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In a Q&A with Develop, Newell goes in depth on how Valve is organized and managed to continually roll with a rapidly evolving industry's punches, and he describes the studio's future as a provider of "entertainment as a service."
Valve is hiring, Newell told Develop. In fact, the studio would hire 50 people right now... if they met Valve's unique requirements, including a willingness to work with on a desk on wheels. (Seriously, desks at Valve have wheels on them, and for good reason.)
"Valve is organized to find people that are cross-disciplinary," Newell said. "[Valve developer] Ken Birdwell is a fine-artist that taught himself to program. He did the skeletal animations for our games starting all the way back from Half-Life 1."
"Do you remember the tentacle in Half-Life? Well, Ken was able to edit the level, change the tentacle model, and change the code, in order to make that all work. If he'd have just been a modeller, or animator, or environment worker, or just a programmer, he would only know one way to solve a problem."
"...We don't really have titles here; people decide for themselves what their role should be. People self-organize here. That's not out of some nutty thinking -- it is the only way we can properly solve the kind of problems that we need to solve, and do it quickly."
"So, to answer your question, that's why we put wheels on desks. People say they have to go work on this different problem now, because nobody else is and we need to get it done in order to get other things done. So they pack up their desks, and move to their relevant teams."
As for Valve's future, Newell said his studio hopes to combine its many services and strengths to become an "entertainment as service provider." What's that mean? Here's what Newell had to say:
"We're now fully focused on asking how we can take advantage of being constantly and fully connected to our customers. We now work from data we get back from our customers, reading into what they actually do."
And by reading into what customers actually do, Newell said the company is trying to create "optimal pricing service," an idea that could make games free for particular types of players.
"An example is -- and this is something as an industry we should be doing better -- is charging customers based on how much fun they are to play with. Some people, when they join a server, a ton of people will run with them. Other people, when they join a server, will cause others to leave. We should have a way of capturing that. We should have a way of rewarding the people who are good for our community."
"So, in practice, a really likable person in our community should get Dota 2 for free, because of past behavior in Team Fortress 2. Now, a real jerk that annoys everyone, they can still play, but a game is full price and they have to pay an extra hundred dollars if they want voice."
Read the full interview at Develop.
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