Gabe Newell
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'Half-Life: Alyx' is proof Valve answers to no one
Valve is like an eccentric billionaire uncle who isn't allowed to babysit any kids in the family. He lives alone in a mountaintop mansion stocked with exotic animals, vintage pinball machines, water slides and homemade potato guns, and strange sounds flow into the valley below at all hours of the night. He disappears for months at a time and returns with suitcases full of loose candy and unmarked pills. It's not that this uncle has ever hurt anyone or done anything illegal -- it's simply clear that really, he could do anything. Valve can do anything. It's unknown just how much money the studio pulls in each year, since it's a private entity and doesn't have to publicly disclose its finances, but estimates of its annual revenue begin at $4 billion. Valve founder Gabe Newell is personally worth $3.5 billion, according to Forbes. The company's main money fountain is Steam, which has been the top PC-gaming platform for more than a decade, with 1 billion registered accounts and an average of 90 million monthly active users.
Valve has fired its 'Dota 2' Shanghai Major tournament host
Gabe Newell, head honcho at Valve, has abruptly (and very publicly) fired 'Dota 2' Shanghai Major tournament host James "2GD" Harding. Newell made the announcement via Reddit on Friday, stating "We've had issues with James at previous events. Some Valve people lobbied to bring him back for Shanghai, feeling that he deserved another chance. That was a mistake. James is an ass, and we won't be working with him again." Newell also confirmed that he'd fired the production company responsible for the tournament's broadcast.
Studio changes policy after dev threatens to kill Gabe Newell
In October, after discovering issues with his game Paranautical Activity on Steam, independent developer Mike Maulbeck published a series of angry tweets that concluded with, "I am going to kill gabe newell. He is going to die." Newell is the founder of Valve, the company that runs Steam, the internet's largest gaming digital distribution hub. Because of the threat, Valve pulled Paranautical Activity from Steam and cut ties with Maulbeck's studio, Code Avarice. That same day, Maulbeck announced he was leaving Code Avarice entirely. Today, Code Avarice announced that Maulbeck is back with the studio. "Mike couldn't commit to his decision to leave Code Avarice," reads the studio's blog post. "[Co-owner Travis Pfenning] publicly denounced his departure, and in the weeks following his official stepping down Mike had second thoughts. Looking for a new source of income was extremely overwhelming and when it finally came time to put pen to paper, Mike and Travis agreed the best thing to do would be to have Mike return to Code Avarice." Maulbeck and Pfenning are taking a step back from the spotlight with a few changes to company policy: "The second half of this announcement is that we're taking steps to make Code Avarice more about the games and less about the people making them. From now on rather than blog posts being written and signed by one of the developers, they will all be co-written by Mike AND Travis, and written from the perspective of the company rather than an individual." [Image: Code Avarice]
PSA: Do not send death threats to digital distribution platform holders
The general public service announcement here is to not send death threats, like, in general, but here's an incident of a developer posting a death threat on Twitter against Valve's Gabe Newell, who runs a little digital distribution shop called Steam. Polygon has the gritty details, but the shorter version is developer Mike Maulbeck, creator of Paranautical Activity, was having a bad day yesterday with his Steam page. He's also had reported issues with the platform in the past. The latest problem was the Steam page was improperly noting the status of the game and, following a series of escalating tweets, he concluded saying: "I am going to kill gabe newell. He is going to die." That, don't do that.
