Corny
Brad Muir joins Valve
- Thread starter ashecitism
- Start date
Congratulations to Valve and to Brad!
When he gets bored of fooling around at Valve and knowing how they work, he is an enough charismatic person to start a new project and convince people to join it.
I dont want another Clint Hocking situation where a great designer joins Valve and we dont get something "big" out of it.
When he gets bored of fooling around at Valve and knowing how they work, he is an enough charismatic person to start a new project and convince people to join it.
I dont want another Clint Hocking situation where a great designer joins Valve and we dont get something "big" out of it.
Good for Brad!
I have a hard time seeing the Diretide incident as anything but general internet idiocy. I know it's somewhat reflective of the community's sentiment regarding the lack of communication, but that was quite possibly the most vocalist of the vocal minorities turning into a storm of bullshit.
That's different from coming into work one day to find out you don't have a job because the company ran out of money. I thought I remember reading that Double Fine isn't doing all that well financially.
They had some layoffs due to one unannounced project getting cancelled because of publisher financial trouble.
Separately, the Majesco/Midnight City situation affected them because they published Costume Quest 2, and I think someone said in the DFA docu that there was some money there that they didn't receive.
Interfectum
Member
Clint Hocking has been at three different studios with zero output since his last game, correct? (LucasArts, Valve, Amazon)
Seems more of trend for Clint than Valve.
Bear Force One
Banned
But all too true. "Corny" usually comes from pointing out what is known.
With Left 4 Dead 3 I assume almost the entire hang-up is a mix of Source 2 and turning it into a full service game instead of a half-service game.
And yes I expect a lot of GAF posters to react very poorly to it because most service games are not well received here.
They've specifically spent time talking about how their communication has been subpar and admitting to a slowdown of content due to engine switching so it's coming from their mouths as well.
I give Diretide as the most famous example, but surely you've seen complaining about the update rate among their titles compared to the rate they once went? I can go dig up a lot if you really want across various websites.
That's not to say this has been a showstopper for any game in particular, but if we're talking about "Why are these threads full of angry people?" you honestly don't feel this is part of the answer?
Maybe this is all kind of a fruitless discussion, but my point wasn't that there aren't communication issues. My point was that Diretide is a misleading example because it's more an example of a meme taking off on the internet than anything else.
I do agree that Valve has communication issues. I also think their approach to games-as-services is a little flawed, in that they kind of just expect the community to organically take it over (TF2 being the most prominent example). It's kind of a neat idea, but it probably needs more hands-on direction from them in order to be successful (or maybe something else entirely, I really don't know).
What I remember seeing with Diretide was people going apeshit over not getting something and then when they finally got it ... they stopped caring. Very few people were actually angry about there being no Diretide. They were upset because there wasn't A Thing when there was A Thing the year before, regardless of how good it was or whether Valve had said anything about it or not. Then, someone got a meme going and it took off. Valve could have said: "Hey, no Diretide this year because we're working on other things." and it still could have happened.
Dog Problems
Banned
Anxious to see what he works on there.
Messofanego
Banned
Yeah, Clint's case seems an isolated one. Poor guy, not having released a game since 2008.
charlequin
Banned
It's a meme that took off because people didn't actually care much about Diretide specifically but it was a perfect stand-in for general frustration about underwhelming support and poor communication. Devs get weird pushback like this all the time, because people start thinking about it as "well if they can't even get THIS really obvious thing right, how are they going to improve {X Y Z Q etc.} problems that are harder!" and pretty soon everyone is rallying around this B-list feature because they're using it to draw a line in the sand.
dave is ok
aztek is ok
HAHAHAHAHAHA SICK JOKE
Oh wait.
Shining Sunshine
Banned
I wouldn't be kidding about it since it's real. lol
How about this sick joke?
Brad's been hired to count the money they make off CS:GO Skins. OOOOOOOOOH!!
ashecitism
Member
@TheDaniel9 true! But they're definitely putting a lot of people towards games! I'm not being hired for my stunning economics!!
Who knows Brad. Who knows
He's cool. I might have told some of these to piss off.
The problem is that people also disregard TF2, CS:GO and Dota as being games when making that argument.
it's because majority of people that make those claims don't game on pc mainly.
dave is ok
aztek is ok
The other side of that coin is publishers pushing for yearly updated franchise games and bug-ridden rush jobs.
