How Gaben Took Over the World: The Story of Valve

oh it's you it's been a long time [Music] kill off sons of [ __ ] right [Music] has been decided valve has no more chances and must pay 3 million Australian dollars hot gaben you suck so much penis that make it video games the only thing that's keeping counter-strike alive is all as all the eSports behind it for a company that makes so much money valve is surprisingly risk-averse they also seem in the main to be people that are people that just don't want the spotlight people just don't really want to be out there but there is something really admirable about the fact that valve makes games because they think that that game can change everything rise and shine mr. Freeman now for all of the smoke and mirrors valve isn't a faceless corporate entity quite the opposite its face is very well known and loved [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to the International without CEO and founding partner Gabe Newell or gaben as he is commonly referred to has cemented his spot as a benevolent god of gamers worldwide hi my name is Gabe Newell I'm the managing director at mouth our first game was half-life and I'd like to say hello to all the game star readers valves journey began in 1996 when gaben left Microsoft with fellow employee Mike Harrington to found their own gaming development company we both thought that there was a pretty good chance that we were gonna go take a stab at this for a year failed miserably and then suck our tails between our legs and go back to working at Microsoft the pair was convinced that video games were the future of entertainment and were eager to throw their hats into the ring we're gonna be seeing these guys a lot tonight half-life Harrington eventually split from valve leaving the company entirely in gaben's capable hands sitting at over a four billion dollar net worth valves president somehow manages to project and maintain a down-to-earth everyman image even going so far as publicly sharing his email should anyone want to get in touch please email me at gaben at valve software comm and let me know about your rampage I'm not wearing underwear as unlikely as direct communication with a billionaire seems the email address is in fact real and functional and a lucky few get a response now in them however following that story hitting some mainstream media attention Gabe Newell started to answer quite a few community questions regarding the situation of these layoffs and if they had affected valves developments in any way first of all mr. Newell answered the question that it was 13 full-time employees and it was a people thing not a hardware thing valve is often hailed for their contribution to the growth of the gaming industry particularly the creation and development of steam a digital gaming distribution platform so influential it has become synonymous with PC gaming in general they've contributed an enormous amount to helping these ecosystem overall and they've stayed hands off here's some tools here's some stuff we'll try and support you where we can but otherwise please get on with it just like valve itself steam has changed dramatically over the years it was first introduced on September 12 2003 as a way for gamers to keep their valve titles patch and up-to-date at a time when only about 20% of people had a broadband connection in their home requiring users to be connected constantly it was a tall order and so steam floundered before scene was even a twinkle in Gavin's eye valve put out a few titles most notably the universally acclaimed FPS phenomenon half-life good morning and welcome to the Black Mesa Transit System this automated train is provided for the security and convenience of the Black Mesa research facility personnel halflife assured in a new generation of FPS games receiving numerous best game awards and even leading to counter-strike which was originally a mod of that game it was just one of many mods that got dropped out of half not out of half-life being the most amazing game engine the fanbase clamored for a sequel and valve delivered rise and shine mr. Freeman [Music] half left to was incredible such a revolutionary game from a lot of perspectives and the thing that really stands out about it is that just like half like one totally changed for a 15 shooters half-life 2 just did it again it did that same kind of rollercoaster e style of like you know you're just being pushed through levels but it had things that were totally different levels that really stood out obviously the gravity gun is like the huge standout that everybody remembers but there are plenty of things in half-life 2 that made people just lose their minds feel like they were playing video games again for the first time but there was a catch the only way to get your hands on half-life 2 was to sign up for Steam making half-life 2 the vehicle that made steam more than a failed experiment but there was a catch you seemed half-life 2 required you to log in the steam and download it through Steam you couldn't just go ahead and play the game freely and I'm telling you a lot of people did not know this and when I say a lot I mean a lot instantly valve had ingeniously locked people into getting Steam and with an influx of users the platform grew in 2005 valve allows third-party releases onto steam for a cut of the profits made from digital sales ragdoll Kongfu and darwinian or the first non valve games made available on Steam marking its transition into a fully functional digital store as more and more titles came pouring in it was full steam ahead for valve [Applause] by 2010 valve made more profit per employee than either Google or Apple in short valve as [ __ ] you actually in the [ __ ] we month today ste monopolizes a significant portion of the digital sales market for games by moving their wares from the physical to the digital realm valve kick-started a change that helped revolutionize the way we consume media steam created the digital market and it nurtured it grew it into a multi-billion dollar industry to the point where most PC players don't buy any physical games and those that do aren't surprised to find a steam key inside their game cakes but Java wasn't just concerned with the digital migration of games the company's foray into the world of user-generated content has also been a huge success valve bought