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.

Comments

WHy

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do niggers just love to wear sports jerseys? So they can pretend to have a job skill!

Re:WHy

[Anonymous Coward]

In that case, shouldn't they were a suit and tie? And not just when they're on trial!

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, why did the cabbage patch kid tickle the nigger's ass?

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

The cabbage patch kid only TRIED to tickle his ass. Them niggers run fast!

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, why did the cabbage patch kid try to tickle the nigger's ass?

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

So do we have to guess whether it's EA or activision hiring people to poison this debate?

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess 4chan must be down or something..eh..

Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did the nigger cross the road? To get away from the cabbage patch kid that's trying to tickle his ass!

Do I have to sign anything to use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I figure with Valve and their ridiculous anti-consumer mandatory binding arbitration agreement I might have to give my first born to even read about this invention, yes?

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

[Anonymous Coward]

I figure with Valve and their ridiculous anti-consumer mandatory binding arbitration agreement I might have to give my first born to even read about this invention, yes?

It is even worse then that my friend. You will have to love niggers to read about it.

The price is too high. The price is too high! Let the niggers be themselves and by that I mean destroy some other civilization.

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:Do I have to sign anything to use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit! None of those have that clause.

It's an extreme waiver that companies are only now starting to realize they can get past idiots like you.

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

[jellomizer]

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.
Most slashdotters agree that the current patent system makes it too easy for someone to infringe on a patent and get sued by a patent troll for reinventing something that seemed reasonable to invent at the time.

I hate to sound like a supporter for big business. But even the smaller businesses have the problem they get a customer who is lawsuit happy and will sue for anything. Even if the company win the lawsuit, they loose because there is the legal costs and if the media get word of it, they are automatically assumed that they are the bad guy.
Most companies (yes most of them) really do try hard to give their customers their best effort. Yes they want to make money too. But most companies try to make money selling a product the customers are happy to pay for, and feel they got a fair deal out of it. So they will come back again and give good word of mouth so they can sell more.
But the truth of the matter you cannot make a product or service that pleases everyone. There will be some people who took your marketing then translated it into something that much better in their heads and when they got it, it was a huge let down. Or what is even more common, say in software, or in food service. The System breaks, or you get sick. You will go back and see what was the last thing you did differently, then blame that as the cause.
Where you could have been infected the flu days before you went to the Chinese buffet or your PC just got too dusty and started to overheat causing errors. However there are some people who will sue them for every little thing. These companies are trying to protect their brand image and their bottom line.
What most of use little guys don't understand is how much it costs to run a business, most don't have that much money to wast on lawsuits, or if they have insurance can't afford it going up.

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.

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

[RaceProUK]

We live in a world where a woman sued and won against spilling hot coffee on herself

Don't forget the girls who sued and won because fatty foods made them fat.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

The woman sued because the coffee was too hot by state standards. This caused injury above and beyond what she normally would have gotten otherwise. Actually read about the case instead of making crap up. No wonder Slashtards are the laughing stock of the legal world.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Um, no. We live in a world where a company got sued because their coffee was hot enough that it caused third-degree burns, the victim required skin grafts, and the company refused a reasonable request of about $20,000 to cover medical expenses. Furthermore, the company had been sued for similar incidents before and had decided it was cheaper to pay out than to change their practices.

This idea that McDonald's was the victim because people don't understand that coffee is hot needs to die. They were arrogant in their treatment of the victim and they got what they deserved.

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

[Valor958]

Not trying to argue that so much as shed my thoughts on the subject. From a little searching I came across the following for third degree burns. http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_water_burn_scalding_graph.html Here, it basically states that 3rd degree burns can be received after about 2 seconds of contact with 150degF water. Coffee is generally brewed at about 190degF... you know, boiling water over coffee grounds for the standard method. Also, there were and are no state standards for the temperature of coffee. In fact, in that case, the National Coffee Association supported McDs methods of brewing coffee using BOILING WATER and being held at ~180-190degF to maintain 'optimal taste'. McD's could have handles this specific situation better as it wasn't the first time burns had happened, BUT accidents happen and not all are worth a lawsuit. You spill coffee on yourself, if it's fresh, it'll be hot. Lesson learned. So, the last two posts from the AC crowd not willing to give a name to their inaccuracies just go to show that they are, in fact, the 'Slashtards' that are the laughing stock. The severity of the McD's case was an abuse of the legal system in just about every way. The old lady had an accident and spilled HOT coffee on herself. Now, this would have been different if they been using say... thermite to brew their coffee. (Don't bother me with the physics of this!) McDs was within standards for coffee temperature and this lady got fresh brewed coffee. I would have supported them assisting with medical costs as they've done in the past, but they are under no obligation to do so. It would have gone a long way in the name of public PR though.

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

[ravenshrike]

It's actual not mandatory arbitration, you can still sue on an individual basis. However since Valve will pay lawyer fees win or lose in arbitration as long as you're not asking for more than 10 grand, you're almost certainly better off in arbitration.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Your info is kind of incomplete. You should watch the documentary "Hot Coffee," which examines this case and places it within the larger scope of a nationwide political attack against the judicial system.

  The woman's lawyers were able to demonstrate that McD's knew there was a problem. There was already a long case history in McDonald's own files showing many previous incidents. The internal memos were what really damned them. They knew their coffee temperature, especially combined with their cup design, was a problem, and they decided as long as the cost of lawsuits remained low, they weren't going to replace their aging coffee machines no matter how many people got burned. The jury responded to this the same way they'd respond to some sociopath who owned a vicious dog and told everyone who got mauled that they shouldn't have been walking past his house. At some point it stops being a one-off accident and becomes negligence.

  The woman in question asked for some help with her medical bills and nothing more; it was the outraged jury who decided on a high punitive settlement -- yet after the case McD's simply refused to pay, telling the woman if she wanted more than a small pittance, they'd see her right back in court.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Be fair, it's probably just someone who repeats every bit of nonsense they run across with no critical thought applied, rather than a troll.

Do you think Michelle Bachmann is trolling congress?

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

[Valor958]

That's part of the problem right there. There IS and WAS no problem with the McD's machines. They made coffee hot, very hot. Well, water can only get so hot before it isn't really 'water' anymore. You could steam the coffee and let it recondense, but not sure that would be very time effective. Coffee is hot. The heat range of the McD's coffee was normal, and the consumer is the biggest flaw in the cup design. Admittedly, McD's could have used a more stiff composition for its cups to make them flex less so the lid wouldn't pop off, but even then it was a minority issue. There were previous occasions of burns, but the same could be said for the clumsy consumer spilling coffee on themselves at home. I know my personal coffee maker would probably scald me just as quickly. Making it fireside, while camping, with boiling water in a pot has the same dangers and effect to produce coffee. Hot tea can also carry the same dangers. It's all about just being careful. If you are getting a hot beverage and plan on driving while trying to drive or hold it, that is just foolish. Drink it at a red light, pour it into a 2nd more stable cup in the parking lot... save it until you get to your location. McDs deciding not to change the design so long as costs remain low, sounds bad at first thought, but really is common practice and reasonable when doing business. You look at the failure rate and reasons, cost to change the design, and possible benefits of changing the design (among many other points), and then make your decision. A cup is a cup, you can only do so much with the design McD and most other places work with. Cheap styrofoam would be the only weakness in the design. I still feel this whole thing was overblown, and the zealous jury just wanted to try and make an example out of McD. The lady got her money, McD got mocked for a few years like it was going out of style (which it did...), and not its a common reference and argument piece on society and the flaws in our legal system. More often than not, this case is cited as a failure of the legal system, where common sense can be litigated.

