Valve on how Team Fortress 2 inspired Greenlight: “We hardly make anything anymore”
48 replies, posted
[IMG]http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/07/Team-Fortress-2.jpg[/IMG][QUOTE]
Steam Greenlight was announced last night, detailing a project that will give PC gamers the power to dictate what ends up on Valve’s massively successful digital distribution platform. Just over 12 hours later, Valve business development director, Jason Holtman took to the stage at Develop to talk about the roots of the idea. It all started with Team Fortress 2.
Holtman acknowledged that TF2 is “a hat manufacturing game. And that’s awesome,” but the systems surrounding the hat economy, and Valve’s internal development attitudes all contributed to the inception of Steam Greenlight, a practical demonstration of Valve’s motto: “anyone can ship anything.”
Jason referenced the official TF2 blog as an example of the company’s internal attitudes towards creating entertainment. He suggested that the key to its success wasn’t in polished press releases created by marketing men. It was in the freedom for all Valve employees to create all kinds of content for the projects they’re working on. “If the content team hadn’t been involved in this activity, including things such as blogposts, it would have sucked,” said Jason.
Then Valve opened that involvement up to the community, and the snowball started rolling. “We had customer involvement too. Hey: why don’t you make propaganda posters. That would be fun. People went crazy. They created all this content that started to get consumed as part of the war update.”
“It was the first inkling of what we’re thinking about now,” said Jason, referring to last night’s announcement. “Getting customers involved in the business.”
The popularity Mann-conomy update, which gave players the chance to buy new items with real money, was an important step. Cash incentives for item creators and general enthusiasm for TF2 resulted in a storm of interest among fans. Valve launched the Steam Workshop, to make it even easier to submit items for the game, and were overwhelmed with the response. “Make this hat, make that hat make my grandma’s hat. The amount of stuff we had coming in looked like the final scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Holtman said.
[/QUOTE][IMG]http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/07/Team-Fortress-2-hats-610x240.jpg[/IMG][QUOTE]
“We hardly make anything anymore. Not that we’re lazy, There are people who are far better at working out what the engineer should have, what the Demoman should have.”
Valve had a similar problem with Steam. There were more indie developers applying for Steam spots than Valve’s team of ten could handle. “We had a problem of how do we filter the large number of new indie games out there and put the best ones on Steam,” Holtman said. “We also didn’t have the ability to encourage people during development.”
Greenlight will let players and developers rate projects, crowdsourcing Steam’s quality control function and giving indie developers a fair, equal shot at a vaunted Steam spot. Holtman is certain it will succeed: “It provides fans and creates fandom. People will want to do this.”
We’ll have to wait until August to see how big Greenlight will be, but it’s a tremendously exciting prospect for upcoming indie developers.[/QUOTE]
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-fuck it, i'm tired as hell, and an immediate box tells me that i shouldn't post-
-snip-
Valve has engaged easy mode: Let the community make the content and decide the games.
[QUOTE=bull3tmagn3t;36703637]this is all really interesting and stuff Valve, but I want episode 3[/QUOTE]
Didn't you read the title
fire up Blender and Hammer, it's going to be a long week
[QUOTE=BigBoom;36703642]Valve has engaged easy mode: Let the community make the content and decide the games.[/QUOTE]
And gabe is in a posh office somewhere, stroking himself while muttering "Yessss, make me more money..." :v:
[QUOTE=Madman_Andre;36703666]And gabe is in a posh office somewhere, stroking himself while muttering "Yessss, make me more money..." :v:[/QUOTE]
"and have fun"
If they don't make anything, then what do their artists do all day?
[QUOTE=BigBoom;36703642]Valve has engaged easy mode: Let the community make the content and decide the games.[/QUOTE]
that's not really fair to say since they obviously have projects they're working on. tf2 and steam are both already existing platforms and they're letting the community fuel both. I can't see anything wrong with that. The only end result is that we wind up getting more options for what we want.
[QUOTE=V12US;36703800]If they don't make anything, then what do their artists do all day?[/QUOTE]
Hardly anything I think
[QUOTE=V12US;36703800]If they don't make anything, then what do their artists do all day?[/QUOTE]
They make Pyroland.
[QUOTE=V12US;36703800]If they don't make anything, then what do their artists do all day?[/QUOTE]
it's obviously context. they said they hardly make anything for tf2 anymore.
their artists work on whatever internal project they want.
[QUOTE=BigBoom;36703642]Valve has engaged easy mode: Let the community make the content and decide the games.[/QUOTE]
Maybe. But it does benefit the indie devs too. Gives them the chance to reach a big community to present their work and get feedback from the people who actually matters, the ones that will potentially buy the game.
[QUOTE=V12US;36703800]If they don't make anything, then what do their artists do all day?[/QUOTE]
Disguise as community members and make more hats.
[QUOTE=BigBoom;36703642]Valve has engaged easy mode: Let the community make the content and decide the games.[/QUOTE]
Well at least we won't see another Revelations 2012 quality game, hopefully.
[QUOTE=V12US;36703800]If they don't make anything, then what do their artists do all day?[/QUOTE]
If the employee hand book taught us anything, they pretty much decide what they should work on, so anything
This is good--hopefully good enough for SPUF, which I doubt.
Isn't it strange how Valve has managed to reach such a level that they can actually allow themselves complacency to some degree? With their current reputation and product line-up and digital distribution platform, they're set, but that is not to say they're not actually working on [I]certain[/I] titles as we speak (right, Valve?... right???).
[quote]Holtman acknowledged that TF2 is “a hat manufacturing game. And that’s awesome."[/quote]
So, TF2 has progressed from a FPS to a war-themed hat simulator to a hat factory.
If they've got so much free time on their hands maybe they should focus it on a certain third installment to a certain series we've been waiting for for the past 5 years.
Well, that's their cue to get working on Episode 3.
[QUOTE=Computrix;36706522]If they've got so much free time on their hands maybe they should focus it on a certain third installment to a certain series we've been waiting for for the past 5 years.[/QUOTE]
Oh please, that can wait.
We've been waiting for a Ricochet sequel for more than a decade now!
[QUOTE=BigBoom;36703642]Valve has engaged easy mode: Let the community make the content and decide the games.[/QUOTE]
It's still fucking brilliant, which means more time devoted to their in-house games.
What if they without notice put up Episode 3 that way
And that's their way of announcing it.
What if it doesn't get voted in...
I like it when [b]they[/b] made the weapons.
-snip-
So basically it's just like Kickstarter but Facepunch likes it because it's made by Valve.
[QUOTE=PowerBall v1;36709321]So basically it's just like Kickstarter but Facepunch likes it because it's made by Valve.[/QUOTE]
It's not like Facepunch dislikes Kickstarter, just the bullshit that gets put on it.
[QUOTE=PowerBall v1;36709321]So basically it's just like Kickstarter but Facepunch likes it because it's made by Valve.[/QUOTE]
I don't see how you can even compare this to kickstarter. Kickstarter is for people who need funding; Greenlight is for indie developers who want their game to be put on steam.
[QUOTE=Killajax;36708216]I like it when [b]they[/b] made the weapons.[/QUOTE]
I like it when they choose decent items instead of stupid shit. Valve doesn't have to make anything anymore, why should they? They have hundreds of items waiting at their frontdoor.
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