide which ones they sell giving the artists the cut of the sales great idea right artists could channel their passion into dota 2 engaging with the community and potentially make some good money off of it valve themselves wouldn't have to do much work and could be praised some people were so successful they actually made full-time jobs out of it for a time it seemed like everyone was happy looks like there's been a change of plans the initial agreement was that artists would get 25 of the revenue on the sale of their cosmetics but a couple years ago a reddit post was written by several members of the dota workshop community the post said in fall of 2015 valve had sent out an email to artists telling them their 25 revenue cut had been slashed in half where's my money valve you have my money right yeah it's coming it'll be in a few minutes later on these artists also realized valve wasn't paying them on time and they were pretty dodgy about the whole thing you can read details here now again these people weren't officially hired and valve offering payment to random people is laying out a nice welcome mat but then they just rip the carpet out from under them problem is the work these artists are doing is called speculative work it's pretty frowned upon by everyone here's a snippet of the terms of service except where otherwise provided you agree that valve's consideration of your workshop contribution is your full compensation and you are not entitled to any other rights or compensation in connection with the rights granted to valve into other subscribers so here's valve's offer you can't do [ __ ] with the art you make unless i say you can i arbitrarily decide what if anything you are paid for it you can't tell people what i'm paying you or how the skins are selling there's no guarantee your work is gonna amount to anything and just by looking at it should be payment enough for you what kind of [ __ ] up stance is that you can't help but think valve started this whole workshop for good press only to flip the script and start exploiting their audience and just expected them to be okay with it i'm not saying everyone who throws together a shitty image of a weed camo on venomancer should be paid fat stacks but don't you think valve could figure out a more fair system one of the workshop creators roasted valve about all this the amount of content valve creates yearly for dota is beyond miserable for a company of their size experience and financial status holy [ __ ] you know valve can certainly be commended for launching these programs that lend a helping hand but we didn't know that hand was soaked in cat piss it's a delicate balance of fairness and valve has shown no restraint in exploiting the hard work of their fan base what do i really see when i look at valve well i see a company that likes to make as much money as possible with the least amount of effort and i see a company that likes to continuously push the legality of their business valve no longer pursues glory and greatness they merely sustain it let's get all the kiddos in here and talk about gambling it has to be restricted tightly or else it can be used to exploit people and miners now who wants another pack of artifact cards in all seriousness valve may be the worst offender in the whole loot box gambling fiasco that's more or less died down but by the rings they sure made some good money off of it so in 2013 the arms deal update went live for cs go which brought in tons of weapon skins and customization because valve wanted to draw people back into counter-strike by giving them free virtual items to grind for it worked and then they monetized it skins now had a real dollar value attached to that meaning if you got the bestest skin in the world you could sell it and make some fat profit of course the odds aren't going to be disclosed what do you what do you think we're not trying to make money or something but this economy for counter-strike was much more insidious and it was highly publicized h3h3 especially drew a lot of people's attention to it by monetizing skins allowing trading and enforcing no rules on skin betting sites outside of steam valve did nothing to deter the rise of a black market of digital goods there were even allegations that these sites rigged the outcomes of certain esports matches valve later blocked cs go lotto from steam services finally they did the right thi what the [ __ ] you overturned the ban damn one of the many lawsuits filed against valve said this in sum valve owns the league sells the casino chips and receives a piece of the casino's income stream through foreign websites in order to maintain the charade that valve is not promoting and profiting from online gambling this whole fiasco was one of the main driving points behind regulating online gambling a little bit more than not at all on july 20th 2016 valve started cracking down on these websites but the damage had already been done some estimates placed the total value of gambled skins over the years at 12.9 billion dollars i mean sure valve was able to breathe new life into counter-strike and keep its popularity soaring but at what cost i never could look at valve the same way after this and i still can't similar to their setup with the dota 2 and cs go workshop valve also tried to monetize mods good grief the internet lost their collective [ __ ] on april 23rd 2015. val was collabing with bethesda to start selling skyrim mods that had previously been free a system that had no problems whatsoever except one it wasn't making money now they wanted to sell mods under the guise of supporting your local modder but nobody was buying it instead valve and bethesda would have taken 75 percent of all mod sales now if they didn't shut this down because of backlash i imagine the pay cut would have gone down to 12.5 percent just like it did with the dota 2 workshop there also would have been no standard of quality sure sell the shrek tank mod and left 4 dead 2 for 10 bucks valve doesn't care valve has always been a pioneer of the average joe developer steam offers anyone the chance to get their game out there and it's beautiful just imagine all the amazing experiences the world would have missed out on if steam operated