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

[Valor958]

Sorry for my lack of paragraphs... my screen is playing tricks on me and I see a line break where none shows up after I submit... Oh well.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how you start off claiming you aren't going to argue, and then proceed to an argument. I'm not sure how I should take the rest of your response given that you can't go a couple of sentences without changing your mind.

As for the facts of the case, I am well aware of the arguments on both sides. My biggest problem with this case is the way it became the poster child for anyone advocating for tort reform when the facts of the case don't support it. The plaintiff did not immediately sue McDs or even ask for an unreasonable sum of money. She asked for just enough to cover expected medical expenses and they decided to nickel and dime her even though they had paid out on those kinds of complaints in the past. This never would have ended up in court at all if McDs had just followed their own policy.

Finally, your assertion that this was an abuse of the system is just wrong. This is exactly why the system exists, to allow people to seek redress for their injuries. McDs had just as much chance to present its case as the old woman and they lost. You may disagree with that ruling but the system worked the way that it was supposed to.

Oh, and FWIW the jury didn't absolve the plaintiff of responsibility. They decided that both parties were responsible (she did spill the coffee on herself) but that McDs bore enough responsibility that they should pay up. Doesn't seem like an unreasonable verdict to me.

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

[drinkypoo]

Drink it at a red light, pour it into a 2nd more stable cup in the parking lot... save it until you get to your location.

And this is where your total failure of logic becomes clear. The coffee is being sold in a cup clearly intended for use in mobile consumption, yet which is simultaneously unfit for that purpose. McDonalds could have done any of a) used a better cup, b) sold the coffee cooler, or of course c) not sold coffee, we always forget this remedy but if someone can't do something right then they shouldn't do it at all.

Cheap styrofoam would be the only weakness in the design.

An engineer would make allowances for cheap polystyrene foam in the cup design, as opposed to a designer who would make a cup that can easily collapse when used for its design purpose. McDonalds should have known enough to hire the proper one. They do after all sell engineered food.

More often than not, this case is cited as a failure of the legal system, where common sense can be litigated.

Well, if McDonalds had used some common sense, then I guess they wouldn't have been dragged into court. You don't hear about this happening to other companies, probably because they're content to use a standard cup instead of designing their own to save a quarter of a cent per cup of coffee.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and then there's the part about how the car was parked and the woman was in the passenger seat. (Her son was driving.) And McDonald's own internal memos said the coffee was too hot, the cups were dangerous, and listed a long string of severe injuries. An accident is when it happens once in a while. If it keeps happening, over and over, and you don't do anything, then it starts to look a lot like negligence. Which is what happened in this case.

It seems Valve is also looking for hardware design

[Anonymous Coward]

>It seems Valve is also looking for hardware designers.

WE KNOW ALREADY

lol big picture...

[Anonymous Coward]

The only big picture here is Valve having nothing but dollar signs in their eyes, like every other DEV these days.

Serve my games, that is all you need do....and you will PROFIT by it, assuming you are smart enough to not bite off more than you can chew.....

ya know

[Osgeld]

I find it quite amusing that after nearly 3 decades of seeing VR headsets, they still manage to look retarded to this day.

"all you have to do is wear this 30 pound chunk of shit on your face, and you too can look like a moron ... least for the 20 seconds your eyes can actually stand it before your brain tears from the strain"

Re:ya know

[deweyhewson]

Proof of concepts always focus on capability, not aesthetics.

Re:ya know

[Osgeld]

thanks, so how many decades does it take to prove that face mounted helmets are stupid?

Re:ya know

[Compaqt]

I don't even see how that (wired) monster is even relevant after Google Glasses.

Re:ya know

[_Shorty-dammit]

And why do you care what you look like at that particular time? Same complaints about wearing 3D glasses at a 3D movie are just as senseless. Who cares what you look like? People are watching the movie, not you, weirdo.

Re:ya know

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks, so how many decades does it take to prove that face mounted helmets are stupid?

I'm certain the world will be lining up to try your arm-mounted helmets any day now.

Re:ya know

[AHuxley]

Re stand it before your brain tears from the strain
"with the puking and the stomach acid and the chunks and
the 'hey hey hey it stings me".
Recall the early efforts in the mid 1990's with the 2 video camera eye pieces? Wonder why they never got more traction ..... ?

Re:ya know

[Anonymous Coward]

When strategically placed lasers can replicate the effect of having a screen and motion sensor attached to your head. VR is not a well made industry, so aiming at the lowest fruit is the best to get it started.

I think they would do a better job aesthetically if they made a full face mask instead of just the top half. Could even put in little fans to simulate air flow.

Re:ya know

[Areyoukiddingme]

thanks, so how many decades does it take to prove that face mounted helmets are genius

Apparently, approximately 3 decades. But time will tell. It ain't over yet.

Re:ya know

[Osgeld]

apparently you have never worn one of these things, they are heavy, and hurt your eyes, face, nose, and the back of your head, genius? if they are so grand why have they never become popular?

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

Re:ya know

[iinlane]

Google for oculus rift.

Re:ya know

[Anonymous Coward]

for me is really awesome, maybe they wanted to tune their algorithms and make their games right now, and dont wait for the mighty google to launch a product next year.

Re:ya know

[LingNoi]

The state of the art at the moment seems to be this device if you're interested on the subject.

Re:ya know

[Anonymous Coward]

i-m quite sure you look like a moron with or without a helmet.

Re:ya know

[kramulous]

Because we've had to wait for miniaturisation to catch up to the idea. Just cause something fails once does not mean it will fail always.

Re:ya know

[VortexCortex]

The state of the art at the moment seems to be this device if you're interested on the subject.

Yes, but there are other models that don't make you look like a retard. They even work with your smart phone. I use the 920AR (Altered Reality) version, it has two dorky looking cameras on the front and the screens aren't as large, but it's lightweight and looks nicer than huge honking device.

Considering that I've been using something like "Google Glasses" for years, I figured they'd have their crap together and on the market by now...

Re:ya know

[olau]

You should watch John Carmack's QuakeCon 2012 keynote. He talks about this at some length (especially the they're all crap perspective). Part of the problem seems to be that the main needed components haven't really been available from a mass market before now. That's changed with smart phones.

Re:ya know

[Ash Vince]

apparently you have never worn one of these things, they are heavy, and hurt your eyes, face, nose, and the back of your head, genius? if they are so grand why have they never become popular?

The reason they never became popular the first time around was that the Virtuality sets were so expensive. They cost tens of thousands of dollars each and were only good if you had a few so several of you could play together as they had no single player games available.

If you happened to get access to an arcade where you could play for free though (Like I did) you could still get seriously addicted to playing them. Whenever someone came in to the arcade and wanted to play but they were the only person I would have to don the other headset. I never remember the helmet being that uncomfortable to wear but I probably would not have cared if it was to be honest. The only thing that pissed me off was how expensive it was to play, I thought we should drop the price but when I found out how much it cost to rent it I understood.

