Full Interviews Josh Weier - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MkPCE-Gzmwc.html Chet Faliszek - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sPJbwbs4zkM.html Erik Wolpaw - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RzkVD94yAmA.html
It sounds like Gabe's desire to make video games never left him, he just sticks with the CEO position because that's the only place he can be that isn't too intimidating to the other employees, and it's where he needs to be. He wants to be a team member where others will push back and refine his ideas rather than just take them as law. I think that's really sad. I hope he can be on the frontlines of the creative side of the company again someday.
@@ninjawolfy1510 i am pretty sure in tf2's making documentary, gabe was the guy who pushed release date much further cause the gameplay was too generic, otherwise we would had tf2 an year after source came i.e 2005, good or bad those times were different..
I think he's just tired dude. in the first page of raising the bar, he says that it took divorces blood sweat tears and millions of dollars to make half-life 2. hoping they like it. he doesn't seem he's too happy with much of the state of anything. in many of his episode 3 interviews he mentions that it was supposed be episodic, easy to roll out, that episode 2 took a bit longer. which he probably means is that he further spent more million dollars and tears. also over these years he been going blind in both eyes, tho he got surgery and fix both of them. his pancreas or something was fogging up. idk what he means about divorces tho. he probably means himself or his staff. in tf2, he says hopefully after 9 years it was the wait. also the co-creator of valve left mike harrington in 2000. 2000 is a very interesting year for valve. the guy has an family and shit. I think one of reasons he talks so much why it take a lot of time and money is that probably when they first making half-life, the game was really short and probably somewhat cheap to make back then. only 1 year. but nirmal singh is probably true, I imagine he did push a lot of these dates becuz he felt they were in some kind of loop or rehash or whatever. I mean a lot of these games during some of this era wasn't all that good. for example condition zero, ricochet tho thats earlier it doesnt count but its part of the struggle, team fortress classic, what I mean a lot of these just weird remakes or rehashes in a way. in TF2 it seem in early footage and pictures they were going make something much more closer to TFC or they were trying do something little different. but also the whole remaking the game. half-life also experienced these. I think it's because they didn't think it looked good for people to pick it up or that it didn't have enough good and fun map design. probably both. in demos it kinda is a little basic and I don't think it looks or plays fun at all. it wouldn't seem appealing to companies. from what I heard he's somewhere chilling in new zealand or whatever, I presume he's basically retiring by this point. a lot of valve staff by this point are becoming boomers. most like born in late 1970s. gen x basically, but they're like 30 year old boomers on the internet. valve had a done lot of business and development over a somewhat short timespan too. even in the year 1999, I think they were tired. also all that praise and shit will eventually just make u experience ego death and desensitization to a lot of business. the earliest development I heard from gabe ben on a game is a doom port for windows or something. so imagine that and now you're making some double AAA million revolutionizing hundreds of fucking game awards, and you still don't know what to do that much. but that's what he wanted to achieve. perhaps I'm typing too negatively or positively, it's probably lot more dimensional and neutral than what I'm proposing here. seem the guy was always on the whole managing part of valve.
I hope he embraced the work-from-home revolution to create a CGI avatar junior employee whose sole purpose is to voice his opinion in a context that can be disregarded or overruled.
Gabe came and visited me in hospital while staying in New Zealand after my dad email him saying I’m a huge fan. We talking for about an hour and then he left after taking pictures. Best day of my life. I uploaded the video as a short on my channel
I honestly can't believe this doesn't have more views. I feel discussion about Value and Gabe Newell himself always feels shrouded. Really nice to hear about the inner workings and the persons behind it all.
It's like, the opposite of every Director and CEO I've heard of. Even golden goose like Sakurai is heavy handed in their personal vision of their product, but Gabe is like, "I step back and let you guys work it out, I trust it'll be the right conclusion" and like, yeah, it's almost to his detriment, but it's crazy to find someone running an operation like this that's cognizant that the product is a group effort and therefore isn't solely theirs to influence.
this is also a drawback i.e let team leaders and employee's come up with a cool idea and motivation to make it a full title, which created so many cool concepts but nothing that would be releasable..
Blizzard had a CEO named Jeff Kaplan who was described as a gamer stuck in a CEO's chair (where other CEOs are described as businessmen stuck in gamer chairs). His departure from the company caused huge waves as he was very open, honest and humble about is position during his time (along with being a meme). Apparently, he used his position to fight against the more exploitive business side of Blizzard. Now that he's gone, the community doesn't feel like they have that connection to the company anymore.
