Gabe Newell -- The Top G of Gaming

Who is Gabe Newell, Billionaire founder of Steam and Valve? Here's his backstory, his companies' flawless rise to success, and his plans for the future
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[@desadesa]

God bless Gabe and his regional prices.

[@StarboyXL9]

And all the gamers said: "Amen!"

[@nirv]

No? The guy Trojan Horse'd Steam on all of us with Half-Life 2. I actually still have the recording of calling him at home the day Half-Life 2 came out upset that I couldn't play the game because the Steam servers weren't online yet. That was my first introduction to DRM and it tightened my jaws as a gamer.

[@hevnet]

​@@nirvwish i had the sheer hate to hild a grudge against something for 20 whole years

[@nirv]

@@hevnet you think there's a defense ever for DRM dude? Answer carefully.

[@e4zyphil]

this dude said answer carefully in a comment section XD

[@med5674]

It’s truly disappointing that Gabe is the exception and not the rule for how leaders in the industry steer their companies but I am still extremely grateful that a man like him is in charge of the most culturally important company in the industry nonetheless

[@coalkingryan881]

I just hope the man or woman that follows him when he retires runs the company the same if not better than him and doesn’t just run the company into the ground due to greed

[@Jebu911]

@@coalkingryan881 Its obvious in the future company will be run on AI Gaben 2.0 that will never develop into 3.0

[@whiskytangofoxtrot_]

@@Jebu911 This is an underrated comment lol

[@Jebu911]

@@whiskytangofoxtrot_ thanks Im glad you liked it.

[@El.fish.the.chocolate]

​@@Jebu911nah, he would develop from 2.0 to 2.alyx.

[@sz27web]

I feel like Gabe is one of the few major people inside the gaming world, who still after all these years and millions / billions of dollars still has a core, childlike passion for gaming.

[@JC-39428]

Lord Gaben and his infinite wisdom is not just the father of PC gaming, he IS PC gaming.

[@nirv]

No? The guy Trojan Horse'd Steam on all of us with Half-Life 2. I actually still have the recording of calling him at home the day Half-Life 2 came out upset that I couldn't play the game because the Steam servers weren't online yet. That was my first introduction to DRM and it tightened my jaws as a gamer.

[@feritye767]

it's so annoying when people say ''no?'' it's so arrogant@@nirv

[@nirv]

@@feritye767 because I'm incredulous that somebody could even conjure up a thought like that

[@thataintfalco7106]

@@nirvplease stop spamming your same replies under every one else’s comments. It’s incredulous and immature.

[@nirv]

@@thataintfalco7106 you're no gamer. Don't even pretend dude.

[@dimitristsipis4841]

Gabe is a legend. One of the few remaining visionaries in the industry. And one of the few modern companies CEOs who knows what playing videogames is.

[@JerosGamer89]

I just wish all major companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft and so on, had a CEO like Gabe

[@-sleepy-]

Why? Most of his accomplishments aren't very good for consumers.

[@JerosGamer89]

@@-sleepy- why? I like steam sales and Valve games, can't say the same about Ubisoft or Activision for example

[@-sleepy-]

@@JerosGamer89 Well in Valve's case, it's hard to not like games that don't exist

[@JerosGamer89]

@@-sleepy- I don't get your answer, Portal and Counter Strike games are pretty great, and haven't seen anything similar from other companies

[@-sleepy-]

@@JerosGamer89 Those games are old and both of them weren't even originally made by Valve. I like old Valve games like HL2 but my point is they don't even make original games anymore. Their last attempt was Artifact which failed, did you think that one was pretty great? Because most people didn't.

[@feritye767]

he is the reason we have objectively some of the best games of all time, one of the best vr headsets of all time, an entire extremely convenient pc game store and catalogue, AND an incredibly graphically impressive handheld console with a massive catalogue of games.

[@lordlopikong6940]

Imagine the next steam deck would probably be thinner and more in par with a Nintendo

[@HipurVideos]

gabe is the godfather of gaming, he creates things that gamers actually want and not just for profit

[@raphaelokai5981]

Gabe created and he's transforming the gaming industry

[@UncleRJ]

There is something inherently funny yet awestruck that GabeN took _just enough_ cut to keep his control over the company. That _0.1%_ is small yet huge at the same time.