Ultimately we gave it back as to just didn't generate the revenue for the floor space it took up. If you could have got the price down to a level where it could cost more like 50 cents or a dollar I think it might have been more profitable. As it was I think the minimum you could charge to cover the rent of one was about $5 per go and that barely covered the rental even if it was busy every night and all weekend (It wasn't at that price).

The problem with anything like this though is that once one company tries it and fails it poisons the idea and prevents anyone else from trying it for a while afterwards. The other problem is that most arcades started closing during this period as the consoles you could buy at home caught up in terms of technology.

The killer product that has made the idea of these things popular again though is the Microsoft Kinect. Once you take 2 or 3 Kinect style gizmos and throw them around you in a living room it will make it possible to track something like a brightly coloured gun to figure out where you are aiming it. Then a headset to control the visual movement and a simple joystick on the side of the gun to make you walk (so you can stay still in the middle of the room). Nobody previously would have predicted that microsoft could have produced the Kinect and released it for the price they did, that changed a whole lot of things.

Another amazing use for one of these devices now is in racing games. Currently even playing with a nice steering wheel setup the way you look at cars around you (such as when they are overtaking and in your mirror blindspot) is quirky or non existent. A device like this could make driving games seem far more natural.

Re:ya know

[Valor958]

Ok, what about the aesthetically unappealing proof of concepts that manage to make it mainstream? Case in point... Virtual Boy! I think i can probably blame my currently horrid vision on that piece of demonic eye-raping hardware.

Re:ya know

[Osgeld]

ok, they havent gotten any smaller in the last 15 years, someone linked me to the "state of the art" while using newer technology is basicly the same size as what I owned in the 90's

LCD's didnt just pop out of nowhere in the year 2000 ya know

Re:ya know

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but there are other models that don't make you look like a retard.

A viewing angle comparable to a ~75" TV @ ~10ft is less than 1/3 the field of view on the Rift, and maybe 1/2 of what the average person already gets from PC gaming on a 24" monitor. I wouldn't call any device with a FOV that low "VR."

Re:ya know

[IrquiM]

Yeah, iPad and iPhone is a good proof of that!

Re:ya know

[jimshatt]

John Carmack should totally team up with Valve on this one. I mean, Carmack and Abrash on one team again would be legendary!

No managers

[Compaqt]

While it seems tempting to saying "Just work on what you think you should work on", it also seems risky.

The What Ifs. What if you hire somebody and tell him to work on whatever, and he just posts stuff like this to /. all day. Who would he be accountable to?

Or would the management structure suddenly come into being at that time?

Re:No managers

[Microlith]

Well, if all they do is fuck around all day then it would probably be discovered fairly quickly in a company as small as 300 people.

Re:No managers

[ArsonSmith]

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.

Re:No managers

[rasmusbr]

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...

Perhaps you should read less Ayn Rand and concern yourself more with reality.

Re:No managers

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

The incentive propagated by competing on a market is the incentive to make more money. Valve does that in two ways: by making great games, and by running their own market and taking a cut. This has nothing to do with their structure. I suppose you could call it a socialist, but communist would probably be more appropriate: the ideal is more or less explicitly 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need'. It's a novel structure for a major corporation. I don't think you can say it will necessarily fail faster than a hierarchical one, at least based on evidence from any history other than one imagined by Ayn Rand. They're doing pretty well so far.

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.

Re:No managers

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's also ignore the fact that many companies and economies have failed in history, infact the vast majority of them. The ones still standing are just the lucky ones that happen to remain still standing. Without exception they all put too many eggs in one basket and it bites them in the ass because nobody and nothing can predict the future infallibly (to do so would require modeling the entire universe). Ideology is insignificant, at times it may lead people to make decisions that happen to work, at times not. In this seething mass of chaos we call the world nothing is for certain other than the fact that nothing is for certain.

Re:No managers

[Areyoukiddingme]

I'm sure Gabe Newell appreciates that your dirt poor ideology-spouting ass is a member of a political party that exists for the sole purpose of making sure he gets richer and you stay poor. That must really warm the cockles of his billionaire heart.

This may come as a shock to you, but creative people with brains will work to create without any oversight whatsoever, for the joy of creation. I know, you're such a worthless shit that you have to have someone stand over you to make sure you don't fuck up the burger order, but there are people in the world who make things with no financial incentive at all. Collecting a paycheck for the privilege is just icing on the cake.

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:No managers

[Anonymous Coward]

Valve oly ever buys out small indie developers who fit in well with their company culture. They're perhaps the only company I've seen that doesn't make stupid acquisitions.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should put down rules for radicals and google solyndra :)

Re:No managers

[LingNoi]

Lots of new start ups are doing this type of management scheme. Github is another company that just lets people work on whatever, however they want.

Re:No managers

[humanrev]

Would you stop that, please? I don't use Steam because I've been conditioned by Slashdot to disregard all forms of DRM (and no-one can deny that Steam is one of them). If Valve dies, Steam dies, and the resultant consequences of it for your 100+ game library.

But when I read comments like yours, I get frustrated, because it's means I get conflicted. I don't want DRM, but how much pressure can one person have before they go "fuck it", and relent?

Re:No managers

[Anonymous Coward]

You should consider reconsidering about Steam and DRM.

This weekend I wanted to re-install a game I purchased probably a decade ago. One of my CDs was scratched so I went to a Well Known Piracy Site and downloaded an image then installed using my very valid CD Key. I tried to start it and was informed that because of the games DRM no recognizing my image as the right CD that I couldn't play. So I had to go to Another Well Known Piracy Site to get a hacked .exe at great risk to my system in order to play it.

If I bought it on Steam it would have cost me an extra $10 over what I had already paid, much less on sale, I've seen it for $1.75. If they shut down and Steam stops working I'm in no worse a boat than I am buying it straight from the source and wrecking a disk. Not to mention that I had to manually find, download, and install all the patches since Steam wasn't handling it for me.

Re:No managers

[ColdWetDog]

Perhaps you should read less Ayn Rand and concern yourself more with reality.

Perhaps this is what they're trying for - some twisted world in which Ayn Rand makes sense.

Re:No managers

[humanrev]

OK, fair enough. However I grew up with pirated content so obtaining an ISO, grabbing the latest patch and version-matched crack from GameCopyWorld is trivial for me since I've done it since God-knows how long. You don't forget skills like that and the benefits of Steam don't always outweight the advantages of doing it yourself.

I bought a copy of TimeShift a while back (a good, not great FPS). I also have a downloaded ISO of it - no-one's gonna scratch an ISO so there's no threat there. It's patched to version 1.2 and cracked appropriately. I had a look on Steam - they've got TimeShift available, but after reading forum comments it seems they forgot to apply any patches to it; it's still at version 1.0 which misses out on a fair number of performance and bug fixes. You can't just easily patch Steam games using a patch not designed for them (you can, sorta, but it's more effort than the retail version since the patch might look for a regkey to show the game is installed, etc).