Dota 2 plus ESPN2 equals televised 2014 International
Valve has announced that streaming service ESPN3 will broadcast the Dota 2 International 2014 this weekend, adding yet another route through which fans and newcomers alike can catch up on the tournament. Valve also announced that ESPN2 will host an exclusive preview of the tournament's final match at 8:30 p.m. Pacific on Sunday, featuring previous game highlights and interviews with players and Gabe Newell. An ESPN broadcast is just the most recent accomplishment for the championship series, which kicked off yesterday and runs through Monday; thanks to crowdfunding, The International 2014 now holds the record for largest eSports prize pool, with more than $10 million to split between the winners. The line between eSports and traditional sports is becoming blurry, indeed. Welp, you know what this means: everyone, head to your favorite sports bar and request they turn on ESPN2 on Sunday night. This weekend, Valve is giving us an excuse to go out and still get our video game fix. [Image: Valve]
Steam has 75 million active users, Valve announces at Dev Days
Steam has 75 million active users, Valve announced at the Steam Dev Days conference. The previous Steam user count, shared in October, was 65 million. Thanks, Steam users, for making the math on this one easy: 10 million users in three months. Wowza. Check out the regional breakdown below. Steam Dev Days is a chance for developers and publishers – only, with no press around to cramp their style – to learn more about Steam Machines and developing for Valve platforms. Each attendee has already received a Steam Controller and is going home with a Gigabyte Steam Machine "for development and not Ebay," Tinybuild Games tweets. Check out the Gigabyte box here. Valve founder Gabe Newell took the stage at Steam Dev Days and proposed the potential eradication of Greenlight, Steam's community-voted indie game approval system. "Our goal is to make Greenlight go away," Newell said, transcribed by Hot Blooded Games CFO Dave Oshry. "Not because it's not useful, but because we're evolving." The talks from Steam Dev Days should be available online later on, though the free Steam Machines are only for those actually at the conference. We know – that's nonsense. Image credit: @AntonWestbergh
Valve: Trust in employees is key to good game development
If you treat your workers with kindness and compassion, they'll reward your support with better work - at least, that's the stance Valve Software takes. In an interview with the Washington Post, Valve CEO and co-founder Gabe Newell explains this philosophy by examining how the company handles employee sick days. Specifically, Valve doesn't handle them, and employees are trusted to be responsible with their time. "[W]e don't track vacation time or sick time - we just tell people we trust you to make all of these other decisions, of course we are going to trust you to manage your own time," Newell said. "It's actually a pretty minor issue in terms of how much time people actually spend on vacation or sick leave." "But it's a really important issue for someone who is say, coming out of Hollywood," he added. "When you tell them that - and it's really true - it seems to be useful in getting them to start to realize that there is a rationale behind how the company works. There's sort of the flashy public things like desks on wheels, but it really is intended to create a better environment for a highly technical set of tasks that vary fairly quickly over time." While other companies have different tactics in dealing with the inevitability of employee illness, it's hard to argue against the games Valve has produced. Half-Life and Half-Life 2 regularly feature on "best games of all time" lists, and Team Fortress 2 is heading into its seventh year of operation with no indication that it will lose popularity any time soon.
Valve's Newell promotes 'Hour of Code' learning campaign, EA gives games to participants
Non-profit computer science advocacy group CODE.org promotes its ongoing "Hour of Code" campaign by giving students an audience with Gabe Newell, managing director of Half-Life creator Valve Corporation. The full half-hour talk is archived for public viewing in the video above. "Hour of Code" challenges students to spend an hour learning the basics of software coding, with CODE.org offering several online tutorials helping to jumpstart a career in the field of computer science. Over three million students have completed the organization's "Write your own computer program" tutorial, which is available in 20 languages and features characters from Rovio's Angry Birds and PopCap's Plants vs. Zombies throughout its lessons teaching the fundamentals of coding. Electronic Arts announced this week that elementary and middle school students who complete CODE.org's 20-hour training course are eligible to receive a free PC game via Origin. Available games include Bejeweled 3, FIFA Soccer 13, SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition and Plants vs. Zombies.
Valve boss Gabe Newell on Linux in the living room, more info next week
Valve has long touted the power of Linux as a gaming and networking platform, but at LinuxCon 2013 bossman Gabe Newell was really able to let his Linux love fly. He takes the crowd on a tour of gaming history, and how Valve is addressing the connected living room with the Steam Box and Steam Big Picture mode. Big Picture modifies the desk-focused UI of Steam for a couch-bound audience, making menus and games accessible with a controller. The Steam Box is the hardware extrapolation of Big Picture, putting a Linux-run PC that unifies mobile, desktop and living room technologies in a common family area. This unification is something other platforms can't do, Newell said. "Yes, in fact, you can take everything that you liked about your PC and get it to work in your living room – that's called Big Picture," Newell said. "Our next step, having done these other pieces, is now on the hardware side. There are sets of issues to making sure that whatever computing platform you have works well in a living room environment. There are thermal issues and sound issues, but there are also a bunch of input issues. The next step in our contribution to this is to release some work we've done on the hardware side." Next week Valve will release more information about its approach to unifying technologies and it will outline "the hardware opportunities that we see for bringing Linux into the living room," Newell said. In March, Newell said customers would see some Steam Box prototypes within four months. Other fun facts: Valve is developing a Linux debugger alongside its LLVM debugger, and when it updates a game such as Dota 2, Valve generates up to 3 percent of the worldwide LAN-based IP traffic.
