#tf2 pyroland

While I was in Seattle earlier this month for Emerald City Comic Con, I was given the chance to visit Valve’s new headquarters! I took pictures where I was allowed, so please enjoy them. Each one has a description, if you look at them individually.

My guide Joel was very friendly and informative, and I got to walk around the place for an hour while he told me about how they use the different facilities. There were a few areas I wasn’t allowed into, which is fine, but what I did see was amazing!!!

Notes about Valve HQ in no particular order:

1. They have several floors of the building they’re in, which didn’t seem to be divided up in a strict way. Frequent common spaces with lots of light and comfy places to relax, think, and chat with co-workers. Joel said they decided on where different development teams would be placed based on where people naturally congregated. It felt very campus-like.
   
2. There were individual offices for administrative business and some personal art studios we walked by, but it seemed like people probably didn’t spend a lot of time holed up individually, unless they were focusing hard on a specific task.
3. I got to look at the voice recording and motion capture studios. The mo-cap room was especially cool. There were a bunch of prop weapons mounted on the wall and some staging marked on the floor in tape. Joel said the new mo-cap room was twice as big as the old one, which allows for better recording of more action heavy movements.
4. The workshop areas I saw were impressive, including a Faraday cage, a reflective parabolic dish called the “Death Star,” a 3D printing set-up, and a power-washing and finishing station. Some of the stuff was obviously dangerous, so I kept my hands to myself. They have all the tools they need to quickly go through prototype iterations and isolate problems to fix.
5. I saw Gabe Newell from a distance while he was in a small class in one of the side rooms. Yeah, that’s right. No, I didn’t bang on the window.
6. They actually make a lot of classes available to their employees! Not just your normal technical, art, and humanities enrichment-type stuff, but physical training, too. They have a parkour class, which is super cool???
7. The amenities are sick! They have a fully kitted gym with rentable private areas and personal trainers, an open buffet area that serves a fully catered lunch on Thursdays, an in-house barber shop that opens for appointments twice a week, and a dedicated gaming lounge for employees who want to goof around with whatever tabletop stuff is on-hand. Joel confirmed to me that they do play D&D, which I wish I could sit in on so badly.
8. Joel mentioned to me, when I mentioned my curiosity about their decision to invest in virtual reality instead of augmented reality, that they went with VR and developed the Vive because it’s the harder problem to solve. Which is very Valve. If I trust any game company to figure it out, it’s them.
9. I really can’t emphasize how amazing the views were in this place. The one decent shot I got doesn’t do it justice. The most majestic views of Lake Washington, I swear!
10. I printed a nice big copy of my Latrine Duty illustration as a gift, which Joel said would go up on the fan art wall. I hope that’s a fun sexy surprise for someone.

I’m sure I’m forgetting things, but I don’t want to go on too long. It was so kind of Valve to let me have a tour, so if any of you guys are reading this, thanks a bunch!!!

Finally, I’ll leave you with the first thing I saw when I got off the elevator, since there wasn’t enough room for it in the main photoset. Heavy is here for you.