Now this isn't an issue for games which are specifically designed only for Steam distribution or which use Steamworks, and since we seem to be running out of big-title PC games that DON'T require some form of linking to an online account, whether that be Steam or Origin or Battle.net, this problem will be less likely to happen in the future. But I still like having total control over the stuff I buy. GOG is probably the closest digital vendor for games which matches my preferences for this. I just wish people viewed non-DRM content higher than they do, but that's just me.

Re:No managers

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you really implying that the only expendatures of a company is the employee's salaries?

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:No managers

[Z34107]

You'll catch autism if you try to do everything /. tells you to. If you want to buy games on Steam ("how much pressure before one relents"), go buy them. They're cheap and the DRM is unobtrusive.

If nothing else, they're doing the Lord's work by regularly kicking the other publishers in the sack.

Re:No managers

[trout007]

I've worked at companies that were structures this way by accident. It was a government contract design and machine shop. The manager was just a laid back guy that got an order and let us figure it out.. The engineers liked designing and the machinists liked building things. We were very successful because we did what we liked.

The best part is that if you have an experienced group you can easily tell which projects are a waste of time and nobody worked on those. This allocated resources very efficiently.

Then one day the contract was up and new management came in and tried to actually manage the place. Everyone with a brain left after 6 months.

Re:No managers

[f3rret]

Fun fact, many of the games on steam don't actually have DRM, you just just launch them from the folder they get installed to, no need to sign in through steam. Of course all the big titles have DRM out the ass, but whatcha gonna do.

Re:No managers

[Compaqt]

True, but that's not what the article said.

The article said an analyst estimated somebody might pay $2.5 to buy the company, not that they have $2.5 bil in the bank.

Although Valveâ(TM)s finances are private, Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, estimates that the company could be worth around $2.5 billion today.

Re:No managers

[Compaqt]

I'll ignore the presentation of your argument, and just make a few points:

Regarding the joy of creation, yeah, after I've made something (either tangible or software), I like to look at it, and I enjoy the fact that it's perfect.

However, not every creation is also a product, ready to sell. Taking a general view (and not just of Valve specifically), there's all sorts of stuff you have to do, which you really wouldn't want to do for free. Tracking down weird bugs, creating install programs, testing on myriad different configurations (Vista, 7, XP?, Mac, etc.) with various hardware, etc. That's stuff's highly boring and soul-grinding. It has to be done, but I doubt anybody would choose to do it if they had a choice.

So I'm not speaking up for "the man", but rather asking for practical advice on how he can be avoided.

Re:No managers

[Areyoukiddingme]

I wasn't really answering you. I was answering the guy who has been modded flamebait; I took the bait.

As far as your specific question, the article makes it pretty clear that everybody is answerable to Gabe Newell. It's the ultimate in flatness. The bit about the Hollywood guy having his desk forcibly moved by Gabe himself was a pretty good hint how things really work.

Aside from that, what probably happens most of the time is Valve hires somebody with a particular specialty and they end up pursuing that particular specialty without a lot of formal direction. Hire a modeler guy, he's probably going to do a lot of modeling. Hire a programmer guy, he's probably going to do a lot of programming. Hire a tester guy, he's probably going to do a lot of testing. The fact that he finds out what needs testing next in an informal way, rather than an edict from his formal Report (with a capital R), is either a pleasantly laid back environment or maddeningly ambiguous and lacking in responsibility.

Which way that falls out is a function of the personalities hired and the existing personalities and environment. Done well, it could be very nice. Done badly, it's useless. I have had the misfortune of working in a small company (much smaller than Valve), which did it badly. No one was given any direction, but no one was given any authority, either. If Valve is doing it right, a new hire is given just one instruction (by Gabe, apparently, 'cause of the flatness): do what needs doing, do what you think best. That confers sufficient authority for a domain expert to exercise his expertise. After that, it's just a matter of hiring responsible adults, which isn't as hard as people think.

Re:No managers

[beefmusta]

What if you hire somebody and tell him to work on whatever, and he just posts stuff like this to /. all day. Who would he be accountable to?

That thought also crossed my mind while reading the valve employee manual. The reason it wouldn't be a problem is that if you're good enough to get hired by Valve, the chances are quite high you'd also be responsible enough not to do that.

Re:No managers

[frenetic_wimp]

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

or just light on fire

Re:No managers

[Anonymous Coward]

best comment of the thread/article

Re:No managers

[drinkypoo]

If you want to buy games on Steam ("how much pressure before one relents"), go buy them.

If you want to buy games on Steam ("how much pressure before one relents"), go rent them. There, FTFY.

Re:No managers

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you stop that, please? I don't use Steam because I've been conditioned by Slashdot to disregard all forms of DRM (and no-one can deny that Steam is one of them). If Valve dies, Steam dies, and the resultant consequences of it for your 100+ game library.

But when I read comments like yours, I get frustrated, because it's means I get conflicted. I don't want DRM, but how much pressure can one person have before they go "fuck it", and relent?

Believe me I weighed the decisions and still got my games on Steam, this is why:

- Vast majority of games I got on sale, 50%-75% off
- Steam games can be backed up to disc
- Steam games can be played offline
- Games you buy on disc today most likely require a server anyways, if at least for activation.
- If they ever do go down I'll just download a cracked exe, since I've already legally downloaded the game my chances of getting caught pirating on bittorrent are much slimmer.

The sad truth is today whether you buy a disc or a digital download, both are going to be considered rentals by the company. You don't own the game by their contract and they have the right to remove your legal access to the product at any time. In fact some companies only give you a limited number of installs/activations even if you buy the disc. Once they are used up if they say "no" your disc is legally just a coaster now. At least with Steam I'm getting a good discount and not paying a full $60 for my rental.

Re:No managers

[gman003]

Their solution to that?

1) Hire the best people. The best people are always self-motivating: I know if *I* worked at Valve, I wouldn't have time to waste on /., I'd be too busy doing awesome things. And play-testing the new (Half-Life|Portal|Left 4 Dead|Team Fortress|Counter-Strike|Day of Defeat|Ricochet).

2) Salaries are employee-decided. They periodically get a bunch of people together to review your salary. So that means if you waste the company's time, you don't get paid as much as the guy who won the company 50+ GOTY awards.

From all reports, that results in a very competitive environment. When you hire the best, they all fight to become the best of the best.

Re:No managers

[humanrev]

The sad truth is today whether you buy a disc or a digital download, both are going to be considered rentals by the company. You don't own the game by their contract and they have the right to remove your legal access to the product at any time. In fact some companies only give you a limited number of installs/activations even if you buy the disc. Once they are used up if they say "no" your disc is legally just a coaster now. At least with Steam I'm getting a good discount and not paying a full $60 for my rental.

Yes I am aware I don't technically "own" the game as far as letter of the law is concerned, but at least in the "old days" you had a disc that didn't need authentication, and hence no matter what happened to the company/publisher, you could ALWAYS install and play that game, so long as you had a platform to run it on. There was no possible way to revoke access or block access due to local Internet troubles, or troubles on THEIR servers (which isn't funny, since it does happen - look at the initial Diablo 3 troubles). No-one can break down my door and take my purchased software away from me, but tying all my games to a single account creates a single point of failure, and I am NOT able to give all that trust to a single company no matter how many fanboys it's got.

