For many of us, it's hard to imagine being a PC gamer without making use of Steam, easily one of?? the biggest digital storefronts on the market. In fact, Valve pretty much got the ball rolling for digital gaming when it released the first iteration of its client some 20 years ago.

As well as being something of an OG in that regard, one thing that keeps Steam in a lot of people's good books is the regular sale events that take place. A lot of them are pretty short fests that go on for a week, and they usually have a theme. We recently had a farming one, and another is about to go live (could al?ready have kicked off by the time this gets published).

However, the one event that most gamers look forward to is the annual Steam Summer Sale. It's by far the biggest one, offering weeks of discounts on so many games. It's pretty hard to keep up, placing a ??burden on a lot of people's personal finances (I'm kidding, but also not ??at the same time). But when is the 2024 sale event going ahead?

Would you believe this summer?

We're already partway through May, so surely the Steam Summer Sale is just around the corner? Well, we're not far off. According to the schedule for sales and events, the big one this summer wil?l be going ahead on June 27 and will go ?on until July 11.

If you want a visual representation of that, SteamDB has a countdown cl??ock. At the time of writing, we're still 45 days and over four hours away from the event. That honestly feels like a lot longer than it actually is. It's just a few weeks away. T?hat time will almost certainly fly by.

While there's no way of knowing exactly which games will be in the event, you're pretty much guaranteed to find something you've been after for a while. Last year's sale saw discounts on things like Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and so much ??more. Even Valve's own Steam D??eck was part of it.

If you're heavily into PC gaming and you've yet to experience a Steam Summer Sale, consider your bank account warne?d. Then there's the big? Christmas event at the end of the year as well. It's almost as if Valve really wants us all to spend our money.

The post When does the Steam Summer Sale 2024 begin? appeared first on Destructoid.

It's been a long time since The Orange Box

Valve president Gabe Newe??ll has hinted that his company has plans to return to the console market, with further news currently scheduled for release later in 2021. Newell mad??e the obscure teaser during a recent Q&A session held at, of all places, a high school assembly.

Taking the opportunity to quiz Newell on Valve's future plans,?? on?e student asked "Will Steam be putting any games on consoles, or will it just stay on PC?"

"You will... uh... get a better idea of that by the end of year," hinted the Valve boss, amusingly offering up the sort of teasing tidbit that reporters would kill for at an E3 or a Gamescom — but during a small school assembly. The Q&A was partially recorded by student Odysseic, who has since uploaded the footage to Reddit.

Valve's last console release was tactical shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), which arrived on PS3 and Xbox 360 way back in 2012. Perhaps the publisher's best-known console release remains The Orange Box, a stellar compilation from 2007 which included Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and a debuting Portal. Since then, Valve has remained focused on its PC platform Steam, though its recent wares — such as the fantastic Half-Life: Alyx — would?? undoubtedly be welcomed back into the console market.

The post Gabe Newell hints Valve m??ay have?? incoming news regarding console releases appeared first on Destructoid.

Valve CEO thought it was great 'to be back doing single-player games' with Half-Life: Alyx

In a wide-ranging interview with Valve co-founder Gabe Newell, TVNZ's 1 News asked if there were any new Valve games "coming out soon" – to ??which h??e laughed and responded, "I'm sure there are."

"Yes, we definitely have games in development that we're going to be announcing," he elaborated, adding that "it's fun to ship games." Newell brought up last year's Half-Life: Alyx, a game that felt like a collective sigh of relief for anxious fans longing for something, anything. "Alyx was great; to be back doing single-player games, that created a lot of momentum inside of the company to do mo?re of that."

On the topic of never-ending calls for Half-Life 3, Portal 3, and the number three in general, Newell said "the nice thing is, by not answering those questions, I avoid the community coming up with new, equally difficult-to-answer questions." (He was also asked about code-name "Citadel," but was coy as usual.)

I feel like we've heard this all before due to the way Valve works on its own time while fans dig for clues before they're finalized, but maybe – just maybe – things are different in a post-Half-Life: Alyx world.

As for Newell, he's residing in New Zealand and hopes to stay "for the foreseeable future." He also spoke about the country, Dota 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Valve Index, and what he's been playing lately.

'Reali??stic possibility' $48m esports tournament could be held in NZ, says gaming tycoon Gabe Newell [1 News | TVNZ via VGC]

The post Gabe Newell says it’s ‘fun to ship games’ and Valve ‘definitely’ has announcements to make appeared first on Destructoid.

Watch this, help the children

Gabe Newell and I have lived very different COVID-19 quarantines. I've been chained to my desk blogging about games for the 105th consecutive month??. Newell went to New Zealand because it seemed nice, became so enamored that he lobbied the government to let him move Valve there, and then got bored enough to blast a gnome into space.

The gnome, colloquially known to you ?and me and Gnome Chompski, got there safe and sound. Partnered with Rocket Labs, Valve's favorite lawn ornament hitched a ride to space as part of the "Return to Sender" mission. Oh, and by "safe and sound," I mean he's definitely dead (or will be soon). The rocket is designed to reenter the atmosphere and? burn completely. No passengers will survive.

For anyone simply wondering "Why?" there are two good answers. First, it's the real-life reenactment of a legendary Half-Life 2: Episode 2 achievement where players unlocked "Little Rocket Man" by arduously carrying Gnome Chompski all the way through the episode before finally placing him in a rocket. It's, to put it mildly, a giant pain in the ass. Gnome Chompski also makes cameos in Half-Life: Alyx and Left 4 Dead 2. Valve likes him a lot.

(Actually, Half-Life 2: Episode 2 got a new Steam achievement as part of the Rocket Labs launch. It's called "Gnome Alone" and the description reads "If you are reading this achievement, Gabe Newell has successfully launched Gnome Chompski into space. If you did not also receive the achievement 'Manufacturing Ascent.' Newell has abandoned his plans to shoot Noam Chomsky into space." The achievement art is pretty ace.)

The second answer affects people still on this planet. Newell pledged to donate $1 to the Starship Children's Hospi??tal in Auckland, New Zealand for every person who watches the launch. Right now, that tally sits around 225,000. If you want to help the kids and watch a gnome go all Sally Ride, click that video up top. Hell, refresh it a few times. Gabe's good for it.

