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Speaker 1: Technology with tech Stuff from dot Com. Hey there, everybody,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I am your host, Jonathan Strickland,

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Speaker 1: here to talk about all things technological, well not all

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Speaker 1: things today, because we're going to continue our story from

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Speaker 1: the last episode, the story of Valve. Now, in that

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Speaker 1: last episode, we looked at how to Microsoft millionaires left

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Speaker 1: their stable gigs to launch a new game development company,

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Speaker 1: and they called it Valve Software LLC. At that time,

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Speaker 1: they use their own money to fund this company, and

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Speaker 1: they hired on talent to help them come up with

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Speaker 1: a new type of game, which was a story driven

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Speaker 1: first person shooter. It would take them two years and

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Speaker 1: the result of that work would be the game Half Life.

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Speaker 1: A couple of years later, one of those two co founders,

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Speaker 1: Might Harrington, would dissolve his partnership, with the other co founder,

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Speaker 1: Gabe Newell, taking on charge of the company as the

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Speaker 1: sole leader as it were, and leaving him a little

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Speaker 1: bit lonely. So. Valve at this point had finished Half Life,

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Speaker 1: which was enjoying critical acclaim as well as healthy sales.

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Speaker 1: Gamers were eating it up. But as I covered in

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Speaker 1: that previous episode, it didn't exactly go smoothly at the time.

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Speaker 1: The development took a long while. It did, however, help

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Speaker 1: establish Valves methodology for developing games. That is that within

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Speaker 1: the company, employees would form cabals. Now that all sounds

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Speaker 1: rather sinister, doesn't it, But the cabal structure was necessity

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Speaker 1: while working on Half Life, which I should remind you

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Speaker 1: was a project that Valve hit the reset button on

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Speaker 1: when the original work was nearing completion. They were getting

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Speaker 1: close to their original ship date and made the determination

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Speaker 1: that the game just wasn't working. It wasn't fun. They

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Speaker 1: developed lot of cool technology, but they had not yet

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Speaker 1: figured out how to use it properly to make a

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Speaker 1: really compelling game. So they wanted to actually take all

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Speaker 1: that stuff they learned and turn it into a much

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Speaker 1: better product. First, they thought, well, what we should do

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Speaker 1: is get a game designer, someone who's brilliant in this field,

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Speaker 1: like a leader, who can sweep in and rescue the project.

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Speaker 1: The way Ken Birdwell put it in a blog post

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Speaker 1: was that the company was looking for a person who

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Speaker 1: would swing in on a on a chord, you know,

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Speaker 1: sword in hand, hair swept with a wind. He or

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Speaker 1: she would pick up all the disparate pieces and development

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Speaker 1: and magically assemble them into the most awesome game ever.

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Speaker 1: But it became clear that this was a pipe dream.

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Speaker 1: There was no hero coming to the rescue. They just

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Speaker 1: they couldn't find the right person who could actually make

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Speaker 1: this happen. So instead, Valve employees within the company already

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Speaker 1: began to form groups within that organization. They decided, well,

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Speaker 1: we don't really have one person who can lead this

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Speaker 1: project and turn it into something that is really compelling,

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Speaker 1: but we've got a lot of talent here. Maybe we

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Speaker 1: get a group of us, a multidisciplinary group, so people

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Speaker 1: who are specialists in different fields to work together in

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Speaker 1: a collaborative process. We can achieve what one magical superhero

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Speaker 1: would be able to do. And the members of that

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Speaker 1: group had a really wide range of skills that complemented

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Speaker 1: one another. They would have meetings that contained a lot

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Speaker 1: of brainstorming, and in those meetings the group would do

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Speaker 1: a ton of work. In fact, let me quote Mr

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Speaker 1: Birdwell to give you a clue about how cabals would

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Speaker 1: actually get stuff done. Quote. The goal of this group

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Speaker 1: was to create a complete document that detailed all the

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Speaker 1: levels and described major monster interactions, special effects, plot devices,

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Speaker 1: and design standards of Cabal was to work out when

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Speaker 1: and how every monster, weapon and n PC was to

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Speaker 1: be introduced, what skills we expected the player to have,

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Speaker 1: and how we were going to teach them those skills

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Speaker 1: end quote. That's that's a huge burden. You know, you're

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Speaker 1: talking about every element of game design, from the mechanics

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Speaker 1: as in the mechanics within the game itself, not to

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Speaker 1: mention just how do those translate to what the player

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Speaker 1: needs to do in order to pull it off? Like

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Speaker 1: what button do you have to push in order to strafe?

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Speaker 1: What button do you push to interact with your environment?

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Speaker 1: And then all the elements that happen inside the game,

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Speaker 1: all the stuff you encounter, all the things that make

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Speaker 1: the game what it is. According to Birdwell, this process

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Speaker 1: was intense and exhausting, and it would also include a

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Speaker 1: second stage. Essentially, once the team had enough raw material

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Speaker 1: material to work with, you know, they had brainstorm, they decide, okay,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna have a level. We know that the level

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Speaker 1: is going to culminate with an encounter enter with this

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Speaker 1: particular type of enemy uh that has these weaknesses and

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Speaker 1: nise strengths. But leading up to that, we want them

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Speaker 1: to have these four or five other experiences. Plus we

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Speaker 1: have to make sure that the player has the opportunity

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Speaker 1: to learn the strategy that will ultimately benefit them in

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Speaker 1: the battle with this big boss at the end of

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Speaker 1: the level. They come up with these various ideas, they

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Speaker 1: would start hashing them out and they would get really detailed.