My God, you can get games from GOG (now with some great really modern titles like ArmA 2 and Alan Wake) and yet no-one every considers it when discussing the issues of modern-day PC gaming. I really GOG took over from Steam, but again... everyone seems to feel like they must pander to the big publishers and buy their bullshit. /rant mode, off

Re:No managers

[ravenshrike]

Not to mention that the areas of market operation are completely different. One deals primarily in non-physical cheap goods which have little to no transport cost and whose only function is entertainment and whose competitors by and large are great honking gits, while the other deals in physical expensive goods with large transport costs and a specific physical function and competition who aren't all great honking gits.

Re:No managers

[The MAZZTer]

My 100+ game library isn't going anywhere. If Steam dies, I am sure the Internet would be more than happy to help me remove the Steam DRM using "patches".

Re:No managers

[ArsonSmith]

Your enlightening post has made me change my views. Thanks for opening my eyes with your persuasive arguments.

Ohh, wait what you state in your post is exactly what happened next in the story....ohh well. I guess you fail again.

Re:No managers

[ArsonSmith]

Ohh gee, i didn't think of it like that.

Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

I know we're all supposed to get a hardon over everything Valve does, but meh to this. Go work on the next Half-Life installment, which is something people actually want to see.

Gaming Headset Seem Too Strenous

[Anonymous Coward]

Given how much you look around in first person games having to move your head would end up very strenuous and would likely result in some sort of RSI. I'd much rather look at a monitor in front of me and move the mouse a few centimetres when I want to look around.

I also wonder how these headsets will work with movement/aim. With standard first person control where you're looking, the direction you're facing and the point you're aiming at are all the same. With a headset it would be ridiculous to set your movement direction/aim by turning your head, so the direction you're travelling/aiming will have to be separate from the direction you're looking. That will lead to a situation you often experience when controlling tanks in games where the turret ends up facing a different direction to where the tank is travelling, so you get confused and have to take a moment to re-align the turret with the tank direction. Having to do that in a fast paced FPS would become annoying, and it would be frustrating to die repeatedly because you were sorting yourself out while getting shot at.

I see these headsets as being like 3D films - a fun novelty that you'd only want to use occasionally.

Re:Gaming Headset Seem Too Strenous

[Anonymous Coward]

That will lead to a situation you often experience when controlling tanks in games where the turret ends up facing a different direction to where the tank is travelling, so you get confused and have to take a moment to re-align the turret with the tank direction.

That's a problem with a fixed screen -- not an issue with a head-tracking rig. You slave the turret to your head, and the tracks to your ass+keyboard. To aim in the direction of motion, point your head forward; to track a target as you drive by, you look over your shoulder and track it visually. The brain is well-adapted to keeping track of head-hips skew, because we do that when walking, riding, or driving.

big picture, eh

[sixsixtysix]

perhaps this will lead to some decent pc platformers that aren't just shitty ports.

Cool, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm all for wearable computing and it's great to see Valve pushing it forward.

But... I kind of miss the days when Valve made games.

Re:Cool, but...

[Rockoon]

Portal 2 wasnt that long ago, and it was (IMHO) one of the most polished games every released in the history of PC gaming. That there was no management hierarchy directing the games development is a testament to exactly how wrong the factory mindset is in creative industries.

Re:Cool, but...

[supersloshy]

Don't forget Counter Strike: Global Offensive and DOTA 2!

Yo! Dude! Like where is my iphone5?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wanna have it like now! So u lozerz no I am an APPLER fruit!

I want to believe

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to believe but I have heard for decades now about VR helmets and every time the product fails/disappears or they are not a viable option for most people.

Anonymous HW Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Valve is one of the few companies that I would walk away from my current employer to join even if the money wasn't any better. Having my code shrinkwrapped into an OS which is rapidly becoming obsolete isn't really doing it for me anymore.

I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon

Any dispute or claim relating in any way to your use of any Amazon Service, or to any products or services sold or distributed by Amazon or through Amazon.com will be resolved by binding arbitration, rather than in court

EA

YOU UNDERSTAND THAT BY THIS PROVISION, YOU AND EA ARE FOREGOING THE RIGHT TO SUE IN COURT AND HAVE A JURY TRIAL.

Ebay

...Agreement to Arbitrate, which will, with limited exception, require you to submit claims you have against us to binding and final arbitration, unless you opt-out of the Agreement to Arbitrate (see Legal Disputes, Section B ("Agreement to Arbitrate")). Unless you opt-out: (1) you will only be permitted to pursue claims against eBay on an individual basis....

Newegg preferred account.

THIS AGREEMENT REQUIRES THE USE OF ARBITRATION ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS TO RESOLVE DISPUTES

On top of all this I have found generic arbitration clauses and a plethora of companies that are too numerous to count.

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[ruadatha]

None of which is worth the paper it's not even printed on or signed if it runs afoul of local law. You can cite as many as you wish, that doesn't make them magically waver legal rights, *even if you agree to them*

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[Nemyst]

Which is exactly the same case for Steam as it is for these other services. That's not the argument being made here. The argument was that Steam was somehow so much worse and more evil than everybody else.

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[Zuriel]

EA

YOU UNDERSTAND THAT BY THIS PROVISION, YOU AND EA ARE FOREGOING THE RIGHT TO SUE IN COURT AND HAVE A JURY TRIAL.

Newegg preferred account.

THIS AGREEMENT REQUIRES THE USE OF ARBITRATION ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS TO RESOLVE DISPUTES

You know it's legal because they use capitals.

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[PTBarnum]

Actually, yes, the capitals do make it more likely to be legally binding. IANAL, but I was recently reviewing my employment contract with a lawyer, and she explained that it is important to draw attention to arbitration clauses, and caps are one way to do that.

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[ericloewe]

Writing some illegal clause in caps does not magically make it legal.

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[dreamchaser]

Actually, yes, the capitals do make it more likely to be legally binding. IANAL, but I was recently reviewing my employment contract with a lawyer, and she explained that it is important to draw attention to arbitration clauses, and caps are one way to do that.

You need a new attorney if she told you that it makes it more likely to be legally binding. Caps are just used for emphasis and have absolutely zero bearing on the legality of a clause.

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[L4t3r4lu5]

From the EA link above, same section:

This provision applies to all consumers to the fullest extent allowable by law, but expressly excludes residents of Quebec, Russia, Switzerland, the Member States of the European Union, and the Republic of Korea.

Hmmm... South Korea has better consumer protections than the US. umadbro?

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[interkin3tic]

I'm aware that there was a small claims suit recently against AT&T that the guy won $800 for the "unlimited data" scam, despite a part of his contract saying he wouldn't sue. Other than that, have there been many other cases where those provisions were actually tested?

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[Valor958]

Wouldn't he be allowed to sue because said agreement and the clause was violated by AT&T first by breaching his data plan? That was what I took from it. They breached first, therefor he was allowed to pursue legal means even against the clause stating he wouldn't. Regardless, it won't change the way AT&T does anything since a few extra zeros weren't added on there to make the burn count. Lack of major publicity for this event didn't help either in shining light on how yet another big biz does bad biz.

