Gabe Newell on Valve Hardware and Owning Steam Games

An interview on The PA Report talks with Valve's Gabe Newell, discussing some general topics with Valve's Managing Director, whose beard is growing in nicely (though not to the magnificent degree mine has at this point). The discussion covers things like his work schedule, his fascination with wearable computers, the possibility Valve might someday sell hardware, pricing games on Steamand more (thanks nin). He also offers responses to questions about to what degree customers won games purchased on Steam:
But even from kind of a more general point of view, you have services like Steam or Origin where these many purchases and micro-transactions and all these transactions we’re making through multiple companies are kind of tied to this overreaching account. Do you have lawyers who kind of look at the legal implication of where exactly you fit into that relationship?

Yeah, we have lawyers who look at stuff all the time, I’m not sure I’m answering your question directly. It’s sort of like this kind of messy issue, and it doesn’t really matter a whole lot what the legal issues are, the real thing is that you have to make your customers happy at the end of the day and if you’re not doing that it doesn’t really matter what you think about various supreme court decisions or EU decisions. If you’re not making your customers happy you’re doing something stupid and we certainly always want to make our customers happy. And I think we have a track record of having done that.
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Re: Gabe Newell on Valve Hardware and Owning Steam Games
Feb 20, 2012, 16:49
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Re: Gabe Newell on Valve Hardware and Owning Steam Games Feb 20, 2012, 16:49
Feb 20, 2012, 16:49
 
theyarecomingforyou wrote on Feb 20, 2012, 13:17:
Valve offers a better service than EA. Better value, better selection, better functionality, better experience, better community engagement, etc. But I'd like to see Valve improve their service - remove the online check before launching every game; remove the threat of a permanent VAC ban, which disadvantages those that keep all their games on a single account (dedicated cheaters will use disposable accounts); give users the option to revert to a previous version, as patches can break mods and system compatibility.

I've got several Steam games, including Skyrim (v1.4.x.x), that have no trouble booting up w/o an Internet connection & for which Steam simply does not run in that condition. The Gothic 2/3 games are others in this category. Yet, a game like Witcher2 v2.1 simply won't run at all w/o an Internet connection.

Looks to me that this is decided by each game's publisher as opposed to Valve.

As for the interview, it was a pretty difficult read. No offence to Gabe but many of the responses were verging on gibberish, with constant tangential detours and hard to follow sentences. Still, it reinforces what I already knew about Valve. The response to the Russian question was particularly interesting, as he stated that if true that Valve probably messed up. You wouldn't here that from EA - they'd be more likely to send the secret police round to your house to assassinate your dog.

I agree and was a bit disappointed with Ben Kuchera--great interview for him considering his recent promotion from games writer at Ars to Sr. Editor @ Penny Arcade--but his lack of experience shows in his decision not to ask Gabe any interesting questions--or to hold his feet to the fire, etc. I'm sure that certain topics were off the table as a pre-condition of the interview--although I really don't *know* that to be the case since I wasn't a fly on the wall anywhere near Ben...;)

But overall I have found Newell most impressive by way of what he does not say, and usually he just refuses to answer direct questions directly. A skillful interviewer can ask Gabe questions allowing the reader to piece some things together--but I think Ben was too impressed by Gabe to give this interview much in the way of thought. Gabe's answers were, as usual, rings around rings of virtually nothing...;) I've always been a HUGE fan of Valve, though, so I say these things wistfully and reluctantly. I only wonder that Gabe gives interviews at all because he generally has almost nothing to say when he grants interviews. Were it me, I'd only give interviews when I had something to say and then I'd make sure it got said.
It is well known that I cannot err--and so, if you should happen across an error in anything I have written you can be absolutely sure that *I* did not write it!...;)
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