We should also link all the problems this created.
For instance:
- Ex-Valve employee describes internal politics at 'self-organizing' companies (pcgamer.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17584563
For instance:
- Ex-Valve employee describes internal politics at 'self-organizing' companies (pcgamer.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17584563
Apparently flat structure and bonuses tied to amount of money you bring, combined with apathy towards their software allowed some weasels to takeover and slowly destroy their (few) games in the name of short term gains.
And money is not even an issue for valve, its private company. It all looks like whole leadership doesnt give a fuck anymore, not even to pass on maintenance to 3rd party.
Gabe's "Actually money is how the community steers work." comment during the paid mods fiasco really shows the mindest that Valve works with.
The launch and handling of Artifact is a clear sign of valve's hubris or complete out of touch state. Or more realistically pure greed of people who would benefit of it. By people I dont mean valve as company, they make more money of steam in a day that they could have ever make of artifact in a year.
Launch a paid card game at high of Hearthstone, that requires you to buy cards with competitive decks going over >$100 and micro-transactions to play it. Everyone knew it was crazy. And game died pretty much at the launch.
Why the fuck would you even attempt making it a paid game?? Valve has money to keep a game like that free, develop community and get it to stable state before attempting at monetization of some kind.