the intellectual property rights to counter-strike a mod of Valve's own half-life in 1999 in 2010 valve acquired the rights to dota 2 a mod of a warcraft 3 map from its lead developer icefrog and creator mule needles to say both dota 2 and CS have been extremely worthwhile investments every time that you guys play a match or create an item or contribute to the compendium you're helping make dota better for the rest of us valve also created a space for users to submit their own content including mods and cosmetics that others could purchase through Steam and not only that they will ship in very supportive original is a mod dota is of mod underdogs is kind of an evolution of a mod of the game and so they've been very open to that they've hired people in allowing user-generated content to flourish on Steam turned out to be a bit of a double-edged sword though valve embraced it for it's obvious Vantage's a fast turnover of ideas and free beta testing of new concepts all done by the itself at no cost to the gaming joint here at valve we have a unique perspective on EGC some of our most popular game franchises started off as mods of other dance because of this background many of our products directly support UGC in one way or another so we've truly seen the power of it firsthand the disadvantages of course were the torrents of content being added to steam some of it poorly made or offensive but the floodgate had been opened internally valve went through some significant changes since its early days the company chose to phase out the levels of its corporate hierarchy Valve decide of it labeling anything other than the top execs manager was redundant and stifling the employees could now move freely between projects and departments putting their creative talents towards what ever happened to strike their fancy in theory the lack of structure would allow for a greater freedom of expression and a flow of creative juices within the company it all makes you wonder how does Valve maintain focus with such an open structure how does a company this unpredictable decide what it wants to do next and above all what sort of people does it take to succeed in this type of environment the downside of course was more accountability for individual mistakes for a company that makes so much money valve is surprisingly risk-averse new projects internal tools delve in for Devon for structure and anything that doesn't contribute to a current product are met with the stain this is only meaningful to company rockstars but there are necessary tasks that comes with producing successful products that people are reluctant to pick up at times because they're not sick because they're not sexy products not having a managerial system in place also meant deadlines weren't being enforced and projects were sometimes left to languish for years or just cancelled outright and the departure of talent who led the work on earlier releases left several big titles in limbo but left 4 dead 3 was cancelled late 2016 or early 2017 because the team couldn't make a decision on exactly what engine they were continue developing and so an almost finished game only meaning the final passes art and voice acting was cancelled and never to be seen again the community began to question whether the developers at valve were capable of counting to three as any significant releases seemed stuck on their second iterations left 4 dead 2 Team Fortress 2 half-life 2 episode 2 the list goes on your motivation is 3 kills just give me anything anything you want say whatever ok I don't I don't care you've killed more than 2 people in less than 4 now until very recently half-life 3 was the primary entry on that list of unrealized thirds but after a 15 year wait the fans can finally look forward to a new installment of the beloved franchise half-life Alex in VR while it is a prequel not a sequel and the VR bit of the announcement was a disappointment for some fans there's no doubt that the long anticipated release got a lot of hearts pumping you got to realize people been waiting 20 years or more for four you know this stuff okay a question that often comes up where valve is concerned is whether valve is truly the good guy the community makes it out to be despite the billion dollar offer CEO Gabe Newell said valve would rather disintegrate than ever sell out too often valve has been an absent parent to some of its releases allowing bugs to wreak havoc on in-game economies and opie guns to destroy metas okay is that how counter-strike works now this guy's just gonna go like that and I'm dead you literally see like his [ __ ] shoulder patch and you just die from a pistol from that far away god gaben you suck so much penis and making video games it [ __ ] hurts me bro it [ __ ] you're so rich it's insane how could you not fix this [ __ ] game sorry sorry Chet and fed up gamers are not the only ones finding fault with how valve conducts itself in the landmark or case of valve versus the Australian government the company was found to be in violation of the country's good business practices and was ordered to pay a three million dollar fine as a result then as of June 2015 valve started offer refunds across their entire storefront and found that only argued this was sufficient but they did not need to follow local law because their company does not operate locally the ACCC said no to both of these things and after appeals it has been decided valve has no more chances and must pay three million Australian dollars before the historic ruling took place valve never offered refunds of any kind on any of their digital purchases if you bought something from Steam the sale was final in what was seen as a gesture of goodwill by valve towards their consumer base all refund requests made within 14 days of purchase or before the game was played for more than two hours were automatically approved it wasn't any grand gesture on Valve's part as so many had treated them as the last great broke consumer entity out there at the time it was due to legal pressures as a result of this one lawsuit and as I said valves implementing their refund policy was not out of any pro-consumer leading it was fully motivated out of self-preservation and self-interest the Australian case wasn't the first or the last time valve found itself embroiled in a lengthy court battle former partner disputes