gabe-newell posts

Last night the annual Game Developers Choice Awards were given out during GDC 2010 and, sad to say, there was very little for PC gamers to be happy about when it came to the winners. Most of the catagories were won by console exclusive titles. Batman: Arkham Asylum did manage to win for Best Game Design and Runic Games' action-RPG Torchlight won for Best Debut Game. The PS3 exclusive title Uncharted 2 won five of the 10 awards given out on Thursday.

Previously announced awards went to id Software founder John Carmack (Lifetime Achievement Award) Valve founder Gabe Newell (Pioneer Award) and the Penny Arcade team of Jerry Holkins, Mike Krahulik and Robert Khoo (Ambassador Award).

He's the co-founder and head of one of the most influential game developers of all time and now Valve's Gabe Newell is being honored for his many achievements. The Game Developers Choices Awards have announced that Newell will be the 2010 recipient of their Pioneer Award.

Newell, who becomes the third winner of the Pioneer Award, is being honored not just for his achievements in game development with the Half-Life series, the Left 4 Dead series and more but also with Valve's creation of the Steam download service. He will receive the Pioneer Award at ceremonies at the the Game Developers Conference on March 11.

Zombies invade Gametrailers TV (GTTV), a regular internet show featured on Gametrailers.com. In the latest episode, the crew visits Valve at its Seattle studio and talks to Gabe Newell about upcoming projects, including whether or not fans should still be holding their breath for Half-Life 2 Episode 3. The show also gets an in-depth run down of Left 4 Dead 2, its characters and gameplay. Additionally, the show has an exclusive first-look at the upcoming Left 4 Dead Crash Course DLC due out in September. The level is so new Valve doesn't even have a name for it yet. If all that wasn't enough, Gabe is asked to choose between two babies - whether to develop a new Counter-Strike or Portal 2. Gabe asks viewers to write in a ranked list of the sequels they'd like to see developed first, so get to emailing and share your thoughts! The GTTV episode can be seen after the jump.

As the costs of creating games with high end graphics and artwork continue to rise, indie game developers might wonder where the money to begin development can come from if a publisher or high-end investory is not involved. Valve's head man Gabe Newell has a suggestion: let the game community do it.

In a video interview with an Australian based web site TV show Good Game, Newell states, "It would be really great if we could evolve Steam in a way that made it possible so that a developer could say, you know, 'if you want this game to start moving forward, here's the sort of 'seed round',' were people can sort of opt-in and say 'I'll pay thirty dollars and I own a piece of this game going forward.'"

At least one developer, Stardock allows people to play beta versions of their upcoming games if they pre-order the title. We are sure that asking for money from game fans to fund their game development will run into all sorts of tax issues for both parties. However if there are simple loopholes around such laws a community funded game project should be possible

[Via Blue's News]

The annual DICE Summit is now underway in Las Vegas with Valve's co-founder Gabe Newell giving the high-end game conference's keynote address. Gamespot covered the event and had some highlights from Newell's speech.

Newell sees their games like Team Fortress 2 and more recently Left 4 Dead as more than stand alone products but as services and that constant updates help improve service and sales for those games. Newell said they have offered a whopping 63 patches and content updates for Team Fortress 2 since the original version was shipped. (In fact a new update for the game to fix an exploit was released just last night)

Having Valve's famous Steam weekend sales increases revenue greatly for game titles. Just last weekend, Valve had a 25 percent sale for Left 4 Dead and Newell said sales were up a whopping 3,000 percent during the period. Also new Steam users jumped another 1,600 percent during the time period.

You know those cool Team Fortress 2 character videos? Newell stated the team behind those videos will be producing a Team Fortress 2 comic book as well. There's no word if it will be an online comic or sold in comic book shops.

With the DICE Summit scheduled for later this month, the organizers at the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences are adding more speakers to its already long list of game industry insiders. Our sister site GameDaily reports that Valve founder Gabe Newell has just been added as a keynote speaker for the event.

Valve is riding high on the success of its zombie co-op shooter Left 4 Dead and its Steam digital download service continues to add new games and publishers. At the moment there's no word on what Newell will speak about. Perhaps he will give some hints about Valve's future plans (Half-Life 2: Episode 3? Portal 2?). The event will be held at the Red Rock Hotel in Las Vegas from Feb. 17-20.

Shiny Entertainment founder Dave Perry has moved onto being the creative director at the free-to-play MMO publisher Acclaim. But he also maintains his own web site where he gives advice and even helps out developers get jobs. He also interviews folks in the game industry.

His latest subject is none other than Gabe Newell, founder of Valve (maker of Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Portal and the upcoming Left 4 Dead). Perry talks to Newell about how he got his first big break in the game industry and what advice Newell would give anyone else trying to break into game development. Newell believes that folks who break into the industry in the future will need to do more than one thing, saying, "Programmers that can draw are going to be in much better shape than an animator specializing in putting talking mouths on cats. The solutions of tomorrow are not going to fall into the production or organizational categories of today."

[Via Kotaku]

Anyone could come up with a lot of reasons for why Valve is such a successful company. Ask any two people what makes Valve so successful and they'll probably point to different things. Some will say their cabal style game design and free content updates. While others will point to the Steam platform, mod support and integration of top mod designers. Some may even call out Gabe Newell himself. Oh and don't forget Doug Lombardi, either. We could go on and on about just what made (and continues to make) Valve so very special. Though I doubt it's any single one of those things as opposed to many of them at the right moments in the right way. Or in other words, a lot of chance, determination and some vision.

What I do think can be gleaned from the success of Valve, is where PC gaming will -- or at least should be -- going over the next few years. Hit the image above to take a look at what I think their model of game design and business decisions has to offer the wider PC gaming market.

There have been many talks about how developing games for consoles is better than developing for PCs and vice-verse but one of the biggest pluses for PC games is that for the most part free content updates for games (new levels, modes, weapons, etc) are still the norm rather than the exception. It's certainly a formula that works for Valve and its founder Gabe Newell clearly doesn't like how console companies try to charge for that same content.

In a new chat for Videogaming247, Newell is quoted as saying, "On the consoles, they want us to charge money for them, because that's in their model, and our model is very much more to grow the community by giving out free updates. That's harder for us." Newell likes that on the PC they are able to communicate and get updates for their games to their customers with a minimal of fuss and that's not true with consoles. He states, " . . . like any developer, we want nobody between us and the people who are playing our game. It's pretty self-interested, because when you have the ability to respond directly to what customers are telling you, you sell more copies of your games, and you sell more audiences, and you make more money. So anything that stands between us and them is a bad thing."

Valve Software's Gabe Newell took the stage at EA's E3 press conference to present the cooperative horror game Left 4 Dead. We have the video of that presentation on the other side of the jump, but here are the Cliff's Notes.

All four current player character models will be replaced with the above-pictured folks. This was probably a good change; the old ones weren't very likable or varied. In addition to that bit of info, Newell talked about the game's AI director, which will adjust the gameplay to match players' playstyles, positions, and status.

He also said the game is coming out on November 4th, but that news ain't new. Anyway, the game seems to be coming along swimmingly. Be sure and check out the video after the break!