Nerdist Podcast interview with Gabe Newell

[Henke]

Nerdist Podcast interview with Gabe Newell, part 1

Interview with Gabe, and also Valve-dudes Robin Walker and David Sawyer. Skip 8 minutes in to get past the intro and straight to the interview.

Points of interest:

12:00 - Gabe: "Don't ever try to lie to the internet (because it won't work)"

30:30 - hint at new (incredible) thing Valve is working on. "Abrash's project? The Vortex?"

33:00 - TF2 used as testing ground for elements of DOTA2.

37:15 - Gabe philisophises about a future where computers bypass our eyes and instead beams images and experiences directly into our brains. (Speculation: VALVE WORKING ON MATRIX-PROTOTYPE? HMM!)

45:30 - The livingroom, mobile

49:15 - HALF LIFE 3 (gets mentioned. In a joke. Sorry for getting your hopes up.)

50:30 - Storytelling in games

54:00 - The player's relationship with characters in the game. A lot of talk about Portal 2's ending.

1:00:50 - Valve working on a 15 minute short film right now.

1:03:00 - Hollywood people and their terrible ideas for film versions of Valve games.

1:06:45 - Valve working on a bunch of controllers with "the same control and precision as mouse and keyboard but in a living room setting".

1:16:50 - "Valve = a company full of trolls who occasionally releases videogames"

There's also a part 2 of the interview, which focuses more on the company.

[DaftPunk]

Don't care about Valve anymore,all i wanted from them was Half Life.

[Axyl]

Well I care. Thanks for posting this Henke, listening to it now and really enjoying it. :)

[TixyLixx]

Yeah I'm sick of L4D, DOTA, outsourcing CS to ruin the name even more with another shit Source version and their new console etc etc.

Just improve the aging, bloated, slow and clunky steam and give us HL3 already!

[squirrelfanatic]

Awesome stuff, thanks Henke. I find most stuff Valve are talking about much more interesting and relevant to the development of the PC as a platform than the neverending Half-Life 3 meme.

[Voon]

Hmm... A short film? Will it be animated or live action? It'll be interesting to see what they might come up with that, if they do it live action I mean.

Also,

1:06:45 - Valve working on a bunch of controllers with "the same control and precision as mouse and keyboard but in a living room setting".

Uhh... A track ball controller?

[Jams O'Donnell]

Uhh... A track ball controller?

Ever try a FPS game with a trackball? It's hard work.

[Internet]

Ever try a FPS game with a trackball? It's hard work.

I wonder if holding the trackball in a controller would make it even more difficult. I had a friend who would murder me at UT2004 with a trackball, but I suspect it's a niche control mechanism.

I would think an updated version of the wii/ps move form factor could equal a cheap mouse. The tech is six years old and I still find that it's easier to use and offers greater fidelity for pointing (not gyroscopic) than a dual-analog controller, but less than a mouse.

[Voon]

Actually, that tech has been around since lightguns first appear but that's something quite overlooked when it comes to controls for consoles, imo. I tried playing shooters with the wiimote and I thought it was great. Not as good as a mouse but heck, it's better than a stick or a circlepad.

[Nalano]

I especially enjoyed the play-by-play, as I cannot play these extended podcasts at work.

[Battlehenkie]

No doubt Abrash's project involves augmented/virtual reality (see his involvement in the Rift plus the scheduled GDC 2013 talk: http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/1...ht_be_Going%29). Knowing the guy's back ground I've got high expectations.

[Henke]

Hmm... A short film? Will it be animated or live action?

Animated. They're making it with Source Filmmaker, and if I understood things correctly it'll be set in the TF2 universe. So I'm guessing it'll be much like those "Meet the..." shorts.

Uhh... A track ball controller?

Curious to find that out too. I like the 360 gamepad as it is, enough so that I play plenty of PC games with it, but if they can somehow make a gamepad that's as accurate and fast as a mouse that would be even better.

[pakoito]

When will the doomsday device blow up, Gabe?

[DaftPunk]

[soldant]

Curious to find that out too. I like the 360 gamepad as it is, enough so that I play plenty of PC games with it, but if they can somehow make a gamepad that's as accurate and fast as a mouse that would be even better.

I doubt they can do that in a hand-held device. The best part of a mouse is that the range of motion is limited only by your wrist (and your arm I guess) which gives you the ability to move long distances very quickly or provides for better fine control. You don't have to slew to reach a target, you can just quickly move the mouse and stop. Thumbsticks for aiming aren't so good since they're stuck in that little housing, and sensitivity settings generally mean it's slow enough for precise aiming and useless for navigation, or great for fast navigation but useless for fine aiming.

The trackball probably sits somewhere between the two since you can spin it for rapid movement while still giving you fine control, but your thumb still isn't as accurate. At least that's my experience with them - I became fairly adept at playing FPS games with a trackball but there's no escaping the wide range of freedom from a mouse. That said I like gamepad controllers because it's impractical to lounge around with a KB+M.

[Kadayi]

Don't care about Valve anymore,all i wanted from them was Half Life.

Pretty much my view as well. Steam's been a roaring success for them, but failure to deliver EP3 in a timely fashion having sold people the idea of episodic as the more efficient business model is a massive failure on their part.

[baby snot]

Pretty much my view as well. Steam's been a roaring success for them, but failure to deliver EP3 in a timely fashion having sold people the idea of episodic as the more efficient business model is a massive failure on their part.

A failure they're happy to admit to and one they moved beyond years ago. What's your excuse?

[Nalano]

Who the fuck still cares about Half Life 3?

Does it in some way cheapen the previous Half Lifes? No.

Does Valve make fun games outside of Half Life? Clearly.

Some people are always harping on that one note. Shit, if I were a decision-maker at Valve, I'd hold off development just for spite.

[Moraven]

Wii controller done right is actually pretty good for FPS. Tho You have to be sitting up on the couch to use it effectively. Not slouching on the couch which is what they are going for and what you can do with current basic controllers.

[baby snot]

I could imagine slouching using something like this...