The post GabeN goes SpaceX, sends a gnome to space beca?use he can appeared first on Destructoid.

Laying the law

A year after leaving Valve, former lead writer for Half-Life, Marc Laidlaw, has posted to his website a narrative outline for what could have been the plot of Half-Life 2: Episode 3 in-character as "Gertrude Fremont." The site is down with heavy traffic, but you can read it at the archive or on Github with the correct names and locations edited in.

The plot follows Gordan and Alyx as they track down the Bore??alis, leading to an encounter with the G-Man. Some are jumping the gun and declaring the game to be dead, in part due to the last of the series' writer leaving Valve a f?ew months back.

With games like Duke Nukem Forever, The Last Guardian, Final Fantasy VII: Remake, Kingdom Hearts 3, and so on being finished or put into development, the future of Half-Life remains the biggest question ??mark in video games. It's about ?time Valve said or did something, and all eyes are trained on Gabe Newell now.

The post ‘Half-Life’ writer posts his vision of Episode 3 appeared first on Destructoid.

It's hard to make weapon skins funny

It's been confirmed that Erik Wolpaw, one of the writers behind games like Portal and Left 4 Dead, is no longer working for Valve. Wolpaw and his writing partner, Chet Faliszek, joined Valve after their hugely influential Old Man Murray website was noticed by founder Gabe Newell, and they've helped give Valve's characters much of their humor and personality ever since. Before joining Valve, Wolpaw had written for Double Fine's Psychonauts, and it appears as though he'll continue working on the sequel. Wolpaw had been given permission to work on Psychonauts 2 while still at Valve, but will?? now be able to devote full time to the proje?ct.

The departure was confirmed on Twitter by one of Wolpaw's fellow writers at Valve, Marc Laidlaw. Additionally, Wolpaw's FaceBook page?? has been updated to show that he's no lon?ger a Valve employee.

@Wolpaw left Valve so I can now insult him freely withou??t damaging the company's reputation. He's a comic genius and a true original.

— Marc Laidlaw (@marc_laidlaw) February 17, 2017

Valve's writing team for the last decade has been top-notch, and if you've ever repeated a meme about fictional cake, sentient bread, or combustible lemons, it's likely that Wolpaw had a hand in its creation. Wolpaw had thought he would need to leave Valve in the past due to illness, but was given extended leave to recover. It's unknown how hi??s departure will affect any titles Valve is currently working on. 

Erik Wolpaw leaves Valve, for real this time [NeoGAF]

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Three games...three...

Valve CEO Gabe Newell has never been a fan of consoles and reaffirmed those feelings recently when he explained to Eurogamer that "We ge??t really frustrated working in walled gardens." This time is he talking not about power, but having to rely on other companies to deliver and publish their products.

Instead, using their own walled gardens of Steam and Vive, Valve is "building" three new games. Newell clarifies these will be real games unlike The Lab, noting, "When I say we're building three games, we'?re building three full games, not experiments."  No information was given on these beyond the fact that they will not just be ports of existing Valve titles.

These three games are not the extent of Newell and Valve's ambition with virtual reality, however. Newell cites Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto and his ability t?o work directly with the hardware when crafting games as he explains his desire to do the same while pushing VR forward.

"This is something that Miyamoto has always had. He's had the ability to think about what the input device is and design a system while he designs games. Our sense is that this will actually allow us to build much better entertainment experiences for?? people."

New??ell says he wants to push the boundaries and work at the hardware's fullest potential to make something amazing rather than trying to? make something cheap.

"There's still not an incredibly compe??lling reason for ??people to spend 20 hours a day in VR. Once you've got something, the thing that really causes millions of people to be excited about it, then you start worrying about cost reducing."

So far, Resident Evil 7 is the only major full-length game that can be played start-to-finish in VR, which is eight to ten hours on average. The obvious answer to something that would get a lot of people excited here is Half-Life 3. Maybe VR is finally their chance to do something interesting with it, much like how Miyamoto always likes to use new technology or innovations in Mario games.

Newell seems to me like a person, similar to Miyamoto, who? wants to innovate and do new things, so I have to imagine they're going to try to make something only possible in VR that is still a fun and full game experience. I wonder if even new genres could be developed. Newell's optimism is rubbing off on me a little it seems, though I don't know if I'm as confident in VR's future as he is.

"We're actually going to go ??from this weird position where VR right now is kind of low-res, to being in a place where VR is actually higher res than just about anything else, with much higher refresh rates than you're going to see on either desktops or phones. You'll actually see the VR industry sort of leapfrogging pretty much any other display technology in terms of those characteristics. It's probably not obvious from the fi?rst generation of products, but you'll start to see that happening like in 2018-2019."

I would love?? nothing more than to see VR succeed. Right now it's expensive, not so powerful despite demanding high specifications, has very few worthwhile games, and involves a lot of cables and a specific setup. A lot of technology starts that way and needs visionaries to improve it. Sometimes they don't pan out, as Newell himself says.

"If you're not failing then you're probably not exploring the potential space wide enough. We're sort of optimistic, right? We think VR is going right. It's going in a way that's cons?istent with our expectations. We're also comfortable with the idea that it may turn out to be a complete failure, simply because if you're not trying to do thi?ngs that might fail, you're not actually probably trying to do anything very interesting at all."

Valve is making three 'full' VR games [Eurogamer]

The post Valve making three ‘full’ games for VR, wants to advance the platform appeared first on Destructoid.

Potential VR spin-off

Gabe Newell recently held an AMA (ask me anything) on Reddit and people were obviously drooling at the chance to question the existence of Half-Life 3. While that was deftly avoided by Gaben, there were some interesting hints dropped about a potential spin-o?ff to the series that could be in the pipeline. When questioned about whether Valve was actively working on any kind of single-player game, Gabe responded with, "Yes."

After that, another user further clarified the question by asking whether Valve was working on a new IP that is set within the Half-Life/Portal univers??e. Gabe also replied with, "Yep." Now, this could mean a number of things, but more than likely, it has to do with the HTC Vive. Gabe did bring up the possibility, later stating, "We think VR is pretty important ?as a tool for interesting games."

While that could be anything, Valve actively backs the HTC Vive, so that would clearly be its target device. You could also take this to mean that Valve is currently working on two separate projects, one in VR and one as a spin-off. Then again, The Lab is a fully VR tech demo that takes place within Portal, so who is to say what is really going on?