more like nintendo however when you open the door to anyone and i mean anyone well it becomes just another way for people to exploit the system okay it's impossible for valve to be expected to play test 50 000 games but did anybody check that a game called rape day had been listed on steam i will say valve is pretty awesome because they don't crack down hard on people modding or using their ips however they need to crack down on shitty half-baked games like hunt down the freeman they have serious problems with quality control when you combine that with a no refunds policy it meant millions of gamers probably got suckered into buying some worthless crap with no recourse to get their money back time and time again valve shows us that their priorities lie in profits above the well-being of its fan base and consumers quality control isn't just about banning abusive games it's about only selling quality products ironic that they weren't willing to release their own shitty games but they would gladly do that with others but now it's 2017 and valve has a new game to announce oh my god really is it going to be left 4 dead 3 half-life 3 a new ip oh [ __ ] your mother artifact a dota 2 card game i think it's incredibly funny that gabe newell said he hoped artifact would be for card games what half-life 2 had been for single-player action games i'm gonna submit that to poorly aged things you know artifact was a giant disappointment you know we screw things up instead artifact became valve's biggest failure to date and to me it really sums up the state the company's been in for a long time after patiently waiting for six years you're telling me this this was the project valve was most passionate to make a dota card game they weren't thinking about what fans wanted from them they just wanted to pump out an easy game that would earn [ __ ] loads of money the artifact reveal was more of an out of season april fool's joke than diablo immortal is this uh an out of season april fool's joke what were they thinking hearthstone is making so much money let's show those [ __ ] that blizzard we own their ass nobody i repeat nobody wanted artifact but you know they did bring in richard garfield creator of magic the gathering and one of the guys who helped make gwen how bad could it be oh that bad artifact was doomed from the start no progression system at launch or a mobile version of the game did you guys not have phones yeah in order to get new packs of cards you had to buy them individually on the marketplace buy more packs or pay for tickets to play competitive modes twenty dollars to buy the game two bucks a pack you're literally paying so you can pay to play a video game there was no way to earn packs through just playing the game and valve had the nerve to say they designed artifact specifically to avoid a pay-to-win game you didn't learn a goddamn thing from cs go did you within two days of launch the axe card costed more than the game itself you just had to drop money if you wanted to compete artifact was pretty reliant on luck so it was no surprise that it lost 95 percent of its player base within two months and now sits around 85 peak players on steam this is after it went free to play in march valve described the performance of artifact as the largest discrepancy between their expectations for a game and the outcome yeah i bet you thought you were gonna hit it big didn't you they did plan to relaunch it as artifact 2 and nope it's cancelled oh well i guess maybe you could start giving real video games a shot in conclusion do valve's successes and innovations offset the shitty anti-consumer things they've done i don't know well i can admire valve for completely changing the wonderful world of gaming they've done so in two polar opposite ways valve really has become harvey dent two sides of the same coin one good one evil they're partly responsible for both revolutionizing shooters and the increasingly illegal business that is loot boxes and micro transactions valve has made some of the best games of all time and enacted some of the shittiest policies of all time there's almost no limit to the lengths valve will go to ensure it continues to make billions of dollars and i could care less if they were pulling 10 billion a year what i care about is they're putting in minimal effort they spend a lot of time trying to avoid the legal ramifications of their at times unethical business while valve is more than willing to lend a helping hand to their community they could just as easily flip the script and exploit that same community for profit valve has also proven in the past that they're totally fine with other people scamming their audience too the company's flat structure seemed ideal but it stopped being productive years ago the countless game cancellations delays secrecy radio silence have sapped a lot of hope from the core fans making them irritable and impatient and from the sounds of it the work environment is more tense than we think on the bright side valve hasn't fallen so far that they've ruined their famous ips or started cracking down on modders and independent creators like nintendo has so part of the real harvey dent must be in there somewhere amidst the noise drama and controversy still their legacy on this planet is sealed as a humble group of developers that rose from nothing and fell victim to greed like so many others you know and we want to know we want to find out like are we on the right track like we want people to come back and say oh my god the magic still is there and that is the rise and fall of valve incorporated [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The Act Man

Views: 3,117,247

Keywords: Valve, gabe newell, half-life 2, half life, dota 2, act man, the act man, fall of valve, left 4 dead, left 4 dead 2, counter strike, half life 3, team fortress 2, half life alyx, behind the scenes valve, gabe newell interview, pc gaming, gaming news, portal, portal 2, new valve game, artifact, dota card game, dota 2 tournament, cs:go, counter strike global offensive, microtransactions, loot boxes, cs:go gambling, valve gambling, half life 2 episode 3

Id: edIFFm12AOQ

Length: 39min 53sec (2393 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021