intellectual prop ownership claims consumer rights group lawsuits scheme gambling scandals geo blocking accusations valves legal history is a dark and thorny place and the law isn't the only thing that valve has had to struggle against it's not half-life 3 for what it's worth it's not a new hero but valve has a new game coming soon you're not giving me the appropriate reaction that deserves artifact Valve's first release in years bombed so badly that 95% of its active player base dropped the game a mere two months in or a destroy an enemy artifact but artifact is already dead by july 2019 the game boasted fewer than a hundred players putting artifact into its own category of dead game artifact simply had too many problems deep rooted issues with the gameplay and the fact that the game wasn't free-to-play unlike some of its biggest competitors left loyal valve fans tangibly disappointed I will be really disappointed if the economy ends up being just like the biggest shortcoming with the game because I really actually enjoy the game itself but I mean they can't release it like this combined these factors led to artifacts swift demise but I do wish we could have figured out a way to manage our relationship with the with the fans better because because in the end I think that the game was a very very good game but not necessarily for everybody but just because artifact got off to a rough start it doesn't mean that Valve has given up on it just yet any definite revival plans however are yet to be announced not one to be deterred by a silly thing like a failed game valve continued working on its many other ventures the International 2019 had over 1.1 million viewers on Twitch during the grand finals the most ever for a dota 2 event steams remote play together beta feature was expanded to all users and valve announced that planes were already in the works for the next two csgo majors additionally in light of the success of mods like dota auto chess valve is looking to reach deeper into the gaming market in countries like China where steam currently operates under great market conditions according to reports the steam store is still accessible but the writing may very well be on the wall for the valve run gaming website in China and if that's the case the valve will be feeling the pinch and to add to the growing list of its new undertakings in 2018 valve accidentally went live with a test server of steam TV valves own broadcasting platform and a possible rival to twitch this does raise a few questions is valve attempting to take on the twitch the mixture the YouTube gaming marketplace and if so will they have any kind of revenue incentives for the people streaming on their platform valve has developed a reputation for playing favorites with their games as I mentioned before I looked into dota 2 a little but when I went through the pages of the update history for dota 2 it seems that they update their game pretty much daily with fixes and every month comes the fixes to champions or some massive content update every valve release since 2004 has been running under once groundbreaking engine source and so far the only game valve ported over to source 2 has been dota 2 meanwhile Valve's other smash hit csgo continues to suffer from a plethora of game breaking bugs frustrating his competitive community the only thing that's keeping Garrick alive is all as all the eSports behind it all the others all the organisers what's keeping it alive but the game itself as a whole is dying with none of these updates as there are two biggest esports investments however neither dota 2 or csgo are likely to go anywhere any soon at this point there's no telling exactly how lofty valve's ambitions are valve seems to only be interested in making games when it's this huge earth-changing event right when it's tf2 basically inventing the class-based shooter when it's half-life and half-life 2 revitalizing FPS is when it's half-life Alex trying to be the game that sells people on VR valve wants to do the things that nobody else has done and they're not doing it out of the goodness of their heart they want to make money but there is something really admirable about the fact that Valve makes games because they think that that game can change everything the question is has valve to live long enough to see itself become the gaming industry's villain or have they been unfairly painted as one by making decisions they feel or important rather than bending to public opinion a couple years ago we started to think we started to have these weird thoughts about economies and the importance of user-generated content and how the process that had given rise to steam was actually accelerating and that the most important developers were actually our customers a very normal I would call normal gaming fad you know they're fans of games they love games as soon as we do but they are in a fortunate position where they can produce these things and they can adapt to change games but they also seem in the main to be people that are people that just don't want the spotlight just don't really want to be out there no matter what the answer it's millions of people will always hold on to the valve that they remember the valve that didn't just raise the bottom but defined it whatever you think of them today valve set the benchmark every other gaming company strives to reach and no matter what not legacy is but I think we can put our differences behind us for science you monster [Music] thanks for watching if you want more content like this hit the sub button and ring that notification bell for unique bite-sized videos you will find anywhere else hit up our Instagram Twitter and Facebook pages [Music]

Channel: theScore esports

Views: 1,007,345

Rating: 4.9529057 out of 5

Keywords: esports, gaming, theScoreesports, thescore, gabe newell, half life, dota 2, team fortress 2, valve corporation (video game developer), counter strike, left 4 dead, video games, pc gaming, half-life 2, history of valve, the international, portal 2, half life 3, gabe newell 2019, gabe newell meme, half life alyx, half life alyx reaction, dota 2 true sight, counter strike global offensive, left 4 dead 2, esports documentary, gaben, valve issues, valve documentary, steam

Id: S6zT0XGGOiM

Length: 21min 9sec (1269 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 01 2020