gabe-newell posts

As we mentioned earlier today, Steam users can now try out the Steam Guard password security feature in beta form. But just how effective is this new tool to protecting your Steam account info? At the PC hardware trade show CeBIT in Germany today, Valve founder Gabe Newell took a nod from LifeLock's CEO and put his own Steam email address and password on a big screen in front of a live audience. (It's username gaben@valvesoftware.com, password MoolyFTW, in case you can't read it from the image above)

Naturally someone was filming this bit and posted a video with Newell's Steam login info to YouTube (you can check it out after the break). We suspect that's perhaps not the only Steam account Newell has (he is the boss after all) but he did tell the CeBit audience, "You can try to log in and attempt to steal my account if you can, but you can't." Okay. We think some people might try to do just that.

[Via Joystiq]

Valve's Source Engine technically debuted in 2004 with the release of Half-Life 2. While the developer has made a number of improvements to the Source Engine since then, many of its tools are still hard to use. Indeed the engine's Hammer level editor has changed little since the release of the original Half-Life in 1998.

In a recent interview on the Steamcast podcast, Valve head man Gabe Newell admitted, "our current tools are... very painful." He added, " ... we're spending a tremendous amount of time on tools right now." Newell didn't give a time when the revised SDK would be released but did say, " "when we're ready to ship those I think everybody's life will get a lot better."

Valve, under the leadership of co-founder Gabe Newell, launched its Steam PC game download service back in 2004. It has since grown into perhaps the dominate service of its kind in the PC game industry. In a new article profiling Newell on the Forbes.com web site Newell says that Valve, while still not revealing specific financial numbers, is "tremendously profitable". However the rival OnLive streaming PC download service is aiming to take a piece of Steam's market share. In the article Newell says that while he admires OnLive's technology he feels that ultimately that its streaming method is "inefficient and expensive."

Not so, counters OnLive CEO and co-founder Steve Perlman. In the same article he claims that the privately owned OnLive is already profitable (it launched in June 2010) and that the costs to stream games to consumers are in line with what Netflix says it costs to bring its films to movie watchers (about 3 cents per gigabyte). Perlman also slams the Steam service as being "limited to people who have a high-performance computer." OnLive's games can be played even on low end PC netbooks and on TVs via a MicroConsole and OnLive have already announced deals that will have it installed inside Android phones and Visio TVs later this year.

[via Blue's News]

The PC gaming genre has gotten a second look by many developers and publishers in the past year and part of the reason is the success of Valve's Steam PC game download service. In a new chat with Develop, Valve's head man Gabe Newell is quoted as saying that he is "tremendously excited about the future of PC gaming."

He added that he considers the PC platform to be a center of game development innovation "... of everything that's going on, whether it's microtransactions, MMOs, free-to-play, or something like (Zynga's Facebook game) CityVille which – after its first month – has 84 million people playing. To us, this is just an indication of why open platforms are where innovations are going to occur."

Valve has certainly been a part of that innovative PC game platform with both Steam and its Steamworks game development tools being used by more and more game developers and publishers. It has two PC games due out in 2011, the puzzle-shooter sequel Portal 2 and the action-RTS remake DOTA 2.

Forbes magazine isn't exactly known for its PC gaming coverage but for a new feature about business people that they fell you need to know in 2011 they picked Valve founder Gabe Newell as one of them.

Not surprisingly the wave from Forbes is not about Newell leading a company behind Portal 2, DOTA 2 or the next update for Left 4 Dead 2. It is about Valve's continuing success with its Steam PC game download service which Forbes speculates is generating hundreds of millions of dollars for Valve. There's nothing in the article that most PC gamers didn't know but it's still nice to see that our industry gets some attention from the mainstream now and again.

Just a year or so ago many PC game developers were saying that massive piracy of its products was a huge threat to the industry. But now we hear less and less complaints about piracy affecting sales of PC games. In its last in its series of interviews with Valve team members on the PC Gamer web site, it's revealed that piracy of games on Valve's Steam platform isn't that big of an issue for Valve.

According to Valve's head man Gabe Newell, piracy rates of games on Steam are "low enough that we don't really spend any time [on it]." Newell said they have other issues that are a higher priorty such as "the stability of DirectX drivers or, you know, the erroneous banning of people." That last comment is likely in reference to an issue earlier this year that had a bunch of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 PC gamers banned due to a Steam glitch.

Russia has been cited in the past as a country that has been a hotbed of PC game piracy. However Newell said that Steam, plus localizing the game for Russia and shipping it at the same time as the English language versions, has made that country one of Valve's biggest markets for its games in Europe. Newell states, " .. this market that you shouldn't waste your time on, that went from, 'You shouldn't waste our time on it, they'll just pirate it,' to 'it's actually a really large market for us now,' once you actually do the things that allow your product to be played."

So we heard that there's this big midnight launch for some game. We didn't know the next StarCraft II release was coming so soon ;)

• PC gamers in Chattanooga, Tennessee will have ultra-low pings with the newly launched $350 a month 1 Gbps broadband service.
• A new Steam update has been added for Rhythm Zone that adds a new challenge mode and 13 new achievements.
• The casual indie game Jolly Rover is priced at just $4.99 from now until September 20 on Steam.
• Valve's Gabe Newell talks about his predictions for next-gen game engines to PC Gamer.
• Inceptionauts: No further comment is needed.

There have been some genuinely scary gameplay moments in the Half-Life game series from developer Valve but its head man Gabe Newell seems to think that future installments in the first person shooter series should be more frightening. Computer and Video Games quotes Newell as saying, "I feel like we've gotten away from genuinely scaring the player more than I'd like, and it's something we need to think about, in addition to broadening the emotional palette we can draw on."

Of course we have all been awaiting the release of Half-Life 2: Episode 3 for a long time. The final installment of the trilogy of episodic games is now looking like it will come out at least four years from Episode 2's release in 2007 (remember when each episode was supposed to come out six months apart?).

There's been a ton of chat about DRM in PC games lately and Thursday night at GDC, Valve head man Gabe Newell decided to go after such practices during his Pioneer Award acceptance speech at the Game Developers Choice Awards. According to the Develop web site, Newell stated Valve is starting to see entertainment more and more like as a service.

Because of that idea, Newell said, "It informs all the decisions we make, and once you get into that mindset it helps you avoid things like some of the Digital Rights Management problems that actually make your entertainment products worth less by wrapping those negatives around them." That statement was greeted by cheers from the developer heavy crowd at the awards. Are you listening Ubisoft?

As we mentioned earlier, Valve head man Gabe Newell picked up his Pioneer Award at the Games Developers Choice Awards on Thursday night. Some people thought we might get another new Portal 2 viral dealie during his acceptance speech, and they were not disappointed in the least. Near the end of Newell's speech, a "Blue Screen of Death" showed up behind him.

Except that the screen seems to be a little . . different than your typical error message. The folks in the Portal 2 message boards on Steam as well as the Penny Arcade message boards have been trying to decipher what that error message really means. Their conclusion? The decoded message reads, "Suspend until E3." That sounds like we may have to wait until mid-June for more Portal 2 info. Newell also chatted briefly with 1Up.com following the awards ceremony and stated that Portal 2 is "the best game we've ever done." He also gave a big hint that a certain songwriter might return for the puzzle-action game sequel.