Gabe Newell Interview

Audio Interview hosted by William, Hectic Glenn on Tue 7 June, 2011 ; last updated on Thu 17 January, 2013 | 23 responses.

Interview Details

William is joined by Glenn.
- William McMahon
  Owner/Operator of Podcast17.
- Glenn (aka. HecticGlenn) —
  Host
  
  Writer at Halflife2.net.
Interview is with Gabe and Kutta.
- Gabe Newell
  Founder/Managing Director of Valve Software.
- Kutta Srinivasan
  Software Developer at Valve Software.

A full transcript of the interview can be found at: txt / html / pdf.

Topics Discussed (but not limited to)

No new Episode Three information.
Steam as a social platform.
Steam for mobile devices.
Source SDK and Portal 2 Authoring Tools
DirectX 9, 10, 11
Will GoldSource be released under GPL
Portal 2 ARG
Valve’s first steps into a non-fps genre.
Ideas and backstory behind the Crowbar.
What Gabe and Kutta do in their free time (besides knives).

Portal 2 SDK Clarification.

Kutta gave a clarification on the SDK question after the interview:

The Portal 2 Authoring Tools were released in beta form a few weeks back. We anticipate a non-beta release soon which includes some useful fixes. As I mentioned in the interview, there are currently no plans to release the source code for total conversions at this time since the authoring tools allow you to create a huge variety of maps and gameplay experiences without creating any new entity types. So, if by “Portal 2 SDK” you mean the authoring tools, then those are already out in beta form and will come out in non-beta form soon.

Here’s the blog post where we released the tools:
http://www.thinkwithportals.com/blog.php?id=5443

Competition Winners

The Valve Swag, courtesy of Valve Software:
drsjohnny

Eets Keys, courtesy of Steam Contests:
justinshowers, dogboy416, JayBirdSupreme, rya2012, combinecpu.

Total entries: 413

Download Links

Full Interview. (47.9 MB)
Full Transcript: txt / html / pdf.

SoundCloud. (stream, download)
Agent Red Productions. (download)
Mod DB #1. (stream)
Mod DB #2. (download)
Halflife2.net. (download)

Image Sources

Background: MonsterMache.net.
Characters: Unfinished 1st person test, at 0:36.

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23 Responses to “Gabe Newell Interview”

GABE NEEDS TO MAKE DOG.

Fun interview. Glad that you were able to get Gabe to do it.

I remember seeing this blurb about the SDK
http://modsentry.com/2011/02/source-sdk-is-getting-long-awaited-update/
and am wondering if this is related to what Gabe was talking about or if there are more Hammer updates on the way.

Enjoyed the interview. Good work guys.

Nice interview!

Great Interview guys.

I am glad Gabe also noticed the severe lack of gaming cred the top review sites have. Its this sort of false persuasion the community could do without.

If you do get a chance to interview him again, would you ask: “Under what conditions would you be willing to work with a team of volunteers to create a Linux client for Steam?”. His answers regarding Linux support seemed to assume that his own, internal developers would have to be the ones to provide this support, and it seems to me this attitude is the single biggest impediment to this happening.

Interesting Interview… Ricochet 2,eh?

Hey, isn’t it a glimpse of HL2:Ep3 / HL3 on the screen in Valve’s headquarters? Great interview btw :)

It’s from their lobby so won’t be Episode Three, it’s probably from a trailer but I’m not sure what the game is.
Background’s source image is 3rd down on http://www.monstermache.net/2011/02/valve-software.html , gives a clearer view.

Could be Alien Swarm, seems to be top down with a flashlight cone coming from the lower left.
Could also be L4D/2, with the ^ in the top left as the corner of a roof and zombies below.

Updated, thanks for letting us know about the change.

The Valve HQ lobby image is now at http://www.monstermache.net/2011/02/valve-software.html

(alternately: http://www.teratologic.blogspot.com/2011/02/valve-software.html)

Thanks!

About that further clarification on the SDK. The way its worded makes it sound like he doesn’t want to release the source at all. Does he mean they haven’t gotten to that point in Portal SDK development to do this or that they don’t intend to at all. Because that would really be insane for them not to release the source. That excuse of “huge variety of maps and gameplay experiences without creating any new entity types” is not something people should accept. That is like buying a grand piano that plays only one octave. I want my total conversions XD
Other than that it was an amazing interview I would have freaked out bad if i could have Gabe say happy birthday to me.