Freedom. It’s one of the few things game developers struggle for. The freedom to design, develop and ship their own games without any interference from big wigs or the need to “commercialise” their ventures. Or better yet, just the freedom to assume any project and plan out their entire day.
So it only makes sense that their ideal destination would be Valve, as according to Greg Coomer at the Seattle Interactive Conference, “three people at the company can ship anything. And the reason it is three people – because really it is one person can ship anything – but the work gets better if you just check with a couple of people before you decide to push a button.
“If we are going to hire these incredible people, and we are not going to put constraints on them, then we can’t be afraid to let them actually take charge and ship. That takes a lot of courage and trust.”
It’s a strange system – one that brings as much risk as reward – but for Valve, it’s a practice worth keeping
“Every single person is responsible for deciding what they do every day. That can be pretty daunting. Everyone is constantly making big decisions for the company, and deciding where we’ll go and what products we should build and so forth. It can feel like an exercise and an experiment in cooperative leadership.”