Source 2 is also mentioned in the AMA and Valve seems to be going full force with their new engine. While it has only debuted with DOTA 2, so far, it looks like Valve is not giving up on th?eir technology. "We are are using it as the foundation of some unannounced products," Gabe confirmed.

Someone else also brought up the potential movies that Valve was wo??rking on with J.J. Abrams. Apparently those are still in the works, so I guess w??e can look forward to those not sucking...maybe.

Hi. I'm Gabe Newell. AMA. [Reddit]

The post Half-Life? may ?continue, but not like you want it to appeared first on Destructoid.

It's, uh, it's a list, all right

Y'know ??what, guys? Turns out Steam is pretty popular. Over 15 million people participated in nominating games for the Steam awards this year. That's pretty good fo?r a set of awards that didn't exist and no one knew about a few weeks ago.

Voting for the awards will begin on December 22, with one category being voted on per day all the way up to December 30. It's a safe bet that the winners of each category will get some kind of discount in the Steam store. It's a little strange that the nominees don't need to be from the current year, but I guess it's Valve's party and Valve's rules. The list of categories and nomin??ees are as follows:

The “Villain Most In Need Of A Hug” Award (December 22)

• Borderlands 2
• Dead by Daylight
• Far Cry 3
• Far Cry 4
• Portal 2

 Some people just need a hug.

The “I Thought This Game Was Cool Before It Won An Award” Award (December 23)

• Euro Truck Simulator 2
• Paladins
• Starbound
• Stardew Valley
• Unturned

This title didn’t have a huge marketing machine behind it, but you found it and loved it. Then you told your friends about it. And they loved it. And now that little game that could is about to win an award… but always remember: you totally found it first.

The “Test of Time" Award (December 24)

• Age of Empires II HD
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• Sid Meier’s Civilization V
• Team Fortress 2
• Terraria

This award is for the game that is just as good today as the day you first played it. Newer games may come out, but it doesn’t matter… you’ll always come back to play this one.

The “Just 5 More Minutes” Award (December 25)

• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
• Rocket League
• Sid Meier’s Civilization VI
• Fallout 4
• Terraria

You have an early day tomorrow. You need to get some sleep, so you’re just going finish one more thing before you decide to tuck in for the night. Just one more. Wait, one more. What’s that you say? It’s 2:30 AM? This award is for the game that keeps you playing late.

The “Whoooaaaaaaa, dude!” Award (December 26)

• Bioshock Infinite
• DOOM
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Some games melt your face. Maybe it was a crazy plot twist. Maybe you just got your wisdom teeth removed. Either way, this game BLOWS YOUR MIND.

The “Game Within A Game Award” Award (December 27)

• Garry’s Mod
• Grand Theft Auto V
• The Stanley Parable
• Tabletop Simulator
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Kinder Eggs. Peanut Butter Cups. Jelly Donuts. All great things stuffed with other great things. Like a mighty turducken, this award celebrates the best mini game hidden within another game.

The “I’m Not Crying, There’s Something In My Eye” Award (December 28)

• Life Is Strange
• To the Moon
• This War of Mine
• Undertale
• The Walking Dead

Games are fun. But sometimes games become more than that, and touch you in a way you weren’t expecting. This award celebrates the game that blindsided you emotionally. You weren’t expecting to cry. It wasn’t in the plan. But it happened nonetheless.

The “Best Use Of A Farm Animal” Award (December 29)

• ARK: Survival Evolved
• Blood and Bacon
• Farming Simulator 17
• Goat Simulator
• Stardew Valley

Animals are rad and almost any game is better for including them. This game used a farm animal in the best way possible.

On December 30, the rules change a bit. There will be four categories simultaneous??ly, and voters w?ill be able to choose one game from each category.

The “Boom Boom” Award

• BroForce
• DOOM
• Just Cause 3
• Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes 
• Kerbal Space Program

Let’s face it: explosions are pretty great. In a blockbuster movie they’re thrilling. In a celebration with fireworks they’re beautiful. And when they’re behind a cop putting on sunglasses they’re nothing short of glorious. These games understand the fine art of detonation.

The “Love/Hate Relationship” Award 

• Dark Souls III
• Darkest Dungeon
• Dota 2
• Geometry Dash
• Super Meat Boy

Games are just supposed to be fun!”… oh sweet summer child, your naivety is adorable. Games can be more than fun. They can be challenges that demand perfection. These games are punishing gauntlets that make you question your very skill… a crucible that will push you either to greatness or a breaking point. You will wake up family members as you scream. Words will come out of your mouth that would make your mom blush. Your chill friends will ask you, “Why do you play something that stresses you out?”… and you will stare at them with steely eyes and reply, “Because I love it.”

The “Sit Back and Relax” Award 

• ABZU
• Cities Skylines
• Euro Truck Simulator 2
• Mini Metro
• Viridi

Did you read the description for the “Love/Hate Relationship” Award? This is the opposite. 

The “Better With Friends” Award 

• Don’t Starve Together 
• Gang Beasts
• Golf With Your Friends
• Left 4 Dead 2
• Magicka

There are some games out there that just aren’t the same when you play by yourself. Maybe you need to have a friend to watch your back. Maybe you need to have a friend that you can stab in the back. Either way, mirth is awaiting those that gather friends to play these games.

Every day at 10 AM Pacific t??ime, a new category will be available for voting. Winners will be announced on December 31. Maybe I'm just a cynical jerkface, but this just seems like a slightly different format for the annual Steam winter sale. Still, it's nice to know what's going to be on sale ahead of time for a change.

THE STEAM AWARD?S: Finalists announced, voting to comme?nce Dec 22nd [Steam]

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Praise lord Gaben!

The recent news that Quantum Break would be heading to Steam wasn't just some one-off event. In a recent interview with DualShockers, Xbox marketing boss Aaron Greenberg said that Microsoft is looking into bringing m?or?e of its titles to Valve's online service.

"Well, from a fist-party standpoint, over the years, we've always had titles in the Steam store, from&?nbsp;Age of Empires, to Alan Wake, to even more recently we had titles like Ori and State of Decay. We?? have and we'll continue to look where it makes sense? to bring out titles to Steam," Greenberg stated.