[@JagoShogun]

He's a rare beast. IT's from that era are exceptionally intelligent. He has good emotions, ethics, and didn't let anything change him. What surprises me is how he can be so gifted, achieved, and still remain so human.

[@bluu2p]

Gaben didn't also just make a platform and couple of games, in reality he kind of made 50% of the games out. His platform and his influence alone on the gaming industry changed it forever. He single handedly revolutionized our entertainment through video games. Not only that but he also showed the world that gaming had a bigger market than they'd ever thought which also could have been the motivation behind a lot of start up developing of video games (ex. Bethesda, Starbreeze, Respawn Entertainment) that have made a HUGE footprint in the industry and made games we call our childhood. Just a complete W of a human being.

[@Glotov444]

I use steam deck as my desktop PC, with steam dock, keyboard, mouse and display. This is one the best purchases I've made in my life. I code on it, browse the web, play games like DotA or crusader kings 3. I have also discovered platformers like dead cells thanks to the Deck. GabeN, thank you

[@Pooda.Trendy]

goofy take

[@gugvdcftdv2039]

literally portable PC

[@MK-vi2cm]

@@Pooda.Trendy how?

[@Nakkisampyla]

Game Boy Color is much better

[@chillhour6155]

​@@gugvdcftdv2039and what's wrong with that?, have you seen the battery life and price of a decent gaming/work station laptop?

[@adamgerald849]

The first time i used steam was about 16 years ago. My friend was into counter strike and installed it on my PC. Many people had ideas similar to steam, but steam always did it best. My favorite thing has always been the community. Seeing what games my friends are playing, viewing the community page for my favorite games to talk to and share things with people who enjoy the same things as me... its so special. I just ordered my first steam deck. I cant wait. I will support Gaben as much as I can. He understands a company's greatest asset is its customers/users. He even tells people to email him. Im glad hes successful. I worry about what will happen to Valve once he's gone. He looks a lot better and has lost a lot of weight so i hope he has another 40 years in him. I always worry about overweight people when they start getting old.

[@Brave_New_Tube]

I knew Gabe had always been one of the main leaders/decision-makers at Valve, but I had no idea he had a whole-ass 50.1% majority stake in the company. No wonder he’s been able to make Steam and Valve’s other projects as great as they are. He actually puts his money where his mouth is and uses it to stay true to his passion of improving/contributing to the PC gaming community.

[@rowdyjansen8159]

Something HUGE that was not mentioned, ANY pc game you ever bought can be activated on steam as long as it came with a CD-KEY. This is very useful for digitizing games that were released under older windows versions and won't run on newer versions. On PC backwards compatibility is mostly a software problem, not a hardware problem like with consoles (although it's getting better now that consoles are just using the same x86 architecture as PC has been using since 1978)

[@motchers]

I'm a big fan of Mr. Coomer!

[@filiplmao]

Ah, hello, Gordon!

[@whoisspino8217]

@@filiplmaoI knew it when I clicked replies

[@mu11668B]

HL-Alyx do have a significant cultural icon. It came out before metaverse was even a thing, and sent all the metaverse trash back to where they belong to -- the digital junkyard. Even to this day it still holds the golden standard of VR gaming. Valve literally turned an idea everyone thought would have flopped (making it VR-exclusive) into a total win. What a fking legend!

[@Lilmations1]

For everyone asking why this channel is underrated....this is a second channel to his main channel ...where he talks about programming and languages in general ..

[@hayond656]

What's the first Channel?

[@Lilmations1]

@@hayond656 I've forgotten the name ..andrew something I think

[@greglane501]

This sounds a lot like Aaron Jack to me.

[@Lilmations1]

@@greglane501 exactly!!

[@bosssnurp5912]

​@@hayond656yo darktanyan pfp is 🔥🔥🔥

[@xyazmayahare]

The part where you got it wrong or missed is how they run the games in linux. They made a technology called Proton, it's basically a translator, which translates windows api calls such as the ones that are used in directx opengl and so on, and translates to a call that linux understands. It's basically a layer that translates the game in order to run on linux. Fun fact recently apple has been working on a similar technology based in proton called Metal, which has the same idea, translating opengl,directx api calls to the mac environment.

