Garry Newman says companies have tried to buy Facepunch but the only reason to sell it would be for money 'and I feel like I've got enough money'

Garry Newman, creator of Garry's Mod and CEO of Facepunch Studios, sat down at GDC with PC Gamer's Chris Livingston to discuss… well, loads of things, from the history of Gmod to Rust to the imminent release of the studio's new game creation platform, s&box (which will apparently carry a similar price tag to Gmod).

Despite the enormous popularity of its various creations, Facepunch remains independent: which is pretty unusual in an industry where it seems like anything that gets huge eventually gets bought out (Minecraft, PUBG, the list goes on). Surely Newman has had offers for the studio, or even just for things like Rust?

"I don't think I should say yeah," laughs Newman. "Yeah… just before we came out with Rust, we were, what's the word? Propositioned, we were propositioned. By a company close to us, but it weren't enough money, like we considered it, but it didn't offer us enough money."

Was that the only time? "Oh no, a couple of times, but yeah the issue is, with anything like that, why would you sell it?" says Newman. "It's for the money, and I feel like I've got enough money. I don't need that money. And what would I do all day? This is what I would do anyway.

"Like I'm going to get the money and I'm going to end up like Notch, where I'm just back where I was anyway, doing the same thing. So why take the money? Why not just enjoy what I've got and keep building it."

Newman goes on to expand on his point more generally. "I suppose what I would say is the difference, the thing that we've appreciated, what I learned from Rust and Garry's Mod, is that Valve gave me a chance," says Newman. "And it was a big chance, and they took a risk, and it gave me an entire career, like a 20 year career, and more money than I could have ever dreamt of, and more experiences and everything that I could ever dream of."

And Newman wants Facepunch to keep doing the same thing for others. "When we released Rust we did skins, and the community made the money from the skins and stuff, and that's giving people careers, giving things back," says Newman. "Over the years I've spoken to people in the industry, and they've said 'Oh Garry's Mod is how I started, that's why I'm in games now, because of Garry's Mod.'

"To me, that's the best reward from the entire thing. And so that's kind of what s&box is aiming directly at now. We're not trying to make a shit-tonne of money from it. We just want it to be self-sustaining and create this thing where people can create their own careers and wealth from it.

"That's my main motivation now, is giving people what I've had, because I think Valve did it for me. And Valve's always like that. They're always like, 'how much money can we make for everybody else?' That's what their hat system is and everything like that. I think we should be the same, because everybody benefits."

It's clearly a sincere belief, because late last year Facepunch announced that it was going to make s&box open source, and even opened up the finances. As Newman said in rather more succinct fashion at the time:"Valve gave me my chance, I'm already rich, I don't want to fuck anyone over."