This is only good news for gamers, as having titles locked to a single storefront will never be good for those people who can't access? them. While consoles lack options, digitally, for competition, at least retail still exists. ??On PC, you've got a lot of different places to go (with at least one site per week having a sale).

In any case, maybe this means Halo can finally get the PC treatment that so many people have wanted. I'm not a big fan of the series, proper, but I really did enjoy Halo: Reach, so having that on PC would be awesome.

Xbox Interview: ?Aaron Greenberg Talks Proj?ect Scorpio, Xbox One S, Play Anywhere and Much More [DualShockers]

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Just say the game is dead already

YouTuber CrowbCat collected tons of clips in chronological order of Valve co-founder Gabe Newell discussing Half-Life 2: Episode 3 and eventually Half-Life 3. Watch as Gaben joyously talks about how m??indblowing his next game will be before slowly growing an?? awesome beard and pleading the fifth.

It has been almost nine years since Episode 2, and at this ?point, I'm starting to believe that Valve isn't working on the game at all and it's officially canceled behind closed doors. Putting out an AAA game with such high expectations would probably cost far more than it is worth, when Valve can just sit back and collect free money from each and every game sold on Steam. 

Maybe the game is complete and behind a pane ?of glass labeled "In case of a competent Steam competitor, break glass," meaning w?e will probably never get it. Oh well.

The post This Gabe Newell Half-Life 3 supercut makes me think the game is ??dead appeared first on Destructoid.

Calls host 'an ass'

Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve and patron saint of Steam, has taken to reddit to address the Dota 2 subreddit's complaints about the Shanghai ?Major tournament currently taking place in China.

"Two things:

1) James. We've had issues with James at previous events. Some Valve people lobbied to bring him back for Shanghai, feeling that he deserved another chance. That was a mis??take. James is an ass, and we won't be working with him again.

2) As long as we're firing people, we are also firin?g the production company that we've been working with on the Shanghai Major. They will be replaced, and we hope to ge??t this turned around before the main event."

The tournament host James '2GD' Harding was let go only a day and a half into the event. PC Gamer reports that J??ames, "was irreverent, sometimes openly mocking of certain pro players, and included off-color humor and language." Though no specific reason has be??en given.

The production company running the tournament, Perfect World, was also let go, which according to reddit had poor production values including delays, lag, audio issues, not providing players appropriate equipment, ?and other issues.

I've always pictured Gaben as a big friendly Santa-like character, and se??eing him publicly fire people like this is a side I've never seen before. I appreciate when upper management can lay down the law and hold people accountable instead of refusing to admit they made a mistake. Br??avo Gabe, keep up the good work.

Update from the Shanghai Major [reddit]

The post Gabe Newell fires Dota 2 hos?t a??nd production company during live tournament appeared first on Destructoid.

Is this eligible for The Game Awards?

There's a Gabe Newell Simulator on Steam Early Access a??nd it costs seven American dollars. The entirety of that sentence should be enough for you to make a purchasing decision, right?

For what it's worth, I think a Gabe Newell simulator could absolutely be funny. Anything can be funny, but this might be the perfect time for a cutting satire of the most powerful man in digital gaming. Between Early Access, Greenlight, the unstoppable Dota 2 juggernaut, Valve's trading card economy, and, yes, even Half-Life 3, a game like this has never been more timely.

The Beginner's Guide shows us that games about games can be financially and critically successful. But from the looks of it, Gabe Newell Simulator is no Beginner's Guide.

WHAT DO WE WANT"Memes"WHEN DO WE WANT IT"Instead of regul??ar jokes"

— wint (@dril) July 21, 2013

The post There’s a Gabe Newell Simulator on Steam appeared first on Destructoid.

Brace yourselves, the downvotes are coming

The PC gaming community has been up in arms ever since Valve announced a few days ago that the Skyrim Steam Workshop would start allowing modders to charge mon??ey for previously free user-created mods. To the surprise of absolutely no one, the Internet was less than excited about the news.

Following what has no doubt been a torrential amount of hate mail, Valve CEO Gabe Newell has chosen to deal with the issue in ??the bravest way possible: by starting an AMA on reddit.

Users were quick to fling accusations at Newell, but some genuinely good dialogue has emerged from the thread. According to Newell, Valve firmly believes that paid mods will have a positive effect on the community and "increase the investment in quality modding, not hurt it??."

"Our goal is to make modding better for the authors and gamers," said Newell. "If something doesn't help with that, it will get dumpe??d. Right now I'm more optimistic that this will be a win for authors ?and gamers, but we are always going to be data driven."

Newell confirmed that modders will not only have the option to keep their mods free, but will also be able to use a 'pay what you want' styled system instead of a set price. While it's not quite the don??ate option Steam users have been petitioning for, Newell seems confident its a step in the right directio??n.

I'm not sure if Newell's comments will help put Steam users at ease or just poke the fire but people are still furious judging by the reddit thread. With some paid mods already being pulled from the Steam Workshop, I don't ??expect this conv?ersation to quiet down any time soon.

The post Gabe Newell defen??ds paid mods against the f?ury of an angry Internet appeared first on Destructoid.

Newell is an ultra powerful boss

News revealed on April Fools is always difficult to know how to treat. Do you waste time verifying it? Do you assume everything's a hoax regardless of proof? Do you just wait it out and see if the news still has updates in the coming weeks? In the case of Crawl's new secret boss character we waited and things are now looking a lot mo?re cle??ar.

Initially unveiled on April Fools as a GIF and recently confirmed to be real, Valve head honcho Gabe Newell is being added to Crawl. A local multiplayer dungeon crawler where one player controls the hero and others control traps and monsters, Crawl will soon allow you to fight a super powered man with a beard ?and lots of ??money.

Oh, and our v?ery own Jed Whitaker is also i?n the game. Just name yourself JED and you can play as the bearded wonder himself.

@Powerhoof short sweet email from Valve today giving the go ahead for this silly thing :) turns out Valve are cool- who ??knew?

— Powerhoof (@Powerhoof) April 9, 2015

While Newell was initially added to the game without developer Powerhoof getting his per?mission, Po?werhoof has since reached out to Valve which gave its blessing for his inclusion.

The post Gabe Newell punches his way into indie game appeared first on Destructoid.

Or put on your horsie head

How does a man that has the universal respect of the Internet celebrate his birthday? Does he announce Half-Life 3? Does he throw a spectacular Steam sale?

