New Busyness. Inside Valve’s plan to revolutionize the world of video games. Disgruntled Defense of the Ancients 2 players even made an incarnation of their frustration with the lack of Diretide up for download to the game.
(Photo by Steam) Just before Halloween, a commentator covering Valve's most popular game, Defense of the Ancients 2 (Dota 2), tweeted it would not have the seasonal event "Diretide. " The time-limited game mode with Halloween elements such as virtual candy collection was a big hit on its first run in 2012. This time, Valve's imaginative fans felt tricked. They spammed the Internet with this text art character, “(つ◕_◕ )つ," demanding that Valve "Give DIRETIDE. " Last week, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell called the decision this year to skip Diretide "totally a mistake.
" Valve, headquartered in Bellevue, Wash., has grown from an independent game developer to an entertainment powerhouse that estimates it is more profitable per employee than Google or Apple. Acker, Brown Bag team with Valve on ‘Deep’ ANNECY — U.S. toon helmer Shane Acker and Ireland’s Brown Bag Films are teaming with vidgame developer Valve to slash costs and amp up flexibility on Acker’s “Deep.”
Acker made his breakthrough with feature debut “9,” which was produced by Tim Burton, Timur Bekmambetov and Jim Lemley, and distributed by Focus Features in association with Relativity Media. Like “9,” “Deep” is set in a post-apocalypse world, devastated by World War III. But here what’s left of humanity shelters undersea in the hulks of sunken ships. The action adventure turns on Sullivan, a captain of a nuclear sub.
He makes contact with a splinter group of superior scientific intelligence, the Wayfarers, which has the power to save the earth. Valve’s Source engine to power upcoming animated film. Valve announces SteamOS, a living-room operating system for games. Valve is done teasing.
Today, Valve has revealed SteamOS, its own operating system based on Linux, designed for living room gaming PCs. It's the first step towards Valve's Steam Box, its vision for an open video game console. It combines Steam's preeminent video game digital distribution platform with a user interface designed for TVs, all on top of the Linux platform. It will also be free. "It will be available soon as a free stand-alone operating system for living room machines," according to the company. AAA game developers are already on board Incredibly, Valve says that major game developers are already on board with Linux, and will be building triple-A game titles that will run natively on SteamOS in 2014. Also coming to both Steam and SteamOS: streaming video and music services. Exclusive: Valve said to be working on 'Steam Box' gaming console with partners, could announce at GDC.
Recently there's been chatter that Valve — the company behind the massively popular gaming service Steam — has been considering getting into the hardware business.
Specifically, there have been rumors that the company has been toying with the idea of creating a proper set-top console which could potentially pose a threat to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Valve’s Gabe Newell talks wearable computers, why consoles should open up, and game ownership. Gabe Newell is the co-founder and managing director of Valve.
What we found during our conversation with the man himself is that those titles don't mean much of anything, and he's willing to throw his support behind whatever projects needs his help on a day to day basis. The most interesting company in tech: Valve — Remains of the Day. You hear it in technology companies all the time, especially at firms that have survived from their days as a startup to become a bigger firm: we want to remain entrepreneurial.
To feel like a startup. Nimble. A place that entrepreneurs want to work. A place for builders to build (a phrase Jeff Bezos always used to describe what he wanted Amazon to be as a company). But it has always felt a bit disingenuous. [The Google 20% idea in recent history sounded like the most promising attempt, perhaps a more practical evolution of a earlier incarnations, for example research divisions like Xerox PARC or Microsoft Research] But then I read about Valve Software, and it sounded like a company was actually taking all this lip service to heart and pushing this concept to its most logical extreme.
Here is the Valve Employee Handbook (PDF) which had the Internet buzzing a while back. The firm, in this view, operates outside the market; as an island within the market archipelago. Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf. Why Valve? Or, what do we need corporations for and how does Valve’s management structure fit into today’s corporate world? Valve: How I Got Here, What It’s Like, and What I’m Doing. It all started with Snow Crash.
If I hadn’t read it and fallen in love with the idea of the Metaverse, if it hadn’t made me realize how close networked 3D was to being a reality, if I hadn’t thought I can do that, and more importantly I want to do that, I’d never have embarked on the path that eventually wound up at Valve. By 1994, I had been working at Microsoft for a couple of years. One evening that year, while my daughter was looking at books in the Little Professor bookstore on the Sammamish Plateau, I happened to notice Snow Crash on a shelf. I picked it up and started reading, decided to buy it, and wound up devouring it overnight.