A former Valve developer discussed the philosophy of small teams and the creation of updates for Counter-Strike

In the gaming industry, it’s commonly believed that long production cycles are due to graphics and high levels of detail. In reality, time is wasted by management indecision and constant setbacks caused by internal disputes. Valve has no formal management structure, and if we were to expand the staff, backroom politics and ego battles over the authorship of ideas would ensue. We created Left 4 Dead 2 with a team of just 45 people. If 450 employees had worked on it, the game certainly wouldn’t have been any better.

Sometimes, while working at Valve, we’d look around and marvel at just how lucky we were. Major studios employ thousands of people who create a million different features, while Valve simply releases an update with five skins for Counter-Strike, and the community reacts great—people love it. The thing is, a small team is on the same page and clearly understands exactly what players will notice and appreciate, and what they won’t pay attention to.

One fairly influential Valve employee insisted very strongly that blood, dismemberment, and corpses be added to Portal. The entire team knew this was a terrible idea for the game, but no one wanted to openly confront him. Eventually, Gabe Newell was called into the meeting just to put an end to the argument. Gabe walked into the room, listened to the proposal, and asked in surprise why we were even wasting our time having this meeting. With that, the issue of blood in the game was settled once and for all.