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading comprehension fail. He didn't say the lawyer said it was more likely to be binding if it was in caps. The lawyer said using caps is good because it's important to draw attention to that particular section. Sweet titty sex. I bet you make like 40 or 50 grand a year too. And you can't even read. God damn bless america.

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[Anonymous Coward]

You could argue that the clause is surprising and buried in the noise. In reasonable jurisdictions, that's actually a compelling reason why a clause should be invalid. Emphasizing few, important sections may be used to defend against this.

Sadly, many lawyers seem to think that they can just write everything in all caps to emphasize the entire contract.

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[kungfugleek]

YES IT DOES.

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[geminidomino]

Except that, as of a few weeks ago (give or take), it's explicitly been given the OK by the highest court in the US. So repeating "it's illegal" doesn't make it so, either, without specifying jurisdiction.

And the big difference between Steam and Amazon is that, if I decided I didn't want to agree with Amazon's EULA, I don't have to give back everything I've ever paid them for. So in that respect, yes, Steam is worse.

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[ericloewe]

Of course, the US is probably the only first world country where something like this is considered business as usual by the supreme court. "Consumer protection" is probably a vague, mysterious concept in the US.

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[geminidomino]

That's not true. We know exactly what it is. How else could we manage to avoid it so adroitly?

Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one.

[Grumbleduke]

In English law this idea is (sometimes) known as the "Red Hand Rule" (you can see some details here). Basically, the more unreasonable a term in a contract is, the more attention must be drawn to it for it to have been successfully incorporated in to the contract. The US way seems to be to use capitals and underlining, the UK way (traditionally) was to use red ink, or have a big red hand pointing it out (as demonstrated in that article).

So yes, being in capitals *could* make something more likely to be legally binding, or rather, less likely to be struck out as not being incorporated due to being unreasonable (in jurisdictions where that can happen).

But I am not a contract lawyer (yet).

So it's the phantom

[rsilvergun]

for real? Could work. Intel's integrated graphics are pushing out something on the order of a Nvidia GT240 if you get the 4000, which is more than acceptable. They've pretty much got to do something, since if Microsoft goes all walled garden on them and it sticks then they're basically done. I wish them luck. I like my Steam games.

5-10 year plan

[FlynnMP3]

In my opinion, this is the way businesses should be run. Gabe is looking at the 5 to 10 year goal of wearable computing will be powerful enough for virtual reality. I don't know if he is right, virtual reality has been virtually around the corner for nearly decades now. I hope it will be. It pretty much depends on if the processing power of the computer chip continues to follow Moore's Law. And even then, I don't know. Maybe not total virtual reality - more like augmented reality. In any case, we even could see Half Life 3 by then. Now *that* would be cool.

Re:5-10 year plan

[pellik]

I remember early VR systems. One big problem they had was that virtual worlds were of such poor quality that having it all around your head really didn't provide any benefit. With this problem unsolved it never surprised me that VR technology hadn't progressed much in the last two decades.

Now we are starting to see virtual worlds reaching levels of detail that are almost passable as real. It makes a lot of sense to start looking at VR now, if you believe that real level of detail is achievable in 5-10 years, and you hope to innovate in the VR field in a similar time-frame.

I'm really impressed with Valve right now.

Re:5-10 year plan

[Rockoon]

I'm really impressed with Valve right now.

While the Valve model is a part of it, you should be directing your praises specifically at Michael Abrash.

Abrash is a long-time graphics and optimization guru (author of Zen of Assembly Language, Zen of Graphics Programming, and two legendary Dr Dobbs series of articles, one titled Ramblings In Realtime and the other Graphics Programming Black Book) that Valve has been trying to hire for a very long time.

This is the guy who single-handedly made the Quake rendering engine, with its software-based perspective-correct texture mapping and lighting, a possibility at the time that it was released. Valve finally succeeded in landing him about a year ago, and he has been investigating the practicality of Virtual and Augmented Reality ever since.

He even writes about some of his findings in his blog, Ramblings in Valve Time

The headmounted display

[Areyoukiddingme]

The headmounted display (HMD) the NYT article leads off with wasn't created by Valve though. It was created by Palmer Luckey. Gabe helped him assemble a tiny little 8 person corporation to commercialize the design (and probably offered private financing to help make sure it gets off the ground in style, though that has never been publically reported). He may not need the financing though. The Oculus Rift Kickstarter ended a little over a week ago and was phenomenally successful. They're calling it one of the top 10 Kickstarters so far. That same HMD has been credited to John Carmack too, so it's not too surprising the NYT got it wrong.

As for the people complaining about how clunky the pictures look, ever heard of prototyping? That's what that was. Check the Kickstarter page for what the Rift 1.0 kits will look like when they ship this December. You can bet the Rift 2.0, likely to be available commercially next year, will look even slicker.

As for the people complaining about getting sick or eyestrain from it, it may come as a shock, but the past 20 years haven't been completely useless in determining what was wrong with '80s VR. Human vision is now so well understood that a layman can explain the basic issues with VR. It doesn't take an optometrist anymore. More to the point, Carmack has done some real science using the Rift prototype he has and determined that the biggest driver for making VR work (or not) is latency, in both headtracking and the display. Get that roundtrip loop down to less than 20 milliseconds, and human vision (and brain) buys it. It looks like looking at a world, after that, and no longer induces vertigo. The hardware is finally at a point where getting under that limit is feasible.

The biggest reason VR can succeed this time is display technology. Smart phones have driven the costs of conveniently small conveniently high resolution LCD panels into the ground. What was once a ridiculously custom built $50,000 piece of gear is now a $300 piece of gear made of off the shelf parts originally intended for phones. Right down to the sensors. Trackers on a chip have also gotten both very sophisticated and astonishingly cheap. It ain't the '80s anymore, kids.

What does all this have to do with Valve? Valve in general and Gabe Newell in particular believes that this time, VR WILL work, and that the platform of choice to get it off the ground is the PC. PCs tolerate new peripherals better than any other platform, especially since many platforms don't tolerate 3rd party peripherals in any form at all. Good luck creating a 3rd party peripheral for the PS3, for instance. Of course, if Microsoft succeeds in killing the PC as we know it with their own app store, then Valve needs their own platform. Hence, the hardware design interest. If their platform includes ready-to-run Virtual Reality that actually lives up to sci fi dreams, so much the better. The results may ultimately become Yet Another Walled Garden (YAWG. Catchy, eh?), but so it goes.

Re:The headmounted display

[Osgeld]

yea, I had a 300$ one in the 90's and another 300$ one with high resolution TFT's in the early 2000's, delay was well below 20ms and it still boils down that a flickering screen less than an inch from your eye, in stereo will make most peoples heads split in a matter of moments. not to mention even the lightest one I had at only a handful of ounces was still flat out uncomfortable.

your right its not the 80's anymore, but just cause they reduced the issues, doesnt mean the issues are gone.

Re:The headmounted display

[Anonymous Coward]

i had a Virtual I/O iGlasses (~$900) borrowed from a friend for quite some time. Played a lot of Descent at the time. Man I'd kill for a high resolution version. Was it really that bad?

Re:The headmounted display

[strack]

apparently the lenses in the oculus rift collimate the light, so its like focusing on a screen at a infinite distance.