[@BroadwayRonMexico]

Metal isnt a translation layer, it's Apple's proprietary API. They dont want to support Vulkan, and D3D is Microsoft's, so they made their own competing API, and there's no translation layer for it that can work without also running x86 emulation (which has pretty spotty game compatibility) In fact, Apple's plan with Metal is the opposite of improving compatibility. They want to make devs make Mac game versions in Metal so it can be sold in the App Store and they can get the 30% cut from it, rather than Valve (who they've refused to work with on improving library compatibility after the M1 transition), and so that users' game libraries will be tied to the Apple ecosystem rather than be cross-platform like Steam

[@Steamj2]

Him and hideo kojima are the 2 saviors of gaming

[@xDryZek]

and john romero. the holy trio of gaming industry.

[@Steamj2]

@@xDryZek maybe the Houser twins could fit in there aswell

[@imafirenmehlazer1]

Gabe is who we all are inside and strive to do/be and what the pc community embodies most the greed of wanting to move tech in a positive direction not for money or monetary stuff but for advancement of tech and innovation for everyone to enjoy for generations to come he is and always will be the voice, the moral compass that reaches through the void shedding light on the stuff that really matters that is just having fun doing what we love to do and be that is being the meme the legend, one and only true gamer.

[@WyvernTyrant]

i love your clever use of video noise/scratches by turning 2 mirrored images 90 degrees and copy-pasting a repeating loop.

[@just-some-menace6138]

all other gaming companies look like they are just trying to catch up to the trail that Gabe leaves them.

[@thebyzocker]

no, not every valve singleplayer game runs on source 2 4:23 the only one you listed there is dota 2

[@SinbadNaiver]

I have a steam deck and i can say, they ABSOLUTELY NAILED IT.

[@jUppers]

genuinely worried what will become of steam when he passes away

[@TobiasLerbak]

Hopefully his share would go to either his son that also works with gaming, or a trusted partner that can pick up his torch. But lets not talk about his death when he probably still has a lot of years left on his clock, i think we have atleast another good 20 years with this man as the boss.

[@dmitriyvasilyev6408]

​@@TobiasLerbakI want to be that optimistic but statistically big people tend to die younger. I'm actually surprised he made it over 60.

[@Mar0var]

I'm owning a Steam Deck OLED since march and I find it incredible,you don't even need to go outside much to make use of it. It's so chill to just sit on the couch 1hour before you go to bed and chill with your favourite AAA Game,Indie game or some emulated Game. Still there is more when you wan't to use it as a PC in the desktop mode, you can do so many things that you don't even think of when you buy it.

[@eno6712]

Gave deserves everything hes achieved unlike many .

[@w1ldac3]

When I saw this video popping up in my recommended section I thought this channel would have at least over a 100K subs because of how high quality of a video that is. Also great explanations and story on Valve, the editing of this video really catched my eye and I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks, Tech Stories!

[@BMofficialvids]

Half-Life was the first FPS I ever played, and it still is my all-time favorite. Gabe seems like a geniunely good dude, and smart too. May he have a great life!

[@creeedence]

So cool, thank you for the upload man

[@thetrustysidekick3013]

Everyone who games on a PC loves Lord Gaben.

[@RobinCernyMitSuffix]

SteamOS proprietary? Not really, it's just a distribution of Arch Linux with a bunch of tweaks. Most, if not all of those tweaks are either available from others under the GPL or similar licences, or directly from Valve themselfs. They invest a lot of time and money in to those tweaks and tools, which are pretty much all open source.

[@ham9349]

Bro legit makes game breaking games that change industry standards just to fuck with the industry

[@downsouthmagog3844]

Love your channel!

[@yeeterscs1457]

Lord gaben is the last hope of true free gaming and enthusiasm. I dont want to know what steam becomes when he retieres.. Long live Gabe Newell

[@Saxxy_Mann]

Gaben on his way to give us a seal and a hat crate just to disappear for another 5 years:

[@asiancanadian1584]

If Gabe Newell ran for president I wold vote for him. Partially because i know he has Everyones best interests in mind but mainly because its Gabe Newell

[@4F6D]

Gabe is literally everything that made gaming good, I'm mostly against worship but this guy is the Messiah of the gaming industry.