Hardware hacker spills on Cast AR 'projected reality' glasses, Valve
During her termination meeting with Valve founder Gabe Newell, former hardware head Jeri Ellsworth told Newell to either fund her latest augmented reality gaming project, or let her leave with it. Ellsworth had been with Valve for one year and seven months, and she believed in the potential behind her team's progress – even though Valve was firing many of the people involved. "Give it to them," Newell said. Ellsworth and fellow former Valve teammate Rick Johnson took their prototypes and started Technical Illusions, where they've been working on Cast AR, a set of 3D, augmented reality glasses. Four weeks after Ellsworth was fired from Valve, she and Johnson hit a breakthrough in the Cast AR project, and everything came together ahead of schedule, she said on The Grey Area Podcast. Cast AR is a "projected augmented reality" system that throws graphics into the real world, allowing players – multiple players at one time, even – to interact with an artificial projection as if it were actually right in front of them, using a wand-like controller and special mat. Engadget got their hands on the Cast AR in May. Early prototypes of the Cast AR are hardly bigger than standard glasses for a 3D movie, with spots on the corners from whence the projections, well, project. A camera on the bridge of the nose tracks the surface of the mat, so the glasses know where the player is looking. This set-up allows the wearer to see objects from different angles, and could apply to board and computer games alike. Technical Illusions intend the glasses, wand and surface to cost less than $200, with a Kickstarter planned for early 2014, Ellsworth said. Best of all, Cast AR makes Wizard's Chess a reality. "You can imagine Star Wars Chess, as an example," Ellsworth said on the podcast. "There's little chess characters just walking around your table. If I'm sitting in front, facing forward at them, I see their faces. And I can stand up, walk around the table, and I can see the backside of the characters."
Newell: Valve sharing Steam Box prototypes within four months
Valve will give Steam Box prototypes to "customers" within the next three or four months, bossman Gabe Newell told the BBC. Newell didn't specify if these customers were developers, anyone in the gaming public or your cat, but he suggested that Valve is focused on the Steam Box's development."We're working with partners, trying to nail down exactly how fast we can make it. We're also working hard on the input side to try to take a step forward in terms of the kinds of games you can play," Newell said. "We'll be giving out some prototypes to customers to get their reactions, I'd guess in the next three or four months."Valve has a few controller prototypes now and will ship those along with the Steam Box. We've long heard of Valve's love affair with biometrics, and some form of player feedback will be implemented with the hardware."What we've found is you can directly measure player state and it turns out to be very useful," Newell said. He continued, "You need to be able to directly measure how aroused the player is, what their heart rate is, things like that, in order to continue to offer them a new experience each time they play."
Steam Client officially hits Ubuntu Software Center, all games discounted 50-75% for a limited time
Ubuntu users who've been thirsty for the first stable release of Valve's Steam Client can officially consider themselves quenched. After months of rigorous beta testing, Newell's platform has finally arrived in the Software Center for download. You'll be even more enthused to know that it's currently packing 100 games, all of which are temporarily discounted 50- to 75-percent (until Feb. 21st, 1PM EST) to get the party started -- Team Fortress players also get a "Tux penguin". And with that, we'll steer you to the source link below to download it for yourself.
Newell on reported layoffs: Valve isn't canceling any projects
Valve co-founder Gabe Newell provided Engadget a comment regarding today's reports of layoffs at his company, confirming that Valve saw some changes recently, but not specifying any job losses."We don't usually talk about personnel matters for a number of reasons," Newell said. "There seems to be an unusual amount of speculation about some recent changes here, so I thought I'd take the unusual step of addressing them. No, we aren't canceling any projects. No, we aren't changing any priorities or projects we've been discussing. No, this isn't about Steam or Linux or hardware or [insert game name here]. We're not going to discuss why anyone in particular is or isn't working here."Hardware designer Jeri Ellsworth tweeted today that she was fired, and Valve's employee page has eight former-employee-shaped holes, including director of business development Jason Holtman. Early reports put the number of employees let go at 25, though Valve has yet to confirm anything.
JJ Abrams and Gabe Newell full DICE keynote presentation
Here's the DICE 2013 keynote conversation between movie director J.J. Abrams and Valve co-founder Gabe Newell, which concluded with the news of the pair trying to figure out a Portal or Half-Life film.This was the only DICE presentation not released this past weekend from the annual video game executive conference. You can watch the rest here.