Seems the CEO of Rebellion, Jason Kingley, as being somewhat similar on having a hands off approach given he also devotes a massive amount of time to his medieval history channel and proves he works a lot on understanding and practicing aspects of medieval (generally English) way of life. I don't know if that makes it a good company and I don't know what he does within it, but they seem alright, and they aren't public which is good, going public always ruins a company.
Seeing them talk about Gabe as an actual person is so... refreshing. A company (even as good/big/bad/crap/amazing/eternal as Valve!) is hard to manage (or plan or finance) beyond a few people. Great to see some mysticism dialed down on how a CEO _doesn't_ run all the day-to-day stuff!
That's the entire point of Gabe and why he became a meme in the first place. Or did you guys not see the steam deck delivery video? There's never been mysticism around gabe himself, only around the development of games.
@@thechugg4372 You're right but as of late he has been kinda mystified by younger gamers or just people who've idolized Valve and Gabe. I think he made the right decision to do that steamdeck video. The reactions were also funny
@@crusaderkaiser2000I think he should be idolized. It’s partly because of him that valve is so trustworthy. “We ship in 2 months? I don’t care the games shit were starting over and making it good” “stop trying to give our players fomo or you’re fired”
Idolization is different than respecting and looking up to as an inspiration. Idolization is like thinking of him as being above everyone as humans (I think?) but respecting isn’t putting him on a pedestal that can’t be reached. Like there is only one Gabe Newell, but that doesn’t mean his practices for running a company are his alone. There are many types of people who exist along a similar axis or spectrum, with varying degrees in intensity in relation to the similarity of our beliefs and actions, so there potentially is a high possibility of someone who loves games, challenges their workers and friends to be their best and maybe run Valve or another company somewhen, somewhere and some time. ggs and have a nice day.
Erik Wolpaw is also a writer on Team Fortress. The in-game dialogue, the short films and the comics. Might be interesting to know but wasn't put at the top
@@KIWITALKZ Hm but you put Aperture Desk Job there instead which is just a small Portal spin-off for the Steam Deck. TF2 is a massive game with tons of promotional media so that was probably the bulk work for him at Valve thus far
Yeah thats true, but Aperture Desk Job is something current which is why I put it there and it definitely wasnt small for Erik, he did a fair amount of crunch on it but its a fair point. If I do any more clips I will take that into account.
This is exactly how I imagined what it would be like to be around Gabe Newell. I like the insight from the second interview about how it seems Gabe wishes he can be more involvemes in the development side of things.
Yeah, you see that a lot with people who are promoted to positions of authority, or with celebrity culture. You start out working with all of these people and your input is no more valid than anyone else's and you can rib each other and share ideas and whatever, but then you end up higher in the hierarchy and people look at you differently. You can't do those things you used to do anymore because there's a shift in power dynamic. As a passionate game developer, which I'm certain Gabe Newell is, that must _suck._ But the fact of the matter is he's the right man for the job.
@@Lucifronz It must truly suck. Same thing happened to Notch once minecraft exploded. It pretty quickly ceased being his game anymore. The team got huge, hierarchy was created, and things began being taken from his hands. Then eventually Microsoft came to him with a deal you can't say no to, and that was that. The popularity of his game pushed him away. Tragic.
He is the hope of the omniverse! He is the lightbulb in the darkness! He is the bacon in the fridge for all living things that cry out in hunger! He is the Alpha and the Amiga! He is the terror that flaps in the night!
It's interesting how widely held this belief is when his company is apparently one of the most nightmarish and office politics filled places anyone could ever work thanks to their pseudo-flat hierarchy structure.
@@ledumpsterfire6474 who says that might not be one of the reasson they are so much better than the avrage company? Whilst admitedly I don't know much about Valves internal structure, at least one big contributor to why game industries is falling is that they are trying to be as "effective" as they can and almost industrilize the art. They tend to only see the players, workers and games as numbers on graph.
I emailed Gabe when I was a teenager and I thanked him for Half-Life 2. Maybe it was a different employee answering for him, but I like to believe it was him who replied "Thank you, Xade."
When I was a teenager, I wrote a long email to Gabe about a detailed dream I had where I played _Half-Life 2: Episode 3._ I wrote to him because it included a really cool scene. He replied, said that what I described from my dream was really cool and that he forwarded it to Marc Laidlaw (implying that he thought they should incorporate a scene from my dream.).