[@MrAeral]

Gaben is a walking legend

[@jrumbo_6946]

Gabe is the most gamer looking man ever and not in a bad way, he looks like he makes custom PC’s and owns and 10 Rtx 4090 graphic cards in his garage

[@HeroOfTheGun-Bullet]

Im very saddened that this great man is already 62... so we might only have this legend on the living side for 20-35 years... which i hope we do...

[@Mayor_Imad]

Wow what a great edit, I thought you were going to talk about the future planned as in the Brain computer chips, Nonetheless great video I enjoyed it alot, and man we are really blessed to have GabeN!

[@youtubenorthish3242]

i'm 45 and going thru depression. Started gaming (again) and I am sleeping like a kid. Are there going to be enough games to keep it up? Steam-so.

[@adamk-paxlogan7330]

Gabe is a legend

[@rthur7100]

Great video, hope u get more subs

[@maxsilon]

Really nice edit, good job!! Keep it up!

[@WaterontheHillYouTube]

wait, is that gabe?

[@JuanGamer0202]

Come on, not every dude with a beard is Gabe

[@-Poka-]

"Hi, This is Gabe"

[@imadudewithissues]

​@@-Poka-AUGHHHHHH

[@antrancaobao7110]

One of the best technology chanels

[@luckymancilha03]

Great video, keep it up 😎

[@Vanessinha91Pucca]

Correction, HL is based on the Quake 1 engine

[@appreciator01]

gaben is a saviour in the gaming industry

[@HafifSyukra]

He just give greenlight to announce CS2, lmao. Very GabeN move

[@bloodbeats]

“Every single title being a smash shit”. I love Valve to death, but Artifact.

[@M0rshu1]

4:10 - “Created by I D software” It’s pronounced “id.” Like the Freudian thing.

[@wereboarder2009]

I own a Limited Edition deck, and have had my account for 11 years. Weirdly enough my library only consists of a bit over 150 games, about 70 are "deck verified". If I had to guess about 120 of which are still easily playable with a bit of fine tuning. Not to mention emulation. You could say I'm a bit of a fan.

[@Joepopa12]

that 500 million in microsoft stock in 1995 would be worth roughly 40 billion today.

[@Len_Kagmine]

Literally doesn't matter, 40 billion and 7 billion are both unlimited amounts of money

[@Len_Kagmine]

Literally doesn't matter, 40 billion and 7 billion are both unlimited amounts of money

[@vrostar]

Thank you Gaben I will continue to blow hundreds of dollars in the Summer Sale only to never play the games I bought, legend!

[@NamanArusia]

Awesome Video as always!! Just a side note, I think its pronounced "id Software" as in "bid" or "kid" (without the starting consonant sound ofcourse), cause its supposed to be the id from "ego and id of the mind".

[@DyoKasparov]

you missed some important parts and got some of them wrong

[@WWIA7062-2]

4:25 we wish they ran on Source 2. The only ones that do are Half Life Alex, and CS2 for my knowlage

[@NoName-SEC-B]

and steam vr home

[@Hammer7212YT]

The fact That my money is in his big count it's crazy

[@someguyonytthatlikesstuff]

oh is that gabe, OHH MY GO-

[@lazyxeno9404]

What I learned about Mr Gabe is that he never does something thrice

[@maciejos5333]

A Harvard drop out but cant count to 3😔

[@shrippie-4214]

Gabe Newell The Father Of Gaming

[@juri324]

7:33 "Proprietary"? SteamOS is open source. The steam client isn't but the os is.

[@partypopper318]

Thank you

[@TheGumiBear]

8:40 "the complexity of adding anti-cheat systems on linux" made me smile, considering that these anti cheat engines are the most invasive pieces of software that have ever been commercialized. just imagine, back when windows fixed a critical bug that allowed access to ring level 0 of the kernel (full system access) most of these anti cheat engines broke. (meanwhile there exist other workarounds to gain this access, they haven't gotten any less scary.) it's sad these drastic measures are necessary, but i don't even want to play any games with this kind of malware attached to them anymore :P either way, nice video, great roundup on such an important figure of this industry.

[@geraldosnetto]

Great vídeo! I Just think you could have talked more about Dota2. But i really enjoyed

[@BlackSago_]

Even g’s have barriers and weaknesses 😔

[@Athrel]

The only reason I ever got into Steam was because of Portal 2. I got the game for PS3 and it came with a code to also get the game on Steam. I've been using Steam ever since.