No, he probably just keeps watching you.

The post Break out the party hats, it’s Gabe Newell’s birthday! appeared first on Destructoid.

RUN

Is he? IS HE? This link's a bit old, but it's nev??er too late for a jaunty? tune that asks the important questions.

Gabe Newell

The post Is Gabe Newell watching you? appeared first on Destructoid.

'GabeN, what are your specs? Well, I'm a handsome man with a charming personality'

After a false start, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell took to reddit for an Ask Me Anything alongside several other Valve employees. While nothing too revelatory w???as said, Newell did comment on the upcoming Source 2 engine and its focus on user-generated content, saying:

"The biggest improvements will be in increasing productivity of content creation. That focus is driven by the importance we see UGC having going forward. A professional developer at Valve will put up with a lot of pain that won't work if user??s themselves hav?e to create content."

Valve has no current plans for exclusives on SteamOS, the Internet's obsession with Newell is "entertaining for [his] friends," and this year's International for Dota 2 is likely to take place at "Key Arena i?n Seattle, but we haven't gotten everything finalized, and there is always a risk that our schedules and theirs won't align in some way."

If the company "could borrow an IP from another company to make a game for it," Newell would choose The Warriors, Greg Coomer would take Groundhog Day or Heathers, and Erik Wolpaw would go for God Hand or Saints Row. Can you dig it?

WeAreA videogame developer AUA! [reddit]

The post Valve’s Gabe Newell did an Ask Me Anything appeared first on Destructoid.

Gabe Newell address Valve's Anti-Cheat system

Valve and the PC gaming savior Gabe Newell took to reddit to address the Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) system. Specifically, the CEO reassured Steam users that they are not accessing your browsing history. The company usually doesn't talk about VAC, but this thread on the Counter-Strike reddit was enough to get Gabe him?self to address the matter.

"Cheat developers have a problem in getting cheaters to actually pay them for all the obvious reasons, so they start creating DRM and anti-cheat code for their cheats," Gabe stated. "These cheats ph?one home to a DRM server that confirms that a cheater has actually paid to?? use the cheat.

"VAC checked for the presence of these cheats. If they were detecte??d VAC then checked to see which cheat DRM server was being contacted. This second check was done by looking for a partial match to those (non-web) cheat DRM servers in the DNS cache. If found, then hashes of the matching DNS entries were sent to the VAC servers. The match was double checked on our servers and then that client was marked for a future ban. Less than a tenth of one percent of clients triggered the second check. 570 cheaters are being banned as a result."

Gabe noted that creating Kernel-level cheats are expensive, and they're?? expensive to detect too. What VAC does is make cheating even more expensive for cheaters "than the economic bene??fits they can reasonably expect to gain."

?"There is also a social engineering side to cheating, which is to attack people's?? trust in the system. If "Valve is evil - look they are tracking all of the websites you visit" is an idea that gets traction, then that is to the benefit of cheaters and cheat creators. VAC is inherently a scary looking piece of software, because it is trying to be obscure, it is going after code that is trying to attack it, and it is sneaky. For most cheat developers, social engineering might be a cheaper way to attack the system than continuing the code arms race, which means that there will be more Reddit posts trying to cast VAC in a sinister light.

"Our response is to make it cl?ear what we were actually doing and why with enough transparency that people can make their own judgements as to whether or not we are trustworthy."

Gabe summed up his statement?? by saying Valve doesn't see browsing history, and jokingly noted that they do not care about the porn sites you visit. "Oh, dear god, no. My brain just m?elted," Gabe noted at the thought of the idea.

Valve, VAC, and trust [reddit]

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Sit back and wave at the Greenlight

There has been a wealth of news from Steam Developer Days as freewheeling game makers tweet like fiends. There's the Steam Controller redesign, Valve wanting music and video services for SteamOS, 75 million active users on Steam (a 10M bump in three months), and more.

A tweet by Dave Oshry, recently responsible for reviving Rise of the Triad, also points to Valve's Gabe Newell being unhappy with Steam Gre?enlight. "Our goal is to make Greenlight go away. Not b??ecause it's not useful, but because we're evolving."

Greenlight has received some criticism since its inception for still a??cting as a barrier to release. Newell has gone on record against closed systems, where Wi??ndows is heading, so working to increasingly open up Steam to smaller developers makes a lot of sense.

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Worst company in America? You decide.

It wasn't much of a surprise when Electronic Arts was recently voted the Worst Company in America by readers of Consumerist for the second year in a row. Though the game publisher's sins are arguably less substantial than those of their competition, nerds have soundly declared that borked SimCity servers are officially worse than the predatory housing loan tactics respons?ible for the current financial crisis. 

Regardless of whether you agree with EA's win, it's obvious that gamers really di??slike this software giant. Let's take a look at the reasons why.

Lack of creativity

Electronic Arts is terribly afraid of the word "creativity." Being creative means taking risks, trying things which haven’t been tried before. EA, meanwhile, prefers to release the same game as many times as possible, seeing just how much money they can milk out of a franchise before the public realizes they probably don’t need the “Extreme Farming” expansion for The Sims. 

_{I've said it before, but this is still the stupidest thing ever.}

For a good example of how shameless Electronic Arts is about their lack of original ideas, look no further than Goldeneye: Rogue Agent. After snatching the Bond license away from Rare and churning out an endless procession of uninspired shooters, EA finally decided to just try and trick people into thinking they'd crafted a sequel to the N64 hit. The game wasn’t even based on the movie Goldeneye, it was about a dude with an actual golden eye, which makes literally no sense whatsoe?ver. 

Worst of all, EA doesn't even have the decency to recognize when they've published another uninspired piece of crap. Medal of Honor: Warfighter was universally panned by critics, though rather than recognize their failure and learn from it, EA execs decided to loudly whine about how unfair the scores were. Is there anything more pathetic than a bunch of filthy rich executives crying because reviewers judged their game based on its merits rather than its gigantic mark??eting budget?

Buying out the competition

As established, EA hates coming up with new ideas, and nowhere is this more apparent than their massive lineup of cookie-cutter sports titles. Of course, who can really faul??t them for taking advantage of those knuckle-draggi??ng cretins who are happy to pay $60 for the exact same game they bought last year?

