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[garginator850]

Sigh

People are so impatient

Why?

 

[Of All Trades]

Because they don't like Microsoft's control over their OS. Microsoft and Windows is just an obstacle that Valve has to nagivate around to get a lot of their stuff working or try to deliver the experience they want their customers to have.

What does MS do that prevents Valve from having good customer service akin to EA/Origin? Why can't Valve have a proper customer support center, and how does that reflect on their ability to support an entire OS and likely staggeringly increased technical and customer support issues following release?

 

[Boombox On]

Valve want steam to be more than a storefront, rather an entire platform themselves, much like the consoles, where the platform-holders have full control.

So they created an open source OS? That doesn't make any sense.

 

[charlequin]

2014 was a pretty awful year for Valve. Armchair predictions here, but I think they are so insulated by their hoard of cash they have lost touch with reality.

The cash is just the cushion that enables their management structure, which is the real root of the problem. Flat organizational structure sounds good, and it works very well in a startup environment, where it lets you move quickly and achieve things that would be buried under bureaucracy. But once you hit a certain size, it starts to have the exact effects we're hearing from ex-Valve people now: it encourages cliqueishness and social performance over the real value of ideas, it insulates ditherers and underperformers from real review, and it ensures that there's no one in the company whose incentives are specifically oriented around shipping products.

 

[Qassim]

What does MS do that prevents Valve from having good customer service akin to EA/Origin? Why can't Valve have a proper customer support center, and how does that reflect on their ability to support an entire OS and likely staggeringly increased technical and customer support issues following release?

SteamOS will be free and without premium support, they won't have any obligations to support users for that.

 

[Burai]

What does MS do that prevents Valve from having good customer service akin to EA/Origin? Why can't Valve have a proper customer support center, and how does that reflect on their ability to support an entire OS and likely staggeringly increased technical and customer support issues following release?

You don't see an issue with shipping a closed box CE device and having absolutely no control whatsoever of the software that it runs on but still being 100% responsible for the end user experience?

 

[Rur0ni]

The cash is just the cushion that enables their management structure, which is the real root of the problem. Flat organizational structure sounds good, and it works very well in a startup environment, where it lets you move quickly and achieve things that would be buried under bureaucracy. But once you hit a certain size, it starts to have the exact effects we're hearing from ex-Valve people now: it encourages cliqueishness and social performance over the real value of ideas, it insulates ditherers and underperformers from real review, and it ensures that there's no one in the company whose incentives are specifically oriented around shipping products.

Indeed.

Funny this topic is coming up now, I'm not sure what prompted the thought but a few days ago I was thinking about how Valve doesn't really produce despite having everything they need to do so. Fan enthusiasm, franchises, the best distribution platform, and buttloads of money.

I recall people claiming the death of Windows stranglehold on PC gaming with SteamOS. Value to the rescue, defending gamers from evil Microsoft and Windows 8. What material impact has this had?

 

[Bl@de]

I really hope they succeed with SteamOS. Linux is the better alternative. Watching it closely... With Witcher 3 they will have a AAA linux title on release date. Quite an accomplishment when you look at the past years of linux gaming.

 

[Dreamwriter]

Valve needs to focus, abandon the project and get back to making games. Pretty much every vendor that was on-board with the Steam Machine has pushed it with Windows installed instead.

That has nothing to do with quality or confidence, but because the official Steam Machines were delayed. Vendors can't release their hardware as Steam Machines when neither the software nor hardware is ready.

 

[ZedIndyLil]

The cash is just the cushion that enables their management structure, which is the real root of the problem. Flat organizational structure sounds good, and it works very well in a startup environment, where it lets you move quickly and achieve things that would be buried under bureaucracy. But once you hit a certain size, it starts to have the exact effects we're hearing from ex-Valve people now: it encourages cliqueishness and social performance over the real value of ideas, it insulates ditherers and underperformers from real review, and it ensures that there's no one in the company whose incentives are specifically oriented around shipping products.

I am just a casual observer, but I really wondered if the management structure would eventually have these kinds of effects. Do you think it could get to the point where Newell would shake up the structure? Or would he ever want to?

 

[Of All Trades]

SteamOS will be free and without premium support, they won't have any obligations to support users for that.

And you don't think this will cause severe adoption issues?

You don't see an issue with shipping a closed box CE device and having absolutely no control whatsoever of the software that it runs on but still being 100% responsible for the end user experience?