[@Kiwoeoe]

when i die i hope god looks like him

[@ecrash3983]

Gabe Is gaming santa...

[@docmartin6348]

These videos are excellent. Usually by the time I see good videos like this, like Will Tennyson when he had less than 10,000 subs, they blow up and have millions of subs within a few years. Good luck!

[@sevenredundent7256]

SteamOS isn't a proprietary OS, it's like what Google does with Android in that the OS itself is open source with proprietary code included.

[@TheSlyhound]

You just glossed over half life Alex.. probably never even played it. It’s amazing

[@ssr284]

made this man inmortal

[@ego_birth]

Great vid

Gabe is God of Games and Gamers on this realm and beyond.

[@G4M3RGU1D3]

Valve has always let me with the feeling they werent pushing the steam strong enough pun intented. They left their half life serie until Alyx Vr. They could have made so much more with the talent they have.

[@TheTamaleWhisperer]

"G"s end up in prison not runnning companies that the IRS knows about.

[@MyNigellus]

thanks for vid

[@MaxKulik]

The Valve Index was not the "first" steam hardware. The Steam Machine and Steam Controller was the hardware that was released in 2015. You have the correct date but the wrong hardware. The virtual related hardware was not released until 2019.

[@nicbahtin4774]

i just wish valve would release more games

[@CollyIsEpic]

same with caring about theyre games

[@quacxks100]

How influential do you want to be on pc gaming? how popular? well liked? Gabe: Yes

[@oshit2874]

amazing video! so detailed, thank you!

[@liberator48]

You forgot to mention the Steam Machine, which was their first hardware, not VR. It was a brilliant headless mini PC for the couch gamer, and lead to many arguably better spin offs such as the Alienware Alpha, which i owned one of back in the day. They should really make more iterations of those cool little PCs rather than waste time on the dinky massive smartphone/controller that doesn't even fit in a pocket called the Deck. The Deck has no reason to exist as you can achieve better experience with any smartphone, a controller like the Razer Kishi and GeForce NOW than the Deck can. But the Steam Machine and Alienware Alpha was great for couch gaming and semi-mobile gaming like Lan-parties etc.

[@cedricdavis513]

It is possible to be a cool and ethical billionaire

[@DPedroBoh]

Gabe is cool and also Valve, but let's not kid ourselves, they are still a huge company with max profit in mind. It's that because of valve's unique position and modus operandi, they profit by making good products, instead of milking it's fans. I hope they never get investors, when this happens, it's over. I say all that because they've been part of lot's of anti consumer controversies, but still they are one of the best gaming companies out there.

[@Forgotten_soldier200]

well i have steam deck, its little bit heavy to hold, but its perfect for gaming because you dont need to buy game to play like XBOX, PS5 and Nintendo switch, if you buy games from steam, you wont need to buy games at steam deck because you buy it from steam.

[@trollos]

you could say hes the g-man

[@WWIA7062-2]

8:40 steam deck can run windows nativly but its just that epic wants people to use the Epic Game Launcher

[@filiplmao]

Damn I love my Steam Deck.

[@Shockload]

8:19 No HL Alyx ≠ HL 3, There was no continuation whatsoever to the story of HL2 EP2, HLA is a prequel to HL2, so it's basically HL 1.5

[@RollingAZN]

6:45 HTC a Japanese developer? My dude... it's a Taiwanese tech corporation.

[@Kinesis17]

Interesting video, sort of surprised to see you missed the whole mod support/hiring devs and game ideas that way or that HL2 was used to push Steam into adoption. Also no mention of the Index or Gabe's strong interest on Valve pushing VR and BCI. This could easily be double or triple the length and I get that it's alot more work but as others have said there's alot missing here.

[@ToveriJuri]

Also should have mentioned the original idea behind the Steam Deck, the steam machine which ended up being an utter failure. That's the origin of Steam OS too.

[@youdonotknowme.]

Idk why but i found the progress bar circle things in the bottom left really distracting. It's kinda hard to focus when i see something moving in the corner of my eye if that makes sense.

[@crosh7851]

Ok

[@datboitank2318]

If only gabe could count to 3...

[@jericteves6126]

aside from gifting game, you forgot to add steam community market, where people around can trade/sell in-game items one of the best features steam has that other game portal still don't have.

[@Ketamine08]

Plus remote play