Re:The headmounted display

[Anonymous Coward]

yea, I had a 300$ one in the 90's and another 300$ one with high resolution TFT's in the early 2000's

Which make/model of VR headsets did you have specifically or are you specifically speaking from your anus?

Re:The headmounted display

[Areyoukiddingme]

You whine too much. A handful of ounces is not uncomfortable. I've worn prescription glasses since I was a child, and before high refraction index plastics were available, my glasses weighed a handful of ounces. It's trivial to become accustomed to that weight, to the point it's unnoticeable. Nor is the design of prescription glasses so marvelous that the weight is especially well distributed. Eyeglasses are fashion items, so comfort is very much a secondary consideration. The designers of the Rift won't have to work very hard to design better weight distribution.

Nor do I believe for a moment that any HMD available a decade ago had latency less than 20ms. Certainly not at that price. Even current commercial HMDs exceed that limit, at three times the price.

Nor were any HMDs available a decade ago even remotely high resolution. I remember. I looked into them, repeatedly. 320x200 was the best you could hope for.

Nor does a TFT flicker. There's no such thing as phosphor fade or vertical blanking or phosphor refresh in an LCD panel.

Now if your content flickers, that's your problem. Short answer, VR is not for movies. Don't try to watch a jumpy flickery flashy action movie on VR. It's a waste of the capability of the headset anyway, since movies have no use for headtracking. Don't watch ANY movie on VR and you'll be fine. That's not what it's for, and Sony (and many other manufacturers) are perpetually stupid for thinking it is.

I'm with the other responder. I think you talk out your ass a lot.

Re:The headmounted display

[jeti]

The Rift has three advantages over existing affordable headsets:
    1. Large field of view
    2. Low lag when rotating the head
    3. Optics that concentrate the pixel density in the center, where vision is best

However, if you move your viewpoint without moving yourself, there still is a disconnect between what you see and what your inner ear reports. This can cause nausea. Palmer has done some experiments with galvanic stimulation of the inner ear. But this is still far away from being safe enough for public consumption.

Furthermore, your eyes remain focused at infinity, even if you look at closer objects. This might cause eyestrain or headache or just look wrong.

I'm excited about the Rift myself and it seems to be far better than what has been affordable so far. While the immersion will be great, some basic problems remain. Whether VR headsets will appeal to a large enough market outside the military remains to be seen.

Re:The headmounted display

[Anonymous Coward]

You had a HMD with a delay of sub-20ms using 6 DOF head tracking!? AND only for $300!?! in the early 2000's!?!

And one more to make sure I've successfully called your bullshit !?!

Re:The headmounted display

[f3rret]

Just get the brain interface developed already! Plug me into the Matrix, I wanna know kung-fu baby.

Re:The headmounted display

[drinkypoo]

a flickering screen less than an inch from your eye

I give to you OLED

If it flickers it's at such a rate you don't care.

not to mention even the lightest one I had at only a handful of ounces was still flat out uncomfortable.

An OLED set could literally be no heavier than a normal pair of glasses today, but admittedly it would be outrageously expensive if so.

Re:The headmounted display

[Osgeld]

hang a few ounces inches from your face and feel the leverage

"Nor does a TFT flicker"

now I know your full of shit, LCD's do in fact refresh, often at 60Hz, which flickers

Re:The headmounted display

[Anonymous Coward]

The refreshing of LCDs does not impact the back light (the screen does not dim between frames.)

I thought this was a tech site?

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:Quaintly Ignorant

[game kid]

Yup, I read it whenever the mood strikes but the NYT and its obliviousness is...legendary.

Re:Quaintly Ignorant

[Hadlock]

Tech "journalism" is crap and easily swayed by terrible companies to get good reviews. Remember when Rock Star was flying tech journalists to a resort from LAX via helicopter to ensure good reviews for one of their GTA games? Big newspapers like the NYT....and any major regional newspaper, really, don't get much advertising money from companies like EA and Activision, so they have much less incentive to write an article biased towards the company. When you want good reviews you send press releases to tech "journalism" websites. Most tech journalists don't even have journalism degrees and write as a side job to help them afford their run down apartment and ramen diet. When you have a solid product or are getting ready to change the direction of your company, you cash in one of your favors owed to you by a big newspaper for coverage. If your company gets covered in the NYT, that means someone managed to convince an adult that it was newsworthy, beyond the simple "wow factor" that would get them published in a desperate tech website.
 
Keep in mind that people who are 40 were playing Doom and Doom II in college.

buh didn't they prove VR headsets BAD Idea

[AgNO3]

"What happened to 3D Virtual Reality? Do you remember in the mid-90s when virtual reality headsets were going to be the next big thing? Do you wonder why the whole technology just sort of went away? VR pioneer Mark Pesce has spilled the goods. Audioholics was able to contact Mr. Pesce via Twitter where he answered a few questions for us regarding his work with Sega and the mysterious disappearance of its VR project. Over 15 years ago, Mark Pesce worked with Sega on its VR Headset, which was intended to plug into the Sega set-top-box. The headset was going to provide gamers with a virtual reality 3D environment. Of course Sega wasn’t the only one developing a VR headset at the time, and we all expected to be running around in 3D environments when graphics evolved beyond chunky wireframes of the early VR visuals. We thought the technology was just around the corner. With a working VR Headset almost ready for market, Sega had the product tested by a third party lab, the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) at Palo Alto California - the results weren’t pretty. The lab at Stanford came back to Sega with dire warnings about the hazards of prolonged use of this technology. SRI warned Sega: "

Re:buh didn't they prove VR headsets BAD Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

The tech wasn't quite there yet back then. Comparing today to 15 years ago is like comparing Apples to Oranges, it's just not the same.

Re:buh didn't they prove VR headsets BAD Idea

[gl4ss]

they weren't a bad idea. they were expensive. that '90s vr helmet company turned to vuzix.

oculus rift & etc are proving it's not so expensive anymore.

Pyro Vision?

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't buy one until I can get it with PyroVision!

So, its a hat.

[bjorniac]

Well played, Gaben, well played.

Watch John Carmack's QuakeCon 2012 keynote...

[olau]

... where he goes into more detail of what Areyoukiddingme said.

It's 3.5 hours, but it's really fascinating. Here's a link.

Unveiled Too Soon

[RazorSharp]

They're still hiring designers and engineers to get this thing off the ground and it's already revealed? Newell criticized MS for copying Apple ("[T]rying to copy Apple will accelerate, not slow, Microsoft's decline.") yet he really should have copied Apple in this instance rather than go the old MS route. The MS route is to show off a product in the early prototype stages. The Apple method is to show off a functional product. Maybe Newell is trying to attract the attention of potential investors. If not, he just made a huge blunder. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft probably already all have working VR prototypes and associated patents. Now they just have to combine that hardware with the 'augmented reality' concept (and two of those companies can take a short-cut by partnering with Google).

