Gabe Newell, the president of Valve, has been answering a lot of emails lately and sharing some interesting information about his gaming tastes, the state of Valve, the future of VR and more. The YouTube channel Valve News Network, a popular channel that covers Valve news, has been collecting and sharing Newell’s responses.
Gabe Newell says he answers many emails every day, but there has been a recent uptick in the amount he is getting which is why he has been answering more. Of course, some, including myself, believe that after the recent flop that was Artifact, Valve is trying to possibly get some good PR out into the world.
The questions Newell is receiving vary from joke questions to more serious and interesting questions about gaming, Valve, Steam, and future technologies.
Gabe Newell shared with fans his most played game on Steam, which is DOTA 2, and that he is currently playing a lot of Resident Evil 2 and Cultist Simulator. He also is playing multiple “unannounced Valve games.” What are those games? Well most likely at least one or more of them are VR games that Valve is still working on. A fan asked Newell if the studio was still working on those promised VR titles, to which Newell simply replied “Yes.”
Another fan asked if Valve was focusing more on hardware development now instead of software development. Newell explained that they are working on both hardware and software, saying that this approach gives the studio more choices and options.
“By being able to design hardware at the same we are designing a game, we think we will be able to build better games. Hopefully this more obvious when Knuckles ships,” said Newell.
So it seems clear that Valve is still indeed working on games and working on VR. For those unaware, the knuckles are a new control system Valve is working on that will work with VR games. When will this stuff actually be released? That’s the real question though and one which Gabe Newell hasn’t answered in recent or past emails. This isn’t the first time Valve or Gabe Newell have teased games in development and most likely it won’t be the last.
Fans also asked Gabe Newell about the recent announcement of Halo games coming to Steam, but it sounds like Valve had little involvement in the games coming to the digital store. “The credit for this goes to Phil Spencer and his team at MS. They made it happen, so, yes, it was simple for us,” answered Newell in an email.
Gabe Newell also shared his thoughts on AI, believing that it will help game developers in the future. About brain computers and placing computer chips into people’s heads, Newell believes this is something that could really happen. “I think the science is way further along than people realize.”
For Half-Life and Portal fans, Gabe Newell was asked if he was still in contact with the voice actors who worked on those games, to which he simply responded. “Sure.” I wouldn’t get excited about that answer, but feel free to respond however you want.
The whole video from Valve News Network is worth a watch and this is actually the fourth video the channel has made about Newell’s emails. The recent surge in response from Gabe Newell has been interesting and is giving fans a small glimpse behind one of the most secretive and powerful companies in gaming.