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Gabe Newell

Gabe Newell

Gabe Newell's AMA: Steam to become a "self-publishing system," CS:GO coming to Linux

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Emanuel Maiberg at

Valve’s Gabe Newell did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit today, answering scores of community questions and no, not revealing that he has a build of Half-Life 3 hidden in a volcano lair. If you're hearing otherwise, one user edited his (now deleted) question to include Half-Life 3 and create the appearance that Newell confirmed it. Nope. He did, however, talk about Source 2, Steam, CS: GO, and Dota 2, as well as answer a question vaguely related to HL3 in the form of a question about Ricochet 2.


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Gabe Newell: Valve Anti-Cheat does not look at your browsing history

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Emanuel Maiberg at

Two days ago, Reddit user theonlybond posted lines of code from Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC), the software Steam uses to curb online cheating, accusing it of scanning users' internet browsing history and sending it back to Valve. Other users were quick to point out that the accusations were unfounded, but the discussion got serious enough for Gabe Newell to make an official statement.


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Leaked screens allegedly show off Source 2.0

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Emanuel Maiberg at

It’s only appropriate that a major leak in the games industry would come from an anonymous source with a pseudonym like “crazy buttocks on a train” (CBOAT), a NeoGAF user who recently posted images of Left 4 Dead 2’s Plantation level (the final chapter of the Swamp fever campaign) allegedly rendered in Valve’s Source 2.0 engine.


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Gabe Newell says he'll do a Reddit AMA if charity event raises enough money

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Tom Sykes at

I'm willing to bet that you have some questions for Gabe Newell. Questions like 'How did you cultivate such a magnificent beard?', 'Who's your favourite Thundercat?', and 'Why was Tom Hanks snubbed in this year's Oscar nominations?' Also something about Half-Life 3. Soon, all your questions will be answered. Maybe. Depending on a few things. The biggest being the little matter of the $500,000. Valve's resident overlord took to Reddit earlier to promote the Heart of Racing charity event, and after answering a few questions and proving that he's the real deal, Newell said he'll participate in an AMA (Ask Me Anything) if the event raises $500K in donations.


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Valve updates Steam Controller with new buttons, drops touchscreen

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Ian Birnbaum at

Valve is dropping the touchscreen from the center of its new experimental controller, according to attendees at the Steam Dev Days developer conference in Seattle. The move ditches the conceivably infinite number of buttons presentable on a touchscreen for a rather more finite, and traditional, D-pad and ABXY configuration. The haptic thumbpads will remain where they are—for now.


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Gabe Newell wants to "make Greenlight go away" as Steam evolves

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Ian Birnbaum at

Steam Dev Days, the developer-only conference kicked off by Valve in Seattle this morning, is off to a roaring start. In the first two hours of the show, every attending developer has been given a new Steam controller and a promise of a free Gigabyte Steam Machine. Now, Valve founder Gabe Newell has stated his goal of getting rid of the often-troublesome, frequently controversial Steam Greenlight system.

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Valve confirms third-party Steam Controllers in the "longer term" at CES 2014

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Cory Banks at

At Monday's Steam Machine press event for CES 2014, Valve's Gabe Newell made an off-hand comment during his ever-so-brief Q&A section that, while the company is responsible for producing Steam Controllers, other companies may make them as well. It was a surprising statement—it's long been assumed that Valve would use its control of the Steam Controller design to help steer the direction of the 14 Steam Machines created by various hardware manufacturers. After all, you can't call yourself a Steam Machine without including the gamepad and its owl-like dual trackpad design.


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Gabe Newell on modders: "Traditional" credentials don't always predict success

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Patrick Carlson at

Given the importance and success of games like Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2, and more recently Dota 2, Valve's modding DNA is pretty iron-clad. A new interview with co-founder Gabe Newell in the Washington Post gives some insight into just why it is that modders—and their work—seem to find a home at Valve.


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Exploring Valve's masterplan: on SteamOS, Steam Machines and the future of the PC

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Phil Savage at

Last week, Valve made a series of announcements that could dramatically impact how people play games on the PC. But slick micro-sites aren't created in a vacuum. Valve have been hinting at SteamOS, Steam Machines and the Steam Controller for years, through interviews and information that goes all the way back to 2010. I've combed through these interviews, in order to find out what the future might hold for Valve's move into the living room.

Just how open will their open OS be? How will the Steam Machines evolve to match more powerful tech? Could the Steam Controller be any stranger? And what do these announcements mean for Windows? Read on to find out.


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Three big Valve announcements coming next week, probably a Linux-based Steam Box

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Tyler Wilde at

Valve has posted a new teaser site which declares that "the Steam universe is expanding in 2014." Three symbols tease three announcements in Valve's typically-cryptic fashion, with the first coming 71 hours from the time of this article's writing, also known as "Monday morning."


