You hear a lot about how great it is to work at Valve, about the studioâs collaborative culture, but remember, not everyone is a perfect fit. Sometimes, somebodyâs got to get their marching orders.
And the way itâs done is as interesting as the way theyâre brought on board.
While many developers are sadly told their game âunderperformed at retailâ and âfailed to meet internal expectationsâ, before being asked to put their gear in a box and leave, at Valve itâs more like an episode of Survivor, only without the torches.
Speaking at the Seattle Interactive Conference, and reported by Geekwire, designer Greg Coomer said:
I wish that we had covered firing in the employee handbook. It was one of the things that we left out. And we tried writing it, and we didnât feel like we were capturing how Valve thinks about (firing) in a well enough way. It was almost a wording problem. We couldnât get it done in the time that we wouldnât to finish the handbook. The short answer of how we handle terminations, really, is the same as we approach all other decisions at the company. It is a peer driven process. If it turns out that we made a bad hiring decision, or that somebody is just not working out, thereâs a method we use to get the people who are involved in the same room and to walk through the decision about what should really happen as a result of this person not functioning very well. Some of the details are kind of boring, but the main answer is that it is peer driven, just like we evaluate each other as peers.
His talk is worth reading up on, because he really goes into detail about how thereâs really not much structure at Valve, or anyone lording it over anyone else telling them what to do.
Which, you know, might explain why certain games youâre expecting from the developer havenât yet been released. Canât release Half-Life 3 if thereâs nobody forcing you to release Half-Life 3!
Valve designer Greg Coomer: How getting rid of bosses makes for better games [Geekwire]
