Steam and Half-Life were created because Gabe Newell couldn't stand that „more people were using Doom than Windows”
Gabe Newell recently gave an interview in which he shared the story behind the founding of Valve. As it turns out, Microsoft and Doom played a big role in it.
Gabe Newell is a well-known figure that doesn't need much of an introduction. The founder of Valve has built a reputation among players over the years. However, it's hard to believe that achievements such as Half-Life or Steam were inspired by the success of Doom (via GamesRadar+).
Some of you may not remember, but at the beginning of his career, Gabe Newell worked for Microsoft. In the latest interview with Zalkar Saliev, he talked about those times and what motivated him to establish Valve.
- As it turns out, Doom played a big role in the whole process, specifically its unique approach to players. The founder of Valve even contacted id Software and proposed to port the title to Windows. This experience prompted him to reflect on the evolution of software distribution.
- According to Newell, Microsoft was too focused on traditional distribution models and missed the opportunity that the Internet brought. So Valve's founder decided to take the opportunity and invest money in a company that would offer more modern solutions. And that's how Valve was born.
Id was out-distributing Microsoft with Doom. They had a completely alternate model of how to reach customers and engage with customers that I thought was super interesting, to the point that there were more people using Doom than were using Windows when there was a big survey done. It was also considered to be the most graphically advanced game. You couldn't see anything like Doom that would run on the consoles or run in arcades.
I have to admit, it's a pretty interesting story that shows what drove the creation of one of the most well-known video game companies.
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Author: Agnes Adamus
Associated with gamepressure.com since 2017. She started with guides and now mainly creates for the newsroom, encyclopedia, and marketing. Self-proclaimed free-to-play games expert. Loves strategy games, simulators, RPGs, and horrors. She also has a weakness for online games. Spent an indecent number of hours in Dead by Daylight and Rainbow Six: Siege. Besides that, she likes horror movies (the worse, the better) and listen to music. Her greatest passion, however, is for trains. On paper, a medical physicist. In fact, a humanist who has loved games since childhood.
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