Proletariat Core Values: Week 5 – Be Respectful
This is the final post in my five-part series on the core values from Proletariat Inc., how we wrote them, how we applied them, and how they helped shape our team and culture.
We’ve covered:
Understand Why – curiosity and transparency
Decide Fast and Iterate – action and learning
Take Responsibility – ownership
Exceed Expectations – ambition and rigor
This week, we finish with a value that anchored all the others: Be Respectful.
The Core Value as Written
Be Respectful
Treat each other, the products, the players, and the company with respect. Empathy, inclusivity, diversity, and trust are critical to creative output. Assume intentions are good and come from a place of caring. Remember that we’re all in this together.
Why It Mattered
Creative work is built on collaboration and trust, and those things fall apart quickly without respect.
Respect doesn’t mean being polite or conflict-free. It means treating people like teammates, assuming positive intent, and holding each other to a high standard without tearing each other down.
In game development, and in startups in general, things move fast, tension is normal, and feedback flows constantly. Conflict is critical to finding the best idea. This value ensured we could have honest and direct conversations, where we aggressively attacked ideas but never attacked people.
What It Encouraged
Empathy in feedback: Say the hard thing, but say it in a way that helps someone grow.
Inclusivity in collaboration: Everyone’s ideas are welcome. Diverse perspectives make the work better.
Care for the product and the players: Respect wasn’t just for teammates. We expected people to care about the work and the audience.
Appreciation for the company: Individuals and teams felt aligned with the organization and everyone acted like an owner (because they all were).
Trust on the team: Give people the benefit of the doubt. Assume they care, because they probably do.
How We Applied It
“Be Respectful” wasn’t treated as a soft value. It had practical, everyday implications:
In art, design, and code reviews: Critique the work, not the person. Focus on impact, not ego. We wanted everyone to show work early but trusted them to take the feedback and apply it. (see my post about feedback structure)
In meeting discipline: Everyone was given time and space, whether they were junior or senior, and regardless of role.
In feedback sessions: We encouraged honesty and care. Be direct and critical, but say it from a place of wanting someone to succeed.
In leadership: We modeled vulnerability, admitted mistakes, and respected the team’s time, focus, and well-being. We took critical feedback head on and showed we would not take it personally.
It also showed up in our community policies, in how we responded to players, and in the choices we made about the kind of studio we wanted to be.
What Made It Work
This value worked because it was woven into everything: hiring, onboarding, communication guidelines, and leadership behavior. This was all in the pursuit of creating an environment where the best idea wins.
“Be Respectful” was not about being nice, it was about building an environment where people felt safe, supported, and that they could do their best work. Often we need critical feedback and challenging coaching to push ourselves to deliver our best work, and that is what we strived for.
Paired with values like Take Responsibility and Exceed Expectations, we hoped to find a balance where the pursuit of excellence would not lead to unsustainable burnout.
Final Thought
“Be Respectful” was never just about avoiding bad behavior. It was about building the kind of team where people feel heard, trusted, and valued, because that’s when they do their best work.
Respect fuels trust. Trust fuels creative conflict. And creative conflict builds great products.
This value was actually not one of the original ones we listed for the team, we previously attempted to spindle the ideas of “Be Respectful” throughout the other four core values. After receiving feedback we decided to call it our as a fifth core value that could stand alone. In retrospect I think it belongs at the foundation of any team trying to do something hard together.
Thanks for following this series. If you’re working on your own company values, check out my guide on how to write them.