_{Look at how excited John Madden is about his royalty check.} 

That being said, it’s pretty pathetic to see how terrified EA is of their competition, likely aware that any developer with even a sliver of respect for the customer could easily blow their half-assed efforts out?? of the water.

That’s exactly what happened in the case of Sega’s NFL 2K5, a game which was not only hailed as one of the best football games of all time, but actually sold for $10 less than EA’s latest lazy installment in the Madden franchise. Sweating profusely as they considered the idea of actually having to work for their consumer's money, the EA execs frantically called up their chums at the NFL, negotiating an exclusive contract and killing off any competing NFL game series, including NFL 2K and NFL Blitz. 

Of course, Electronic Arts themselves actually brought back the NFL Blitz franchise in 2012, which is pretty disgusting when you think about it. It&rs?quo;s one thing to commit murder, it’s another to reanimate your victim's corpse and force it to danc??e for nickels. 

Treating workers like Slave Labor

You m??ight argue that EA can’t be faulted simply for being good at business, and I’ll be the first to admit I’ve got nothing against good old fashioned capitalism. Problem is, Electronic Arts is a little too old fashioned, the company clearly pining for the days when where treat?ing your workers like slaves was just par for the course.

_{Ah, the good ol' days.}

See, in America we have something called “overtime law,” where any employee ??working in excess of forty hours in a week get paid at 1.5 times their normal rate for those additional hours. It’s supposed to encourage companies to hire additiona??l workers, rather than simply hiring a burly guy with a whip to provide encouragement.

Somehow though, EA never got the memo about not forcing your programmers to work like sweatshop laborers. In 2004, Erin Hoffman, the so-called “EA Spouse,” posted a scathing expose on how the electronic giant had treated her husband and other employees, forcing them to work as many at 84 hours a week  without any overtime compensation. Her speaking out led to three separate class-action lawsuits being filed against EA, the software giant forced to shelve their plans for motivational shock-co?llars.

_{Beatings will continue until morale improves.}

Ruining companies

In the 90?s Electronic Arts set about buying up ??every awesome PC developer they could find, with the hopes of working with these talented studios to create great software values for the consumer...

Wait, that’s wrong. What EA actually wanted was to buy up a bunch of already popular franchis??es, then force the developers to release an endless stream of crappy bug-laden s??equels.

Remember the biblical story of Abraham, who was commanded by god to take his son Issac up to a mountain and stab the kid with the first sharp rock he could find? It was kind of like that, except Issac was the Command and Conquer series and Electronic Arts wasn't kidding ar??ound about the “murder your child” decree.  

 _{C'mon Abraham, just ship Ultima IX. Who cares if it sucks?}

Not that EA cared as they helped run studios like Westwood and Origin into the ground. Once the studios were no longer profitable, they simply fired everybody and pocketed whatever cash they'd made. Everybody wins, except of course for those developers who were ?forced to stab their most-beloved creations to death. 

Poor Richard Garriott. I hope he's happy now that he liv?es in ?space.

Shamless Money-grubbing

Though most publishers these days have resorted to a variety of tactics to earn some additional cash, El??ectronic Arts is perhaps the most shameless about these practices, eagerly trying to squeeze every possible? dollar out of your wallet.

_{Countless hours of login screen fun.}

• Downloadable content - You can be sure every EA release will come loaded with it, much of which probably should’ve been included in the retail release. 
• Used games - Sorry buddy. If you want to play with your friends, you’re gonna need this ridiculous online pass. 
• Micro-transactions - Because your favorite video games are made better when you're constantly being asked to feed them quarters
• Digital-rights management - EA promises to make sure that playing the game you bought is as frustrating as possible, either loading your computer up with DRM software, or forcing you to wait weeks for them to fix the servers before you can actually play that copy of SimCity you bought.

See, the reason gamers love companies like Valve, is because? Valve makes it clear they loves the consumer. Gabe Newell has proven you don’t have to constantly shit all over your customers just? to turn a profit. Every time I buy a game on Steam, I feel like I’m supporting a company which actually cares about me as a customer.

With Electronic Arts, I get the feeling my money is being used to purchase orphaned children, whose souls are used to power EA's massive fear engine, gradually ?opening the portal to the hellish nightmare realm where their demonic overlords plot the total enslavement of humanity.

Call it a hunch.

Non-Existent Customer Service

It’s interesting to see how different companies approach the issue of customer service. Many retailers hold by the old adage “the customer is always right,” going out of their way to please every patron. Electronic Arts goes by the motto "we hate you, give us your money," somet?hing which has unsurprisingly earned them few fans.

_{Hi! How can we make your life miserable today?} 

EA's inability to care about their consumers was less of a problem back in the retail days, though the move towards digital downloads has forced people to deal with Origin's incompetent customer service reps. Got charged twice for Battlefield 3? That's a banning. An opponent swore at you during a game session? That's another banning. You pre-ordered Command & Conquer: Generals 2 before it got announced as free-to-play and now need a refund? Sorry bro, better luck next time.

The recent SimCity debacle was excellent evidence of how little Electronic Arts cares about their customers. When you sell somebody a $60 product that doesn’t work, the right thing to do is offer them a refund. However, the idea of swimming in a slightly smaller money pool was enough to send EA executives to tears. No refunds for anybody, t?hough you do get a free copy of whatever game EA calculated would least affect their b??ottom line.

So, Electronic Arts has ??established the precedent that they are allowed to sell you something?? that doesn’t work, then refuse to give you back your money, and potentially ban you for complaining about it.

If that’s not enough cause to cancel your Battlefield 4 pre-order, I don’t know what is.

_{Preorder your inexplicable Origin banning today!}

In summary, Electronic Arts is like most American companies, their blind greedy love of money resulting in a terrible experience for ??the consumer. Though we can't argue that they put out some great games n??ow and again, it's their crappy business practices which are the problem.

The Worst Company in America? Mayb??????????????????????????e not, but they're definitely working hard to keep the title.  

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Newell speaks out at the BAFTAs

Gabe Newell received a fellowship at this year's Bri??tish Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, and took the opportunity to reveal th??at Valve's business was up 50 percent last year.

"I think in the last year our business has grown about 50 percent on the back of the opportunities that have been created by having these open platforms. And just so people sort of understand the scale of how big it's getting... so like the last Dota 2 update we were generating three-and-a-half terabytes per second, so that's about two percen??t of of all of the mobile and land based internet activity was?? just for a single game update."