Really, Newell dug his own hole. He stayed closely allied with Microsoft from the creation to Valve until the unveiling of Windows 8. He's mad that their new OS might wipe out his business, yet he helped contribute to Microsoft's stranglehold on the PC gaming market. Perhaps if he didn't want to be dependent on another company that has a history of stabbing partners in the back, then he would have ported Half-Life to something other than PS2 (and only after the Dreamcast - Microsoft's console - became an apparent failure). Newell's last minute support of OS X and Linux reeks of desperation. Like the PS2 port, it's an 'oh shit!' moment. Well, he's the one that threw his company's weight behind Windows and XBox. OS X has undergone huge growth since its inception, Linux geeks are the ideal market for Valve products, yet he ignored those markets in favor of laying golden eggs for Microsoft. Maybe he thought being a part of their good 'ole boys network would always pay off.

The only reason I feel somewhat sorry for him is because his company is committed to making quality games. I don't play video games anymore, but I like people who are committed to creating things of high quality. But Newell's quality products were dependent on non-quality products. It's like whatever company that makes the best aftermarket parts for Hondas. Whoever that was, I bet they tanked in the early 2000s when Honda went away from those tiny two-door Civics that were so popular among modders.

Re:Unveiled Too Soon

[Anonymous Coward]

But Valve doesn't have any investors. You've no idea what you're talking about.

Re:Unveiled Too Soon

[RazorSharp]

But Valve doesn't have any investors. You've no idea what you're talking about.

My point was that he might need the help of investors to get the project off the ground. I don't think this is the case, but it's the only logical reason I can see for announcing it so soon. It's far too early to get the hype train rolling.

True, I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but I don't think anything about my post tried to disguise the fact that it was a bunch of speculative BS.

Re:Unveiled Too Soon

[vigour]

... then he would have ported Half-Life to something other than PS2 (and only after the Dreamcast - Microsoft's console - became an apparent failure...

Irrelevant, the Dreamcast was Sega's console not MS, and they stopped making it two years before HL2 was released. What were the other console options at the time? An under-powered Gamecube or Wii? Remember, HL2 struggled on the original Xbox, porting it to the Wii would have been silly, and now you can get HL2 on the Xbox360 and PS3.

... Newell's last minute support of OS X and Linux reeks of desperation....

You need to decrease the hyperbole, they had a Mac OS 9 port of HL1 that was never released. Obviously they realised that there was no profit to be made in it. Likewise it's only since OS X has grown in popularity that is it worth their effort to port HL2 to it. It doesn't sound like an act of desperation, rather a smart move to gain some extra customers, or old ones with shiny new macs.

... Linux geeks are the ideal market for Valve products,...

Linux geeks are not the ideal market to Valve, we're too small compared to the main Windows market and most of us dual boot or use Wine where we can. Carmack could never make money out of us, but I am hoping that Valve can.

Re:Unveiled Too Soon

[ZosX]

OS X? Huge growth? Last I looked at the numbers it was still in the single digit range where it has firmly been for years. Wake me up when over 10% of PCs are Macs. Sure there's a market, but its not very big. Linux is 1% fwiw. But you know, Microsoft's stranglehold according to you has kept games from other platforms. Nevermind that they were just tiny, insignificant markets. Also honda never quit making 2 door civics and aftermarket parts makers never went out of business. Do you always write about things you know nothing about? Dreamcast was long gone by the time halflife 2 came. It was sega's console and Microsoft provided the operating system for it. A winCE variant I think? He threw his company behind the market with the most potential profit. Amazing, right? I mean gee, how did they ever stay in business with desperate moves like that? First of all, none of your arguments make sense. Secondly I'm sure the people at valve see the decline of Windows as a platform vs IOS and Android for general users. The know the market is changing and, guess what? steam isn't part of any of those newer market and that's a problem. I wouldn't exactly say they are desperate though.

Re:Unveiled Too Soon

[RazorSharp]

Irrelevant, the Dreamcast was Sega's console not MS,

Better check the software that thing ran. . . it was XBox 0.5

Regarding Mac OS X . . . Valve started supporting it long after it was obviously profitable. Mid-tier games sold poorly on Mac OS X (until the app store) but top-tier games, as Blizzard demonstrated, raked in a nice profit. I understand this situation with HL 1, but with HL 2 he took preference to MS's platforms and neglected all others (he publicly trashed the PS3 port, blaming dev woes on the system).

Linux geeks are the ideal market for Valve. In fact, that pretty much is their market. Linux geeks tend to run multiple OSes (and would buy HL twice to have it on Linux). The reason Valve games are much more successful on the PC than they are on consoles is b/c that's the type of niche they appeal to.

Re:Unveiled Too Soon

[RazorSharp]

Take out the corporate environment and I'd be willing to be that over 10% of PCs are Macs. Percentages don't really matter in this case, anyway. A very tiny, insignificant amount of homes had Macs in 2000. Today, it's a common for a home to have a Mac. That's what I consider huge growth, and Apple's sales data will back that up. Marketshare is a non-factor.

  It appears I was wrong about the Civics (I think - I'm pretty sure they halted either the 2-door or hatchback model for a year or two in the States but after two minutes of searching I couldn't find anything to back it up so I'll just concede that point). Anyway, there was a significant design shift between sixth and seventh generation Civics thus resulting in a decline in the modder market for them (not that it hurt sales - modders usually bought them used). Anyway, I wasn't claiming that the whole market for aftermarket parts collapsed, it just seriously declined and Civics lost their status as the mod car du jour (not to mention Honda brought out those Si models, which didn't really need any souping-up and modding in general declined in popularity).

  You're the second post to correct me on the Dreamcast thing - I don't understand where either of you got the idea that I was talking about HL2 when I said 'Half-Life' and mentioned a PS2 port. . .

  I think my arguments make sense. They may be wrong, but they're not incomprehensible. Here's a less ranty version: Newell, being a former Microsoft employee and part of their circle of cronies, was too loyal to the company he was no longer a part of. He made the mistake of assuming that as long as he rubbed their backs the favor would be returned. Now he's backpedaling on this strategy because Valve and Microsoft's interests are no longer aligned. It was a strategic blunder on his part because it left him with the short end of the stick. Steam is liable to be destroyed by Win 8 and this whole VR thing they're working on probably won't save the company because they unveiled the secret too soon. If Valve has any kind of future, it's probably resembles their past more than their present: as a developer of original games, not a distributor or hardware designer/manufacturer.

Re:Unveiled Too Soon

[ZosX]

Fair enough. You do realize that anything you post here tends to get picked to pieces right?

Didn't mean any harm there really. Its just sport after a certain point. :)

Re:Unveiled Too Soon

[ZosX]

Also...you may be correct about macs. Clearly there is a large enough market now for valve to develop steam for it. I think windows is now clearly in the decline. It will persist for a long time, but I think people want something more like android or ios to be their computing experience. I use my tablet and phone far more than my laptop. But my laptop runs lightroom and plays games that my tablet can't. Windows 8 is a desperate move if you want to point out desperation. If they can succeed at moving their api into something more portable they might have something. Shame about the metro...erm..modern ui.

oh this shouldbe cool

[Anonymous Coward]

you know how they extend the periscope from a uboot?
imagine now then a camera on the roof/or/hood/or/... of your (real) car, that
feeds into zem glasses? how's that for a traffic overview ...

Wow

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Maybe that headset looks tiny on Gabe, but for a normal sized human that is a monstrosity.

Big Picture looks cool, but the future of gaming is not just a fancy HD interface to an app store.

So far Valve is getting a failing grade on efforts to create a "new" gaming platform.