

Valve on 13 things they've failed at - reitzensteinm
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/09/interview-valve-on-13-things-theyve-failed-at/

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0abdd0e66h
This is what is different about valve as a game developer. They will learn
from their failures and talk about them with the public. It's a constant
feedback loop. If you participate in the valve community your voice will be
heard. I've never seen this type of interaction from another company.

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joshuacc
It's great to see an article like this. There are a lot of people in the
tech/startup community who talk about not being afraid to fail, but very few
that actually talk about their own failures.

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reitzensteinm
And someone as successful as Valve, no less. It kind of put my own failed game
development projects in perspective. Normally I don't really care where my
submissions go but I hope this one doesn't get buried.

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wlievens
You guys have failed projects, too? Nice to know that :-)

Is there anything new coming out of you guys in the near future?

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reitzensteinm
Yep, a new project, Black Market:

<http://www.bigblockgames.com>

Beta coming in a few days.

And yes, nearly as many failed projects as released projects!

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benbeltran
I think every company learns somewhat from its failures, but I love how valve
is really nonchalant about it. Their failures are not this grand secret
they're trying to protect. They know they're not perfect, they deal with it
and they work it out. Ask many other companies about their failures and
they'll get all tight, because they think talking about their failures is bad
for business. On the other hand, I think that valve understands that talking
about their failures is good for business.

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achompas
I was there for the start of Steam, the first two days of Half-Life 2,
Ricochet. Hate to say it, but those were definitely failures.

Takeaway quote from the article:

 _Because it got all the way through to customers. It’s like a bug. If you fix
a bug before it ever ships, it’s pretty cheap. If you ship it and then fix it,
it’s really expensive. Those ones are really bad._

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aspir
Does anyone else feel that they learn significantly more from failures and
missteps than successes? From my former sports years we would spend hours
watching film for errors while only touching on good things. Its definitely
stuck with me.

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qw
They have failed at delivering Episode 3... It's becoming Valve's Duke Nukem

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wlievens
Granted, the Half Life episodes haven't exactly been truly episodic, but it's
_only_ been three years since episode 2.

Fake edit: damn has it been _THREE_ years?

