Valve Reveals Gaming Headset, Teases Big Picture

dotarray writes with a bit from Player Attack: "Gaming is big business, says Valve, as the developer takes the time to show off its brand new gaming headset and TV-based Big Picture. Rather than inviting the games media masses who have been clamouring for any details on the Seattle company's 'wearable computing' initiative, Gabe Newell and his team instead went right to the top, with an in-depth interview published in The New York Times." The New York Times article on which this report is based is worth reading, too: Valve's corporate non-structure sounds hard to believe. It seems Valve is also looking for hardware designers.

Re:Do I have to sign anything to use it?

[firex726]

Just FYI that clause is in pretty much every contract you have ever signed.

Lease on Apt? Loan? Mortgage? Amazon, EA, Ebay, Newegg, etc...

Re:No managers

[pnot]

Valve's structure seems like it's modeled after the 20th Century Motor Company from Atlas Shrugged. Everyone evaluated everyone else and decided who was productive and who wasn't It eventually imploded on itself as there was less and less incentive to actually work and more and more to just please your friends and groups to make sure you maintained a paycheck.

I wish them luck, but just like every other socialist plan it works great for a shot while, perhaps even a few decades, but it always falls to ruin faster than a free market based on incentive to do great.

So what you're saying is: this real company, which is doing great in reality, is doomed because it happens to remind you of a fictional company, which failed in a fictional universe.

Quaintly Ignorant

[paleo2002]

Interesting article, cool that Valve went right to the mainstream traditional media with their announcement. But, it was kinda cute reading the author's descriptions of Portal and TF2. I guess the Times simply doesn't have anyone under 40 working for them. Apparently Team Fortress is a game about an evil company that sells its customers faulty products.

Imagine an article covering a sporting event written by someone similarly oblivious to what's going on:
"Members of the Yankees team run to and capture 'bases' as part of an elaborate reenactment focused on battlefield strategies deployed during the Civil War . . ."

Re:No managers

[Guppy]

It would take about 80 years to run a company with $2.5 billion in the bank to the ground with 300 employees, even if they never ever sold a single product from now on until 2092...

That assumes the company management decides not to light huge piles of money on fire.*

* And by "light on fire", I mean "make pointless and expensive acquisitions".

Re:ya know

[collet]

There's a significant difference between augmented reality (Project Glass) and virtual reality. Augmented reality has a lot more practical uses - You know, in the REAL world - while virtual reality seeks to create an entirely new world from scratch. Sure, some things are relevant to both kinds of headset, but ultimately, augmented reality is to help you with your shopping - while virtual reality will let you slaughter you friends.

There was an hour long video at QuakeCon which is very interesting to listen to, they briefly explain the difference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gaqQdyfAz8 [youtube.com]

Re:No managers

[ChinggisK]

What you're not accounting for is the fact that even though he chooses to run the company like there is no leader, in reality GabeN technically is still the owner and could change the management structure as he saw fit if things started going downhill. Considering his success I'm pretty confident that he'd be smart enough to realize that nobody was working anymore and that he needed a new plan.

Re:No managers

[Yvanhoe]

The trick is probably to hire people who have proven that they do more interesting things than that during their free time.

Re:Do I have to sign anything to use it?

[drinkypoo]

We live in a world where a woman sued and won against spilling hot coffee on herself, because the company didn't put a warning that their hot coffee is hot.

Troll detected. Remainder of comment invalidated.