Posts Tagged ‘gabe’

Steam keeps growing even though the prices are very high in Europe – people are still paying for the digital downloads (although we can’t really say if Steam is more popular in USA or Europe).

Steam, now has over 25 million active users. Those 25 million users managed a peak concurrency of 2.5 million games players, racking up more than 13 billion player minutes per month.

But of course, the proof is in the profits: there are now over 1,000 games available on Steam, distributed by over 100 developers and publishers — big-boys and independents alike. All told, Steam sold 205% more units in 2009 than the previous year.

Gabe Newell added that Steam has grown immensely each and ever year of its existence. Steam’s only been around for five years, but in that time there have been numerous improvements and additions to the range of products provided by Valve, resulting in a greater-than-100-percent increase in sales year-over-year since its creation.

Source

The 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards, the highest honors in video game development, is beginning the announcement of its Special Awards for the tenth annual ceremony, taking place at GDC 2010 this March, and has named Valve co-founder Gabe Newell as the winner of this year’s Pioneer Award.

The Pioneer Award — originated by the Game Developers Choice Awards organizers at the 2008 Awards, and the first award to honor breakthrough figures in the game industry — celebrates those individuals responsible for developing a vital technology or game design at a crucial juncture in video game history, paving the way for the many who followed them.

This year, the Choice Awards Advisory Committee, which includes notables such as Ben Cousins (EA DICE), Harvey Smith (Arkane), Raph Koster (Metaplace), John Vechey (PopCap), Ray Muzyka (BioWare), Clint Hocking (Ubisoft), and others has voted to give the Pioneer Award to Valve’s Newell. He is being awarded for his work in co-creating the PC key digital download service Steam, and helping to make possible some of the most important video games of the past two decades – from the Half-Life series through Portal to Team Fortress and beyond.

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Looks like they’re having a blast!

(click for info)

Sorry I’m posting this so late but I didn’t have much time. Here’s the presentation from Australia – with Joe (the creator of Fly Gabe Newell campaign) and Gabe Newell. Unfortunately Joe did not ask a question from our group (at least not on the video) which simply was “why do Europeans have to pay twice on Steam?” but I don’t blame him… I mean he met Gabe Newell, good job

Watch the video right here:

And here’s the original article from byteside.com

Joe W-A was miffed when the L4D campaign mod he’d been working on wasn’t deemed awesome enough to warrant him being flown to Valve HQ to preview L4D2. Other modders were, mostly to get them onside as peer-leaders to counter the odd anti-L4D2 community uprising happening at the time.

Anyway, Joe managed to get Gabe Newell to agree to fly to Brisbane, Australia to check out the mod-in-progress — provided Joe paid the airfare. “I was just joking”, said Gabe today. With pure internet inventiveness, Joe got the community rallied and raised the fare in a couple of days.

Read the rest of this entry »

The creators of the Fly Gabe Newell Fund have raised over $3000 in order to fly Gabe Newell and Erik Johnson to Australia to show them their Left 4 Dead campaign. If you don’t know what the hell is this about go here first.

This is one of the latest replies from Gabe Newell:

The English language lacks the words to express the level of excitement Erik and I feel that you and your friends have pulled this off. Give us some time to organize our affairs, as we are trying to ship a product, and then we’ll let you know the time and date of our arrival. Give our best to Robin’s mother, as she is apparently a neighbor of yours.

Gabe & Erik

I believe we will have some pictures over here when that happens

Update:

My last post, suggesting that perhaps Batman’s trusty sidekick Robin had donated to our cause, was made in error – for there can now be no doubt that the real Robin has contributed. The incredible Robin Walker of Valve Software, that is! He attached the following message:

This is Robin Walker, from Valve. The rest of us at Valve would sure appreciate a couple of days without Erik around, so thanks for organising this!

Quick question though: if I donated more, would you buy a one-way ticket for him?

Robin.

Thanks, Robin!

Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, Portal 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode 3 talk.

Read the article here:

http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/696431/Opening-The-Valve-The-Gabe-Newell-Interview.html

It’s funny how they talk about community and fans but none of them ever responded to even one e-mail about the 1€ ≠ 1$ case.

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Newell: I want to make sure that I don’t sound like I’m dismissing user’s issues, right? I get a ton of email everyday saying why aren’t you talking about Episode 3? And there are very good reasons why we’re not talking about Episode 3, which I can’t talk about yet, but I will.

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I guess Gabe reads Half-Life related e-mails only.