@@ethanfreeman1106 I also wrote a long rambling email to him on how dismayed I was seeing the then in development _Left 4 Dead_ had changed the character design of Francis by trimming his shaggy hair and bushy beard. I went on and on writing about how I'm sick of games compromising with "helmet hair" where the hair was just a texture or series of plates because rendering individual physically simulated hairs were the future and the tech a groundbreaking company like Valve should be investing in. And how to showcase this impressive technology? Valve should introduce a character with an Alan Moore or Grigori Rasputin level beard. Possibly bring back the unused "Ivan the Space Biker" concept from Half-Life 1 which was Gordon Freeman's alpha era model, which would be suitable for someone in the Arctic where HL2: EP3 was set. Gabe's response? _"How about a flaming beard?"_
At this point I'm sure Gaben could just buy the entire country of New Zealand and Kiwis would be fine with it. Gaben moving to New Zealand and spilling his fortune all over the country for no reason other than him liking the place is literally the biggest thing that has happened to the country since British independence.
I agree. I am also pleased that our gracious benefactor is spilling his money all over a country that outlawed actors from unionizing because Peter Jackson threw a fit about not being able to film his shitty hobbit trilogy.
Bro none of us average citizens have seen any of that money been put into the country. He’s stated a lot of ideas he wants to start here but nothings come from them.
@@testhekid So far since BUYING his citizenship (Pretty cool you can do that if you’re rich enough here right? ;P) He was living in his yacht for most of 2020 In Auckland whilst waiting for his doomsday mansion to be built in a billionaire private owned area near a place called Queenstown. There have been multiple billionaires since Covid started who’ve bought citizenship and built ridiculously large homes away from everyone else. Gabe has mentioned hosting a Major or TI in NZ one day which would be cool but wouldn’t bring in as mich of a live viewership imo, but other than that he hasn’t done anything to positively affect or change the country. The money given to buy citizenship isn’t going back to someone like me or any other average kiwi that’s for sure lol.
It's funny to hear how much status he had, from his stature to his position and reputation in Valve and would still just want to help and be part of the team in a game's development.
Gabe is an engineer who became a CEO rather than a CEO who hires engineers. The complete opposite of Steve Jobs in a sense. You get the sense Gabe would rather be behind a terminal slapping code together with the gang rather than doing meetings with suits but for the good of everyone he has to take his hands off the wheel and do the other big picture stuff. Personally I think when he's gone Valve isn't going to get someone half as personable as him, and if they replace him with a stiff corporate type, you're going to see Steam go to shit. Steam has a lot of that engineering UI in it that's meat an potatoes but isn't slick like the iPhone app store, but it remains the best digital storefront to me. Shit, the fact that I can organize my wishlist by price and filter for 75% or more off is what keeps me here and with a fat library. Plus I own all the Valve games, how could I not. I'm sure he's made blunders and most CEO's are kinda... Bad people... But if every CEO was half as personable, humane and sensible as Gabe, a lot of what's wrong with corporate culture would be fixed.
Gabe: Why isn't there a story? Devs: We're working within limitations Gabe in interviews: We're currently working with some limitations Devs: Can you... Understand me?
i praise gaben for making publishers largely irrelevant and giving indie devs an actual fighting chance against talent predators like EA and Ubisoft, i hate that these publishers will pick up a promising studio that has a couple succesful titles to their names, then force them to make those games to EAs standards, and then break up the studio when that new game flops (im talking about cases like visceral games, where dead space 1 and 2 were well received but EA decided they needed *PREMIUM* stuff for 3 and the game flopped and EA took an axe to the studio)
It also saved a lot of these indie devs from being chewed up and spit out by these massive AAA game companies. Imagine if Undertale had to start on the fucking Microsoft Game Store on Xbox 360 or something stupid like that, and if it had to be some indie xbox exclusive because of Microsoft’s death grip on exclusive indies back in the day. It would likely have died along with all those other minecraft and voxel art games back in the day. *Yall know the ones. You can’t hide from me.*
gabe newell could literally gun down a small indie game development studio live on camera and valve stans would still defend his company because "hey at least he didn't scrap the dead space studio"
Gabe sounds like a really nice person to work with. He seems like someone whose pretty logical. He might not always like your stance on something, but if you can back it up, he'll stand with it as well.
Maybe if you're working with him directly, which doesn't sound to be the case for anyone on the development floor anymore. Otherwise Valve is a nightmare of a company to work for.