They are responsible for the OS, the controller, and any Valve-branded hardware they release. When Johnny Casual boots up his Steambox and it crashes for whatever reason before making it to Steam Desktop then he's going to contact Steam Support and they will be responsible. HP/Dell/etc are all selling closed box CE devices and have far less control over the experience than Valve will and they all run large, dedicated support centers. It's what's required to play in the big boy leagues and what it'll take for linux support to get more consideration than the already paltry Mac support.

 

[Yatōkiri_Kilgharrah]

The cash is just the cushion that enables their management structure, which is the real root of the problem. Flat organizational structure sounds good, and it works very well in a startup environment, where it lets you move quickly and achieve things that would be buried under bureaucracy. But once you hit a certain size, it starts to have the exact effects we're hearing from ex-Valve people now: it encourages cliqueishness and social performance over the real value of ideas, it insulates ditherers and underperformers from real review, and it ensures that there's no one in the company whose incentives are specifically oriented around shipping products.

Valve is a hardware/services company that's privately owned/run. Not to focused on shipping products constantly

 

[charlequin]

Valve is a hardware/services company that's privately owned/run. Not to focused on shipping products constantly

All successful companies are focused on shipping products. The fact that they're privately owned doesn't change that; they don't have stakeholders pushing them to a myopic focus only on the short term (which is a good thing) but they still need to be able to execute quickly and effectively on their goals to stay successful.

Just look at this SteamOS/Controller/Box stuff. A year on, Valve is actually positioned worse to accomplish anything significant in this category than they were at the start, because they've squandered both goodwill and valuable development time puttering around without a clear plan. This has increasingly been the issue with everything at Valve outside DOTA 2 and some fairly narrow Steam platform features -- there's obviously people at the company doing something, but not any output to match it.

 

[alexandros]

Just look at this SteamOS/Controller/Box stuff. A year on, Valve is actually positioned worse to accomplish anything significant in this category than they were at the start, because they've squandered both goodwill and valuable development time puttering around without a clear plan. This has increasingly been the issue with everything at Valve outside DOTA 2 and some fairly narrow Steam platform features -- there's obviously people at the company doing something, but not any output to match it.

I agree. The damage is absolutely repairable if they ship good products in the end, but I feel the initial reveal was a wasted opportunity to really make a splash. The biggest problem is that Valve's delay screwed over the manufacturers and developers that invested in the Steam Machines and Linux development. They need to work harder and faster.

I hope to God that Valve didn't put the project on the backburner just because Microsoft seems to be capitulating on some of their bonehead decisions for Windows 8. The WinRT platform remains locked down and Microsoft will screw over Valve first chance they get. PC gaming needs to escape from Microsoft's grasp as soon as possible if it's to realize its full potential.

 

[Qassim]

And you don't think this will cause severe adoption issues?

When was the last time you had to contact Windows support?

In 20 years I've never had to contact Windows support for home related support. I think with the internet and community based / web based wiki style support that supports pretty much everything these days is sufficient for 99% of use cases.

 

[Kssio_Aug]

I just cant see the point for a steam machine. I mean, it seems to me that build a gaming PC is cheaper and probably easier giving the ammount of Steam Machines they seems to plan to release.

The Steam Controller however, thats something Im interested in.

 

[ashecitism]

The cash is just the cushion that enables their management structure, which is the real root of the problem. Flat organizational structure sounds good, and it works very well in a startup environment, where it lets you move quickly and achieve things that would be buried under bureaucracy. But once you hit a certain size, it starts to have the exact effects we're hearing from ex-Valve people now: it encourages cliqueishness and social performance over the real value of ideas, it insulates ditherers and underperformers from real review, and it ensures that there's no one in the company whose incentives are specifically oriented around shipping products.

It's also the reason they don't hire dedicated people, grunts and don't expand aggressively. This has been a recurring discussion in SteamGAF. That maybe Steam has outgrown Valve in its current state and their structure isn't serving it well. And a good possible solution would be to spin Steam off into its own hierarchical entity, but the usual answer is it would mess with Valve's structure and they don't want that.

I am just a casual observer, but I really wondered if the management structure would eventually have these kinds of effects. Do you think it could get to the point where Newell would shake up the structure? Or would he ever want to?

The only way I could see this happen if Valve goes public, holds an IPO. This structure has been there from the beginning, it worked out really well for them and they're quite proud of it.