Gabe Newell's DICE keynote: Steam Box price point 'much, much lower' than living room devices
Valve co-founder Gabe Newell didn't drop any major announcement bombs during his DICE keynote address, but he did provide insight into Valve's current, internal approach to the gaming industry. Newell discussed the evolution of Steam software within the context of future hardware, notably Valve's Steam Box, and stressed the continued importance of the PC.As for the Steam Box's in-home PC streaming system, Newell said it would be a cheap addition to any TV, starting at $100 and eventually hitting $0. "The price point that's going to be hit is going to be much, much lower than things we've traditionally seen in living room devices. Better, it's basically a PC in the console form factor and at the console price point. There's nothing really magical about the hardware – this is the great thing about PC, is that it's been evolving so quickly."Businesswise, make the in-home streaming experience a great one and it could serve as a gateway to high-end PC gaming, Newell said: "A user who has a great experience using in-home streaming is going to be much more likely to upgrade to a PC in a console form factor and then continue to invest."The Steam Box will hinge on in-home streaming rather than cloud gaming, and Newell explained that he was a long-standing skeptic of cloud gaming. As he saw it, the cloud incurred a huge network cost that could collapse the system upon its own success, and it put latency compensation in the wrong place, at the center of the network rather than the edge."One thing we believe is latency sensitivity is going to increase in the future," Newell said. "The ability to do local, high-speed processing will become more important than it is right now."
Watch Gabe Newell's DICE keynote here
What is Valve president Gabe Newell's "View on Next Steps?" Find out along with us, when he delivers his DICE 2013 keynote, livestreamed right here.
Newell: Valve looking to make Portal or Half-Life movie with J.J. Abrams
During today's DICE keynote conversation between movie director J.J. Abrams and Valve co-founder Gabe Newell, the latter noted a collaboration he's looking forward to making a reality if possible."We're going to try and figure out if we can make a Half-Life movie or a Portal movie together," said Gabe Newell.The two sparred on storytelling methods in movies and film, and used scenes from each other's work to illustrate how player agency can augment storytelling, and how films can use "forced" foreshadowing to set up later events. According to the creative pair, they wanted to pursue this dialogue more seriously, and now hope to collaborate on a film based in some way on Half-Life or Portal.There are no details available beyond this brief announcement, likely because the process is still in its early stages.
J.J. Abrams and Gabe Newell to duel in DICE 2013 opening keynote
J.J. Abrams, prolific film director and dual-wielder of beloved franchises, will headline the opening keynote of the 2013 D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit alongside Valve co-founder Gabe Newell. The Star Wars/Star Trek director will bring his cinematic perspective and flair to a discussion entitled "Storytelling Across Platforms: Who Benefits Most, the Audience or the Player?" on February 6."J.J. thoughtfully weaves together suspense, action, emotion, and fun into every one of his projects – elements every game developer aspires to capture as well," said Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences President Martin Rae. "Each year, the D.I.C.E. Summit sets the tone for the year ahead in games and adding J.J. and Gabe's shared insights is a natural fit as we see all forms of entertainment converge."The D.I.C.E. Summit will have a host of talks swirling around the impending entertainment singularity, and run from February 5 until February 8 at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. The D.I.C.E. Awards, which seek to honor the best games released over the past year, will take place on February 7.
Newell on the future of Steam as a user-generated paradise
Valve's top bossman Gabe Newell hasn't forgotten about the software side of his empire, even though he just dropped confirmation of a living room, Linux-powered Steam Box. Steam will continue to evolve, he tells The Verge at CES, and in the future it may resemble a user-generated profile hub, where users can create their own stores and aggregate games within those markets."Our view has always been that we should build tools for customers and tools for partners," Newell says. "An editorial filter is fine, but there should be a bunch of editorial filters. The backend services should be network APIs that anybody can use. On the consumer side, anybody should be able to put up a store that hooks into those services."Some people will create team stores, some people will create Sony stores, some people will create stores with only games that they think meet their quality bar. Somebody is going to create a store that says 'these are the worst games on Steam.' So that's an example of where our thinking is leading us right now."Newell's love affair with user generated content can be seen in its infancy with Greenlight, which allows users to choose the games that make it to Steam. The idea, however, stems from a more established aspect of Steam – the Workshop."So now we're in this strange world where we have people who are using the Steam Workshop who are making $500,000 per year building items for other customers," Newell says. "In other words, there's this notion that user-generated content has to be an important part of our thinking. We know of other game developers making more money building content for the workshop than what they get in their day job."One of the things we found is that this notion of a workshop needs to span multiple games. If we're connecting Skyrim and other games... it's like this notion that there's just a game seems to be going away; games are starting to look like an instance of some larger experience."
Gabe Newell 'lore' video is just adorable
The Lore In a Minute YouTube series is devoted to detailing the back-stories of video games, but it recently side-stepped to talk about the head of Valve, Gabe Newell. This cute, animated video covers Newell's rise to stardom in the gaming industry from his days at Microsoft.With it being only about a minute long (hence: "Lore In A Minute"), we were pleasantly surprised at the number of Valve game puns and references sprinkled throughout the video.