@@shaeby8123 From the sounds of it, it's a lot of good marketing, and beyond that it depends how well you understand and handle the politics. A lot of new developers aren't even aware of it, the way people are constantly forming high school-esque cliques and gathering dirt on each other to further their own ends. It's advertised as a flat hierarchy where there's free will and no managers breathing down your neck, but it naturally organizes itself back into that by having people of high influence and people of low influence, but you'd have to figure out which dicks you're supposed to suck for yourself since there's no obvious statements about it.
@@ledumpsterfire6474 elaborate? you're making a strong statement - when someone does this then its expected to prove the point and provide examples/evidence, otherwise whats the point of your post?
@@vibaj16 there's probably more than one person behind TF2. It is likely that they just keep it as a very small side project, or just are very recent to be working on TF2 and have really no idea how to fix its problems.
@@ghoulbuster1 yes there are... Two people, not even full time just whenever they have free time Although with the tweet and all that maybe more developers started working on it, but we will have to wait and see
This sounds like he's actually a good game dev executive. It's sad he can't participate in the development anymore, but we need more executives like him.
Not interfering with the dev team's work is enough to makes him one of the best executives In an industry where devs are treated like a machine that pumps out mediocre titles with suffocating deadlines and gets all the criticism when it flops valve is like devs heaven
You don't realize how much weight and power Gaben is carrying. This guy is like the head librarian in the library of alexandria. He is right where he needs to be, EA would kill to have a monopoly on gaming like Valve does. If Gaben ever retires his successor will determine if this library too, will burn to the ground. Gaben could literally screw over every single gamer and he never did. He really is like some white wizzard swearing not to abuse his power.
@@PSYMEDICIt’s not even a monopoly, he’s not buying out other companies and making sure his own is the one and only by all means necessary. It’s just every other possible competitor is too greedy and incompetent to make anything that’s as user-friendly or consumer-sided as Steam or anything else that Valve does. Everything else drops like flies by their own decisions, and people go back to Steam because it’s objectively the superior PC platform to everything else out there.
If gabe has so many ideas, he should make them reality, i want another amazing and funny story game, cmon valve, make more i know you can, you are talented
@@legofanguyvid The problem here is that Gabe wants to but his own company treat his words as gospel instead of a contribution, and it seems to make him sad that he can't contribute without overriding the whole process singlehandedly.
@@Spartan322 and the fact that people have high expectations for the studio, so that adds pressure to make something genre defining instead of just good or great so only the best idea can be greenlit
The reason Valve are who they are is because they do not do this. Their games do not begin as one person's idea that is brought to fruition by the labour of others. That's how you get a hundred half baked games that saturate the market and dilute a portfolio.
@cristianodossantosgomes2727 But they are making games... the reason you dont see a new Valve game every year is because they take their time and decide if its not fun they scrap it, its sad but i think its for the best, the games that do come out from Valve usualy is a hit and bring something new to the table. Dont get me wrong tho, they can make some shitty games too, like artifact and dota underlords (i liked it but they forgot to update it) I think you're seeing them as this greedy corp that only wants money and not make games anymore, but that is just simply not true.
It's nice to hear the CEO of a major game corporation isn't a major asshole. He seems like a genuinely passionate dude that is 100% behind his people once the decision is made. He just likes being a part of that decision and honing the concept.
I think him confronting a writer about the lack of a story for the sole purpose of hearing them defend it is brilliant. You need to question someones motives sometimes so they question it themselves, but if they fully defend it, you know they believe in what they're doing.
Yeah because forspoken is what I think about when people say "most games". Just like Fallout 76 or Ass effect andromeda. The whole reason these games are infamous is because they're abnormally subpar.@@zasqueas
@@Neo2266. I mean Borderlands 3 story is trash, Dyinglight stories have always been a cliche, I would even dare to say Spider-Man 2 (PS5) wasn’t that good, then there’s also many others so I’ll leave with one last game… The Last Of Us Part 2.
The day I can speak to Gabe, and he speaks back to me back. The day Gabe show us the number 3. The day I friggin' can get a Steam Deck. It's the day I'll die happy.
to be fair . i prefer Portal 2 glados design . That being said . i have respect for Mr.Newell for what he and Valve devs accomplished . i just wish you guys improves your communication and make more single player games . also don't abandon things like tf2 and do go back to supporting community made mods etc..
This was really cool to watch and learn about the man behind Valve, really interesting to learn more about someone who helped get such iconic games to the masses while also being incredibly understanding about certain aspects for games such as L4D.