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Gabe Newell: "Linux and open source are the future of gaming"

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Perry Vandell at

“It feels a little bit funny coming here and telling you that Linux and open source are the future of gaming” are the words that Valve Co-Founder and Executive Director Gabe Newell opened with during a panel at this year’s LinuxCon held in New Orleans. Fortunately, Mr. Newell took the time to elaborate on what he meant by that statement, and how he thinks we’ll get there. The short answer: You.


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Behind the scenes of Valve's Portal 2 ARG

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Ian Birnbaum at

When Portal 2 was announced, the news dropped through an elaborate scavenger hunt puzzle that sent thousands of players crawling all over the internet. Years later, we finally get to see some of the work that went into making that alternate reality game, as told by celebrated Half-Life modder (now Valve employee) Adam Foster in a blog post at Gamasutra.


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Gabe Newell: Valve's business increased by 50 percent last year

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Omri Petitte at

Valve boss Gabe Newell stepped up to the stage during last week's BAFTA awards to receive the prestigious Academy Fellowship for his contributions to gaming. Presumably momentarily distracted by accepting a trophy modeled after a smirking face, a bewhiskered Newell fielded some interview questions over the normally airtight subject of Valve's business performance that hinted at the monumental scale of the studio's prosperity.


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Microsoft doesn't consider Valve as competition in console space

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Omri Petitte at

As Valve finally prepares to roll out prototypes for its Steam Box in as little as four months, it's apparently as good a time as any for established living-room-gaming lords to talk about what they think of PC gaming's strongest push into their realm. During a talk at Microsoft's TechForum conference earlier this week (via The Verge), Microsoft's head of Interactive Entertainment Business Don Mattrick—that's "Xbox boss" in non-corporese—gave a simple "no" in response to being asked if he considers Valve a competitor.


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Gabe Newell to be honoured with BAFTA Fellowship

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Phil Savage at

BAFTA today announced that Gabe Newell is to be awarded an Academy Fellowship at the 2013 British Academy Games Awards this March 5th. The Fellowship is the highest honour in BAFTA's arsenal, their most prestigious tool for letting someone know they're the bee's knees. Previous gaming Fellows include Will Wright, Peter Molyneux and Notch.


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Gabe Newell: Steam Greenlight is "a bad example of the election process"

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Omri Petitte at

Last week, Valve boss Gabe Newell visited the University of Texas’ LBJ School of Public Affairs and spoke about the "bottleneck" of Steam's current approval process and possible solutions for getting rid of the red tape. Part of the problem, Newell explained, is the mediocre headway from the Steam Greenlight voting system, "a bad election process" that may even be axed in the future.


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Gabe Newell and J.J. Abrams discussing "either a Portal movie or a Half-Life movie"

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Tyler Wilde at

Gabe Newell and director J.J. Abrams conversed on stage this morning at the D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) summit in Las Vegas. After a back-and-forth about player agency and storytelling (via Polygon's live blog), Newell revealed that the duo had been "recapitulating a series of conversations going on," and that they're now ready to "do more than talk": Newell suggested "either a Portal movie or a Half-Life movie," and Abrams said he'd like to make a game with Valve.


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Gabe Newell on the history, future, economics and philosophy of Valve

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Phil Savage at

Gabe Newell recently spoke at the University of Texas’ LBJ School of Public Affairs about productivity, economics, political institutions and the future of corporations. The school have now posted the full lecture. In it you’ll find information about how Valve operate, and why their unusual structure works for them, as well as the success of the Steam Workshop, and that Valve are supposedly the fourth largest bandwidth consumer in the world. If you've a spare hour, and an interest in the thinking and numbers behind the PCs largest distributor, it’s well worth a watch.


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Gabe Newell: Steam Box's biggest challenge is Apple, not consoles

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Phil Savage at

Gabe Newell has been talking about the dangers faced by Valve's Steam Box - and other living room based PCs. You'd think the greatest threat to couch-centric gaming would come from the existing dominance of Sony and Microsoft, but Newell disagrees. "The biggest challenge, I don't think is from the consoles," he says. "I think the biggest challenge is that Apple moves on the living room before the PC industry sort of gets its act together."


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Gabe Newell: "We thought the distinction between living rooms and PCs was artificial"

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Omri Petitte at

If Valve boss Gabe Newell gets his way, we'll soon experience a gaming future devoid of the line between living room and computer desk (and it looks increasingly like a certainty). The studio's hardware ambitions aim to permanently bridge the gap between the PC and the TV, and in an interview with The Nerdist Podcast (via Develop), Newell said the divide was always "artificial."


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