Bad Valve, No Biscuit

Was at the Game Developer's Conference Last week - as usual, it was great fun - lots of neat sessions and talks, great people, and very interesting discussions and meetings. One of the most entertaining sessions each year is the Game Design Challenge - 3 designers are given a concept and asked to design games around them (not to implement, tho). Always provides some very interesting presentations. This year's challenge was to design a game about sex and autobiography - "My First Time." One of the participants was Kim Swift, a designer on Portal and a Valve employee. Except Valve forbid her from participating. Now, if I were a responsible journalist of any kind, I'd stop here. But, instead, on with groundless speculation!!!!

First though, let me make it clear that this is all groundless speculation from here forward. I have no idea why Valve said no, and no delicous insider information on how it went down. Nor do I intend any disrespect to Heather Kelley and Erin Robinson, who ably took Kim's place and won, nor to Steve Meretsky or Suika Haro, the other participating designers.

Lots of ideas were thrown out as to why Valve might have done this, but one in particular stuck in my craw. It is entirely possible that Valve forbid Kim from participating because Valve does not want a Valve emplyee to have a higher profile than Valve itself.

This is nonnsense. First, Kim's popularity will only serve Valve in the short run, and Kim is not likely to stay an employee of the copany forever. We are entering a point where Game D?esigners are going to become their own brands - as more pople grow up with games, more will want to make them, and their heros will inevitably be working designers - this is happening,a nd the smart move is to support and nurture this idea, and to support these designers. If Kim is happy with Valve as an employer, then she will naturally want to extend that relationship if and when she moves on to her own projects. Wouldn't Valve want Kim brinign future indie projects to the Steam platform first? Doesn't Valve want a high profile personality in games on theri sie rather than against them?

Second, Valve ahs been great recently at supporting indie work, marketing it heavily on Steam, and releasing some very non-traditional games through the platform. And, I love Left 4 Dead.

So I'm confused. But strongly encourage all companies out there to view their designers as precious above the line talent, and not as property. Support young, burgeoning designers to both promote the health of games in general and to win yourself allies and ambassadors to the public that will only become more necessary and valuable over the next dozen years. Game Designers should be Rock Stars, and its happening whether you want it that way or not.