This video will blow up. Im glad I see it this early... Its awesome to hear how cool it is to work with mr. Gaben Seems like cool dude to be around... He Had always bit of respect aura.. I never really though what to think about him but now I see he is pretty okay dude... still doing what he loves even if its sometimes hard to do with name as big... If it was not because of him and steam I would be probably pirating games to this day and my life would be different in many ways... Im glad person like Gabe existed and Im glad Gaming is mayor part of my life. Thanks... it All started with Half life :)
The saddest thing is it sounds like everyone around Gabe is just a "Yes"-man, and that causes Gabe to not be able to interact with any of his game teams because they aren't 'man' enough to stand up for their own ideas. It does neither them nor Gabe justice to just fawn over and bend the knee to him; he's not a king or a walking god; he's just a guy that loves to make video games and work with people. What a sad thing it must be to not have people you can work with because they just cow-tow to you non-stop.
@@fgqgqlfqsfsffeff Apparently it is, otherwise Gabe would be on the floor working with game dev teams; and the developers in this video pretty much said that everyone wanted to just do anything Gabe said; rather than push back against him for their own ideas.
Gabe is what all video game CEO's should be: so passionate about video games that he wants to be hands on himself, but also emotionally intelligent enough to know that he can't do it all himself and hires excellent people to do the work he cant.
I don't think there is any other CEO willing to delivery steam deck by hand, even giving out a free steam deck to someone nearby. He is very much, a cool dude.
Gabe is pretty much inspirational to me, in the idea that it's possible to propose ideas, but still being open to other interpretations, and not come of as "the only Law" of the company. It's great there are guys like him, I wish there would be stories of more people like that, since it all feels so stuffy and heavy in the gaming industry these days.
I always adored the commentary modes on all of Valve's games. It's great to hear about the developers, writers, composers, programmers, artists, voice-actors and even consultants talk about their experiences developing the game in their own words.
I think Gabe deeply respects his employees, and he pushes them specifically because he wants them to push back. When he was grilling Chet about L4D, I think he was doing that because he knew those were the sorts of questions critics were going to be asking. "Why a zombie game? Why now? What's the point? What's the hook?" Those are hard questions to answer when you're in a creative project that consumes so much of your life, and seems so vitally important to you. I think Valve as a company has worked very hard to keep things in perspective and ask themselves those hard questions as much as they can, so they keep themselves grounded and productive.
gabe seems like such a casual guy who just loves games and wants to make them but his reputation and the fact that he owns valve kind of gives him that intimidating aura around him
@cristianodossantosgomes2727 Free games that Epic gives, I never play… For some time I collected them, and then I got around 300-400 and probably will never play them, the 50-60 I bought on Steam make it more meaningful and valuable. If I need to buy a game for 10 on Epic or 30 on Steam, guess which one I'm buying...
@@LobsterLadyyyy while that is true, at the very least you can argue he hasn't reached a point where his employees openly insult him like Kotik for example.
@@TheZoobZoobs you can find most people who left the company don’t have nice things to say about Gabe. If anything, this is arguably worse because people are being incentivized to say nice things about him in press release shit
A long time ago I read that Gabe always responds to emails from anyone. Me being a no one, I sent him an email asking him what he hated most about development and he responded back a few hours later. Pretty shocked, what a GOAT.
Ive heard that gabe hasnt yet (like all other ceo's) gotten an ego because of all this "power" which just goes to show what an amazimg team they are. Valve is one of my favorite studios.
I just finished all Half life games and it was interesting to hear him talk about the games and being open minded for improvements and their new technology in the developers commentary. Very intelligent man! So far he has been just "the man behind Valve" to me, mythical like Santa lol
I hate what his employees made of Mr. Newell. they consider him a force of nature, like a God walking the Earth, they cower and bow to his every whims while all he wants is to make videogames but his employees are in such awe and reverence they fold themselves over and grovel at his feet every time he walks around the office. Being Gabe Newell must be a tiresome and lonely experience. a man placed on a pedestal so high he cannot see the ground anymore, but neverchose to be on it in the first place.
I hope he can become part of the team and create games again. Sounds like Gaben quite passionate about creating games, want to say ideas, etc. But guess his position is too high to be able to do that, everyone would obey him right away. No one is brave enough to give criticism
it is noteworthy that multiple people independently reported that gaben trust his developers and let them follow their own best judgement even when he disagreed or wished they'd do something different. ofc there's a visibility bias in this video and no one would like to speak badly about their boss in an interview, however it is still noteworthy. that multiple separate sources say the same thing in different ways, some strong some not, is something which makes it more believable. had they all given the same friendly description of their boss that'd suggest that it's rehearsed or that sources are copying each other or echoing the opinions around them, but there's a decent range of descriptions here. so with this admittedly small sample size, what's my rating? gaben sounds like a good boss when it comes to creative control, possibly.
