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Interesting, although this speech is very tainted by the "original" team structure at valve (of which it gives an interesting insight).
I'm surprised about the lack of designers and managers. I've double checked with their official website and this is accurate.
While I can relate to the fact they don't want the "ideas guy", there's a number of things a game designer can contribute to the project without being a tyrant. I've seen senior and highly capable game designers really applying team effort accross the board, so, nullifying the position altogether to me feels like missing the point.
I'd say roughly the same thing about managers. I'm one, and I consider myself a team player, and part of the team. Not an outsider looking in and imposing things.
I guess I'd like to see a "day at Valve" to really understand more what their mindset really is, and though this was an interesting talk, a lot of it cannot be understood without more insight into their culture.
That said, this is really more of a guide to land a job at Valve (and perhaps at Bethesda as they seem to share a common culture) but not necessarily other studios...
Valve in general doesn't really have 'positions'. The job listings on the website just indicate the particular skills they're looking for at that moment. Once you're in, it's expected you just go make yourself useful somewhere in the company. It's a bit weird, but it seems to work out for them. You can find more info in that employee handbook they released some time ago.
That was a nice presentation.
For those interested on how Valve works, there was a nice article on gamasutra : http://www.gamasutra...hp#.UGsyXU0xp8E
Be sure to read the PDF
I understand the theory, but this sort of organized chaos intrigues me, hence why I'd like to "live in the day of" Valve.
The downside is that members can trip over each other cause problems for others more easily this way.
For example, one person likes to refactor code whenever he sees a chance, and by changing other people’s code (which he is more free to do under this structure) he has
caused more than a few bugs for other people to fight.
Scale all of this up and you have Valve, or so I imagine.
Lack of hierarchy != no rules. I think it should be obvious that if you want to refactor someone else's code, you should first discuss it with that person