Valve. Spotting other people's work.
Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Dota and Portal are four of the biggest games ever made. Valve invented none of them.
THE GIST ON VALVE: "Valve and Video Games"
Did Valve make its biggest games?
Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Dota, Portal. Four of the biggest games ever made, all published by Valve, and they invented none of them. Every single one was built by someone else, for free.
They were mods: people in their bedrooms building on top of someone else's game and giving it away.
Where did they come from?
Counter-Strike was two blokes messing around with Half-Life in 1999. Dota was a custom map for Warcraft. Portal was a free student project called Narbacular Drop. Team Fortress was a bunch of Australians modding Quake.
Here's what Valve did every single time: it went after the people, not just the game.
How did Valve get them?
It hired the Australians in 1997. It bought Counter-Strike and the two guys who built it. It emailed the guy running Dota and gave him a tour of the office. And when Gabe Newell, who runs Valve, saw the student project that became Portal at a careers fair, he offered the entire team a job on the spot. Almost no one else can do that.
At a normal company, it's someone's job to have the idea. There's a road map and a person whose promotion depends on it. Valve has no managers and no road map either. So a better idea from a stranger doesn't threaten anyone's career.
Then they industrialised it.
They built Steam, where you download and buy games on your computer. It doesn't make any of them, it just sells other people's: around 13,000 a year, run by just 79 people, taking a cut of every single one.
The most valuable company in PC gaming has barely invented any. It has just got very good at spotting what other people have done. The hardest thing in any business is looking at a stranger's work and admitting it's better than your own.
Who deserves more credit: the maker or the spotter?
Your take. One tap, then see how everyone else voted.
Quick answers
Who made Valve's biggest games?
Outsiders. Counter-Strike was two blokes modding Half-Life, Dota was a Warcraft map, Portal a student project, and Team Fortress a group of Australians modding Quake.
How did Valve get the creators?
It hired or bought them. It bought Counter-Strike and its makers, toured the Dota creator round the office, and offered the Portal team jobs on the spot.
What does Steam do?
It sells other people's games, around 13,000 a year, with a cut of every one, run by just 79 people.
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