Newel??l also emphasized his belief that the consumer would play an increasingly important role in the future of game development. "There's this sort of insatiable desire for gaming? right now," Newell stated in an interview at the BAFTAs.

A fellowship is the highest accolade that the BAFTAs award to game developers. Past recipient??s include Peter Molyneux, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Will Wright.

Newell: Valve business up 50% last year [GamesIndustry International]

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'So Gabe, it's up to you. The ball is in your court'

Valve distanced themselves from Xi3's Piston via a public statement that came after an announcement that the Steam-ready console would cost $1,000. Now, Xi3's CEO says Valve asked him to build the Piston and that Gabe Newell requested that he keep details to himself on ?the project.

According to Jason A. Sullivan, founder, president and CEO of Xi3 Corporation, in a statement given to Kotaku, Valve initiated the $1,000 console, invested in it, and showed it off at its booth at CES, this year.

Valve marketing head Doug Lombardi's statement from earlier today conflicts with the above information: "Valve began some expl?oratory work with Xi3 last year, but currently has no involvement in any product of theirs."

Maybe Lombardi forgot CES was this year? Or maybe, Valve is so desperately trying to give Xi3 the cold shoulder that they are being careless with the facts. Regardless, Sullivan tries to further separate the comparisons to Valve's official Steam Box and pitch it as console capable of much more than running Steam. Even at CES, Xi3 told Destructoid that it isn't a 'Steam Box'.

"The assumption of many in the media has been that Piston is the ‘official' Steam Box. We've never said that and neither has Valve. That hasn't changed," Sullivan said. "But just because Valve may not ‘currently' have any ‘involvement with any product of (ours)' doesn't mean that such involvement won't ex??ist in the future."

The Piston costs $1,000 at its base rate. It includes a 3.2 GHz quad-core processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB solid state drive. The hard drive can be upgraded to 512GB for an additional $750. Xi3 is currently taking pre-orders for its holi??day 2013 release.

"What Valve does or doesn't do with its Steam Box will be up to t?hem. So Ga?be, it's up to you. The ball is in your court," Sullivan said.

Piston Makers Fire Back [Kotaku]

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Prototypes to be sent out in '3-4 months'

BBC recently got a chance to talk to Gabe Newell about the upcoming Steam Box, Valve's upcoming attempt to bring the Steam platform into the li??ving room. Mr. Newell mentioned that a big hurdle at the moment is deciding on the right type of controller for the system.

One possibility is a controller with sensors in it, in order to "be able to directly measure how aroused the player is - what their heart rate is, things like that - in? order to offer them a new experience each time they play." He mentions Left 4 Dead as an example, which could possibly ramp things up considerably if the c??ontroller ?senses that the player is a scaredy-cat.

The article also mentions that Valve is planning to give out prototypes to consumers in order to gauge their reactions to it in "the next three to four months." Regardless of whether or not the Steam Box can tell how aroused ??I am, consider me on board with the whole idea.

Valve readies? prototype Steam Box video game console [BBC]

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Valve boss having a great year

Valve boss Gabe Newell was just inducted into the AIAS Hall of Fame last month, and now he's up to be honored by the British Academy of Film and Tel??evision Arts next month.

BAFTA's Fellowship is the highest accolade they bestow on game makers. Newell follows gam?ing Fellows Shigeru Miyamoto, Peter Molyneux, and Will Wright. 

Harvey Elliott, Chair of BAFTA's Games Committee: "Gabe's contribution to the industry is unique, and he is very different to many others that BAFTA could recognize.  As well as enjoying great critical and commercial success with phenomenally popular franchises such as Portal and Half-Life, his work in giving back to the games industry through developing and showcasing other games makers has been outstanding.  He is an inspirational developer and truly deserving?? of our Fellow recognition."

The British Academy Games Awards takes place on March 5 in London. Twitch will stream the awards live for those interested.

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Face, cloud gaming

Valve's Gabe Newell gave us his thoughts on cloud gaming this morning at his D.I.C.E. Summit keynote, saying that he's a skepti??c of the technology. While he backs in-home streaming as a solution for getting PC games on living room televisions, he doesn't feel that cloud technology is up to snuff. 

Newell feels that cloud gaming works until it becomes successful. As soon as everyone starts using a continuous network connect, pricing will go through the roof for users. He also feels that curre?nt technol??ogies put latency compensation in the wrong place -- in the center rather than the edge. 

Finally, Newell says that if you want to have a standard client out tree, there ??are much better approaches than sending video, though he didn't elaborate. 

Looking forward, Valve feels that latency sensitivity will increase in the future. They believe that there will be ??hardware in the near future that will?? be more sensitive to latency than humans are. What crazy technology are Valve playing with behind the scenes?

[image from a Threadless shirt design]

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"As real as anything in Hollywood ever gets"

Director J.J. Abrams (Star Trek) and Valve are cooperating on film adaptations of Half-Life and Portal, with early ideas already being t?ossed around Hollywood. Abrams also dropped hints that a game collaboration might?? be in development between the two.

In an interview with Polygon, Abrams discuss?es his approach, working with Gabe Newell, and his thoughts on videogame adaptations.

On state of film project(s): "It's a?s real as anything in Hollywood ever gets. [..] Which is that we are really talking to Valve, we are going to be bringing on a writer, we have a lot of very interesting ideas."

On approach: "We're also aware of the cautionary tales of movies that became games a?nd vice versa. Our goal here to is to treat the world Valve has created in?? both these properties like anyone would a book or some great story that comes from a pitch or original script — just to treat it with the respect they treat their games and their players with."

On developing a game with Valve: "We're not looking to m??ake a movie in the gaming world, w?e're not looking to impose what we do on that, we're looking forward to taking some of our strengths and collaborating with some of these incredible minds that make some of my favorite games."

Half-Life and Portal movies in early idea stages [Polygon]

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Highlights from 'Reflections of a Video Game Maker'

We already covered one major breakout from Gabe Newell's talk at The Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, which was that the top earner made $500,000 in a single year through the sale of Team Fortress 2 items they had designed. Now that I've had time to watch through the hour-lon?g video, here's another, describing the future of the company's digital distribution platform Steam.