It’s cool that he recognized that he had too much authority and willingly stepped back so that he didn’t steer the projects wrong, we can see what happens when people are afraid to say no or disagree with one person with George Lucas and the star wars prequels.
I remember one time Tyler McVicker talking about him. One thing I am very agree on is that he now is just a figurehead in the company, and everytime he was on interviews, say the interview of him saying TF2 updates are coming, it was just his way to tell the team to move their arses and do something.
I kinda hope that someone who Gabe can trust leads Valve one day and he can go back to being part of game development, the dude is probably what held steam together alongside the games they made. I am sure he still loves game development even today, this interview gives an insight in his philosophy in story making, game development, world building and many more aspects in game development that truly displays his vast knowledge in the industry.
Gabe genuinely sounds like a good guy who works with his people, people being his coworkers and customers. I would love to have worked with them at around that time as a professional game 3D artist.
i been digging deep into valve's history, their troubles, and their story for the past year. what i was left with was that i can't myself help but to praise them. their actions really has a major colossal impact on both gaming industry and techs for decades. people these days can only make assumption of them without any intelligence. in actuallity, they're far better in a lot of sector than any game companies.
In the Chet video that's super interesting as if Gabe was testing him and trying to make him doubt himself. I'm guessing he wanted to see if Chet believed in what he wanted to do and wasn't just going to be another yes man that agreed with whatever Gabe wanted.
Gabe in a nutshell based on what I heard in this video: "Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” - Patton.
Gabe Newell is one and i might even say the last big corp guy who actually still has that care and gamerfeel for things in his company like he is invested still after all these years tells he has his fire and drive to make great content for the ppl ,valve is a totally underated company .they need more love comeon bros!
That's something really hard to do, both as a person and as a leader, to weigh your own ideas and goals equally to other members of the team. Try it next time you're in a group project, it's really hard and you gotta consciously do it with effort.
The work culture of 'oh no, the CEO is coming, holy shit, work like you mean it!' is just so rooted in every employees and future employees as well. It's sad to see at first, that Valve's own employees are very afraid of him just because he holds a high position in the company, but deep down, he still has the passion for game development and getting in with the outside community AND his own company communities as well. No matter the position, he's also just a worker in the company, trying to contribute to its successes with his beloved peers. Valve should be like Gaben, like it did when it was just a small team: a group of really passionate developers all working together to create the best experiences for their audiences.
Gabe knows how to make a game feel good with hard to spot details. I feel Gabe really wishes he could make games again but is currently bringing valve to a new level.
Watching this makes me feel bad about my preconceived notions of the guy. I thought he kinda lost his marbles after his devotion to the idea of brain-computer interfaces. But I guess that's more of his personal hobby project than the direction he wants Valve to go in?
I was legit hoping any negativity and people exposing who Gabe really is but my am I delighted that it isn’t the case. Gabe and Valve are the only people in the AAA space that give me hope that devs like them can set an example on what a gaming corporation should be - passionate. And they wonder why Valve’s games are still being played to this day… I’d rather play their games than whatever scummy practices gaming in the modern era has.
they really should hire someone to be an undercover GabeNewell thought translator so we can get Gabe’s lightning in bottles like we used to, great guy.
Man that's kinda of sad. Gabe wanna help but by being Gabe he kinda can't in the way he wants. Seems like he would have fun in making just a small indie game, maybe even use a Pen name when publishing it. I remember Steven King did something like that, he used a pen name to publish a book to see if he still got it or if everyone was buying it just because it said it was written by him.
Gabe wanting to be more involved seems to be somewhat related to the big worship around him in the late 00s and early 10s. He was a walking meme back then and there was this whole image of Valve being this big dev-friendly company and Gabe being a papa bear project lead driving the many series we knew and loved to greatness. It's somewhat surprising to see this wasn't the case and he was not participating in game development itself at all beyond a few attempts. His pressure of employees might also be a strategy as a supervisor. "How well will you defend your ideas and your project when the big boss is here telling you he doesn't like something?"
The message I am taking away is that when he is grilling someone on their idea with “what even is your story you don’t have a story” he isn’t trying to break them down to bring them down but break down the idea to the core to make sure they built it on solid foundation.
Huge thanks to the Valve team for making such iconic, amazing games. The attention to detail and overall vision is impressive. A big part of my younger years was spent bonding with friends while playing these games.
