I was recently recommended a short film about the vision of Gabe Newell – creator of Valve, Steam, Team Fortress... – and I found it very interesting. Since the short film seemed to be some kind of interview, I decided to try my luck and search for a Gabe Newell interview, because in my mind, if I could find interesting content in a short film, the full interview would have even more insights. I found it!
The interview was conducted 13 years ago, in January 2013, at the University of Texas. It's incredible how many of the topics he discussed so many years ago, more than a decade, remain extremely relevant and show how solid his vision for the company has remained. This was only possible because Valve and Steam are private companies, something Gabe commented on in the video, since this model removes the noise between the consumer and the producer. And today we can see a large community that loves the products and services of Gabe's company.
There were several very important points, many indeed, so if you're interested in productivity, games, business, or Gabe's history with Valve, I recommend looking for the interview as well. I'll share with you some insights I observed while watching the interview and trying to understand how this remains true today.
I'll be much appreaciated if you Votes, Reblogs or give any Tips. Thanks and have good reading! 🍀
Insights from Gabe Newell's Interview - 13 Years Ago!
The first insight, already mentioned, is the issue of Valve being a private company. Even with several opportunities to take the company public over the years, Gabe Newell remained firm in his conviction.
Regarding the business aspect, he says that Valve doesn't have a marketing department because, in Gabe's view, everyone in the company assumes that their job is to communicate with the consumer. This vision aligns well with the business model, which doesn't have a hierarchy, allowing Valve to receive community feedback with much greater precision and agility. Consider the case of a bug being found: it goes to the support department, which forwards it to the development department, which forwards it to the supervisor, which then logs it, and only then is the priority debated... This is very time-consuming, and anyone who wants to play wants one thing: TO PLAY!
One of the things that most marked Gabe Newell, perhaps you don't realize it, but it was the distribution capability of DOOM, which ran on many machines. I believe this inspired Gabe's model of focusing on digital services and minimizing as much as possible the difficulty for users to access his service.
This may have been the reason why the Proton compatibility layer is currently being developed by Steam in partnership with the gaming community. This tool allows other systems like Linux to access Steam games, increasing the number of users and reducing the dependence of games on a single system.
Gabe mentioned that in business terms, distributing bits is inexpensive compared to the revenue generated in return for this investment. It's a pursuit of optimization that ends up being beneficial for having new technologies, reducing costs, and expanding access.
And since Gabe Newell founded a game studio, his insights into this industry couldn't be missing. In games, he realized that by making the model Free to Play, the audience increased by a factor of 10, while revenue rose by a factor of 3.
And since the incremental cost to get another player was the cost of distributing bits, the profit increased even more. He had some very interesting insights, which show why he's focusing on Proton today; the vision from 13 years ago is still influencing the present day.
Another curious insight was about games with marketplaces and auction houses. Gabe Newell found it interesting how there was an exchange of goods between different players. I believe this greatly influenced how the Steam marketplace works today and why many games actively use this mechanic. You can observe that web.3 games with a solid marketplace and an active user base that generates volume end up being more resilient.
However, he raised a problem: the value accumulated by a player playing for hours over years can simply disappear and go to zero, something that has happened with many game projects in the crypto ecosystem.
Source: Splinterlands, Axie Infinity, Sunflower Land
Unpredictability exists in this model, and Gabe compares it to the real estate market, where you don't spend money making improvements to a house and it might end up being in vain.
Regarding the market, he mentioned a large volume of trading in cosmetic items, with one user making $500k in a year – the highest value recorded – something that can be applied to other games, such as items with lower supply, higher rarity, and limited editions.
There are examples in the collectible card market like Pokémon or Magic, and in the Crypto ecosystem we have cards from older collections and gold foils from Splinterlands, Axies Mystics, and low-supply items in Sunflower. It's curious how, in some cases, even if it's not a very good item, rarity influences its value so much.
Rating: 90/100
⭐REFERRAL LINKS⭐
🌻 Sunflower Lands 🐉 Splinterlands 🐾 Axie Infinity 📝 Publish0x
🎮 Crypto Game 🎮 Crypto Game 🎮 Crypto Game 📝 Blog to Earn