Nah, it's because those people don't care for purely multi-player experiences.
Rebel Leader
THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
Because none of those are half life
If it isn't on console, it isn't a real game. This should be common knowledge by now.
In all seriousness I'd like Valve to make a new game, better still a new IP. Something really different. I expect much of their stuff to be on the consoles, which is always great since there can actually be a conversation. Although as usual probably not the stuff that heavily needs Steam features or a mouse or maybe VR. That said, I would be entertained with the shit show if a new game gets announced sometime and is only on Steam; the absolute derision that would follow would be hilarious as ever. Probably the same as some peoples reaction when they see any future game will not be HL3.
All of this is pointless of course. MOBAs and microtransactions are all they do.
Goldenroad
Member
I figured he was a pretty loyal Double Fine guy. I wonder if there was some kind of falling out after Massive Chalice didn't start the world on fire, or if Valve just made him an amazing offer...or maybe he just wanted a change. Either way, congrats on the new job Brad.
John Kowalski
Banned
!dave is ok
aztek is ok
Valve pay more than any other game developer, plus let you work on whatever you want and send you and your family to Hawaii for two weeks every year.
Double Fine are constantly at risk of going under and need to Kickstart most of their games.
Maiden Voyage
Gold™ Member
Brad will be missed at Double Fine for sure. I hope he still gets to make his quirky games. My wife will definitely feel the loss. I think she's played through Massive Chalice twice.
I think Brad recently had a kid, too. I worked at a startup for a number of years and there seemed to be a bit of a correlation between babies being born and their parents moving to more stable jobs.
*analog salute*neopokekun
Member
Brad posted this on the Double Fine forums about a week ago.
Double Fine also ran a stream on Brads final day where you could see these amazing placeholder cut scenes from Iron Brigade.
Hey guys!
Its been almost 12 years and Im sad to go. But there are times when you just have to go try your hand at something else and shake it up. Finishing MASSIVE CHALICE and having a baby at the same felt like a good breaking point, so Im off to the Pacific Northwest to do some different stuff!
Thanks for all of your support over the years. It was so great to know that you guys had my back when things were tough. I hope I didnt let you down! :D!
Double Fines going to keep going strong without me though. I have no doubt! Thanks again for everything!
Love,
Brad!
Double Fine also ran a stream on Brads final day where you could see these amazing placeholder cut scenes from Iron Brigade.
Teletraan1
Banned
The only reason I read this thread as far as I did was for those jokes. I really liked the store front one and the joke about how it would be like a hollywood actor selling tickets at a movie theater.
Yeah, but as has been discussed in this thread, that's not really fair to th-
... WTF?Congrats, Brad Muir. I've known you for so many years, like a brother, through our shared experiences. You make the games, I play them. And i love you for that and couldn't be more proud of anyone, like brother.
Interfectum
Member
Ok.
Well aside from working on a small market storefront and inferior games, they are working on an OS, some weird controllers, and VR.
I know, SUPER lazy.
Basileus777
Member
Massive Chalice ended being a pretty disappointing game, but I'm still interested enough to check out what else Brad Muir designs, jokes about him never shipping a game at Valve aside.
1. Develop and run three of the biggest (PC) games (hundreds of updates since launch per game, one game currently going through a significant engine transition). Two of those games having gigantic player bases. Running major tournaments for two of those games too.
2. Develop and run the biggest PC distribution and gaming platform
3. Developing a new game engine (Source 2)
4. Developing a Linux distribution for bringing Steam to the living room.
5. Developing two new hardware devices (Steam controller, Steam Link)
6. Developing SteamVR and HTC Vive
7. General Steam feature development (Big Picture, community features, market, workshop, etc, etc)
Plus the fairly heavily rumoured Left 4 Dead 3 which has a decent amount of evidence behind its active development.
It's not bad for a company of less than 400 people.
Well, sure, but who says you have to get one or the other...
Not to mention Dota 2's Reborn wasn't exactly bug free. I'm not entirely sure why they rushed that out.
Not to be a dick but you mostly just expanded out what he just said, the majority of that is "maintaining Steam" and supporting their F2P online multiplayer games. Now, whether that is something a user wants out of Valve is their opinion.