"Rather than having this curated? store, we're going to say, 'Okay, if we're thinking about this correctly, it really should be sort of a network API," said Newell. "There should just be this publishing model -- and yes you have to worry about viruses, and malware, and stuff like that -- but essentially anybody should be able to ?publish anything through Steam.

"Steam is just a whole bunch of servers and a whole bunch of network bandwidth, and if the people are interested in consuming the stuff that you're putting up there, then a collective?? good is going to be there. So rather than us sitting between creators and consumers, we're going to get as far out of that connection as possible."

Continuing, he explained that "Right now, in Steam, the store is privileged content. A store is like a collection of editorial perspectives on stuff. And what it should be is user-generated content. That means other companies might create their own stores that are connected to the Steam backend, but anybody would be able to create a store. And there's some market-based mechanism for determining the price that a store gets to impose. But if you have a collection of games t?hat you own and you play, and one of your friends decides to buy a game through your trivially created store, then you should get a percentage of that revenue."

Fascinating stuff. For reference, Newell mentioned that someone like Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of Zero Punctuation would be a good fit for such a model. Of course, I wasn't going to listen to him tal?k at length without taking some notes. I've rounded up the quotes that I found to be either funny, interesting, or insightful.

On Valve as a company

"We grow about 50?? percent a year and have since we started the com?pany."

"We ge??nerate more Internet traffic than most countries. I think we're the fourth largest bandwidth consumer in the world right now."

"Titles in organizations k??eep people from properly encapsulating a problem at a point which allows them to be most productive."

"Management is a skill, it's not a career path."

"We have no QA department. We have no marketing department. We have one guy who calls himself the vice president of marketing bec??ause it confuses p?eople if he doesn't tell them that when he's talking to them. But everybody at the company -- we assume that their job is to talk to customers."

"We were willing to take what other compan??????????????????????????ies would say were risks. So one of the first programmers at the company, his previous  job was manager of a waffle house, and he was one of the most creative -- and still is --?? one of the most creative programmers in the industry."

"Now we jus??t say everybody designs their own office space. So our largest single room right now has about 80 people in it."

"If you'??re not making quantitative predictions, you're probably doing it wrong. Or you're probably not doing it as well as you can. You have to predict in advance -- everybody can explain anything after the fact -- and i?t has to be quantitative, or you're not being serious about how you're approaching the problem."

"You have to be really aggressive about firing people [in a flat organizational struc??ture]. We haven't done a really good job with interns or new hires. It's kind o??f a sink-or-swim thing."

"There's som??ething we some??what unkindly call the beaten-wife syndrome where people come in from other industries and really struggle. The worst are people from the feature-film industry, where they've been sort of taught that any time they show initiative, that somebody's going to leap out and smite them for doing that. It usually takes about six to nine months for people to really internalize the model of the company."

On designing single-player vs. multiplayer games

"Spending a bunch of time to make ... the characters aware of where you were in ?[game] space, and that they're looking right correctly at that person -- it turns out that people suddenly say 'Oh these characters are nicer. These characters are more like me. These characters are smarter.'"

"These rules that you've come up with [for single-player games] sort of don't work any more. So, an example would be, in Counter-Strike, we put the riot shield in, and our player numbers go up. We take the riot shield out and ou??r player ?numbers go up."

On Team Fortress 2 and game economies

"To be really concrete, ten times as much content comes from the user base for TF2 as comes from us ... The only c?ompany we've ever met that kind of kicks our ass is our customers."

"The most anybody has earned [from TF2] in a single year is $500,000, so they're making content, selling it to othe??r customers, and we have a revenue share with those people and their takeaway?? is $500,000."

"Even though currently it's a barter economy [in Team Fortress 2], we started having problems with liquidity ... all of a sudden you had sort of weird little mini financial crises irrupting in your TF2 hat exchange."

"You can't?? just define productivity in terms of shit you give to a customer. If you're just raining hats onto your customers, eventually, you're probably going to ?suffer huge inflation."

On player value

"We actually think something like being a really good player is a super valuable thing for the community. And the challenge isn't that you've created value, the challenge is comi??ng up with a monetization method for those people."

"Anything that we do we're trying to figure out how to systematize and create a framework for our?? audience to participate. I do my job, but if i can figure out how to get Reddit to do my job, t??hey'll do it a lot better."

On hacking

"One of the biggest mistakes game developers make is to mistake a genuinely entertaining action by a player as hacking. The example game developers tell each other is when Lord British was killed during his first speech in Ultima Online, they rolled the world back rather than recognizing that it was the coolest thing that had ever happened in Ultimate Online. And they should have let that?? instance turn into whatever?? an instance turned into they killed of Lord British."

In conclusion

"Right now, everybody thinks that we're all going to get the same product. Ou?r children are going to say 'That is the weirdest thing I've ever heard of. Like, every one of my products are unique and different.' That transition means that the sets of lessons that we're learning today in the videogame space are probably going to be true of a much wider range of industries tomorrow."

Gabe Newell: Reflections of a Video Game Maker [YouTube]

The post The future of Steam and more in Newell’s Reflections talk appeared first on Destructoid.

See the footage, complete with a Half-Life 3 'reference' and everything

Don't let anyone say that Gabe Newell isn't a man of t??he p??eople.

After speaking to students at The University of Texas at Austin, which is where his quote about Apple b??eing competition for the PC industry in the living room originated, the managing director of Valve signed a horse-head mask. And then he put it?? on.

Thankfully for us, the cameras were rolling. The crowd demanded that Newell raise three fingers when posing for the photo opp, but in a nod to our impatience for Half-Life 3, he couldn't quite get that third finger to stay up. Y????ou can't not like this guy.

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Not those console thingies

During a lecture at th??e University of Te??xas, Gabe Newell mentioned that the Steam Box's biggest threat isn't the home consoles, but instead Apple.

The biggest challenge, I don't think is from the consoles. I think the biggest challe??nge is that Apple moves on the living room before the PC industry sort of gets its act together.

Newell says to expect a lot of living room products that will take advantage of the PC you already own, not unlike Valve's upcoming Steam Box. It will defin??itely be interesting to see if Apple capitalizes on the living room, considering, as Newell mentioned, their "huge amount of market share."

Gabe Newell: S??team Box's biggest threat isn't consoles, it's Apple [Polygon]

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