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Speaker 1: It wouldn't just be these general rules. It might be

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Speaker 1: much more specific, and they would start to take all

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Speaker 1: of these different disparate pieces and shape it into a narrative.

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Speaker 1: They decided that the stuff that happened within the game

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Speaker 1: should be location based rather than time based. So in

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Speaker 1: other words, you wouldn't need to worry about missing out

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Speaker 1: on a really cool story development because you were lollygagging

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Speaker 1: two rooms back for too long. So you were, you know,

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Speaker 1: checking out this one corner because you were convinced that

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Speaker 1: that corner was going to lead you to a super

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Speaker 1: secret special area. And it turns out no, it's just

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Speaker 1: a corner. So you go on with your merry little life.

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Speaker 1: But you missed all the great stuff because you were

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Speaker 1: too busy with the corner, and the great stuff was

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Speaker 1: on a timer. They did not want that to happen,

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Speaker 1: so instead they decided that once you reach the appropriate

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Speaker 1: location within any given level. Your arrival is what would

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Speaker 1: trigger whatever the event was supposed to be, and those

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Speaker 1: events could be plot developments. It could be an encounter

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Speaker 1: with a monster. It could be the discovery of a

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Speaker 1: new weapon. It could be uh the interaction with another character.

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Speaker 1: It could be a specific special effect, whatever that might be. Now,

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Speaker 1: occasionally the group would come up with ideas for really

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Speaker 1: cool stuff that didn't necessarily fit in with anything else.

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Speaker 1: It was kind of just a neat idea all on

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Speaker 1: its own, and sometimes they would use those as transitions

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Speaker 1: between areas. They'd say, well, it doesn't really fit in

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Speaker 1: this level design, and it doesn't really fit in this

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Speaker 1: next level design, but we could have it as something

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Speaker 1: in between those two. Or some times they would just

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Speaker 1: have to toss it out if they couldn't find a

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Speaker 1: way for it to work within the confines of their story.

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Speaker 1: They also found it helpful to occasionally just put a

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Speaker 1: whole bunch of unrelated ideas into the same area and

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Speaker 1: then try to figure out how they would make them

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Speaker 1: all fit logically. So you might have a couple of

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Speaker 1: monster designs and a new weapon, and maybe a character interaction,

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Speaker 1: and all of these ideas you've had separately, and you thought, well,

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Speaker 1: why don't we just throw them into this one level,

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Speaker 1: see if we can make it make sense from a

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Speaker 1: story aspect, and then that can help lead to some

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Speaker 1: more creativity. Uh. Sometimes that didn't work. Sometimes they would

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Speaker 1: end up incorporating a lot of ideas, but ultimately they

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Speaker 1: would discover when they were done that whatever it was

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Speaker 1: that launched them down that path was no longer part

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Speaker 1: of the level. So let's say that you have this

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Speaker 1: one monster design you really like, and you have decided

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Speaker 1: that you're going to try and create a level around it.

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Speaker 1: It might turn out that months later you've got a

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Speaker 1: great level, but that monsters nowhere to be found. You

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Speaker 1: don't even use it, they said. Ultimately they realized, you know,

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Speaker 1: it didn't matter what the the genesis of the idea

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Speaker 1: was so much that the finished idea worked for the game.

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Speaker 1: And once they took that philosophy, they realized that the

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Speaker 1: development process, while very exhausting, worked much much better now.

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Speaker 1: At that time, Birdwell says, cabal sessions would include five

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Speaker 1: or six employees, and not everyone would always have something

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Speaker 1: to contribute every single day. So if you didn't have

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Speaker 1: five or six, you could end up with a meeting

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Speaker 1: where no one's really talking, nothing's really getting done. So

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Speaker 1: they needed five or six just to kind of cover

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Speaker 1: all the bases. Make sure that even if you're strapped

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Speaker 1: for ideas that week, other people in the group have

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Speaker 1: stuff to contribute, and it may be that three weeks

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Speaker 1: later you're the person who's taking the lead because something

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Speaker 1: someone else has done has sparked an idea in your

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Speaker 1: head and you're able to run with it. And that's

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Speaker 1: exactly what they wanted. So the cabal group for Half

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Speaker 1: Life consisted of a single writer, a level designer, and animator,

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Speaker 1: and then three engineers. Everyone who was in that cabal

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Speaker 1: had previously worked on a product somewhere that actually shipped,

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Speaker 1: which was a pre requirement of that first cabal. They

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Speaker 1: wanted the group to only include people who had worked

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Speaker 1: on products that actually saw the light of day. Now,

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Speaker 1: that didn't mean that they had done that in game

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Speaker 1: development necessarily. They might have developed software they got published

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Speaker 1: somewhere else that wasn't even a game, but at least

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Speaker 1: they had worked on something that published. The group would

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Speaker 1: meet four days a week, and the meetings would last

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Speaker 1: six hours a day, and this went on for five

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Speaker 1: months when they first started the cabal system. After that,

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Speaker 1: they would occasionally meet as the game continued to develop

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Speaker 1: until it was finally shipped, but they weren't meeting every

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Speaker 1: single day or even four days a week. Once they

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Speaker 1: got through that initial brainstorming process, and according to Birdwell,

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Speaker 1: the experience was so draining that you couldn't expect the

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Speaker 1: people who were in the cabal to do any other

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Speaker 1: work because it was just so consuming. The most you

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Speaker 1: might manage is some light housekeeping stuff like answering emails.

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Speaker 1: That's about as strenuous as you could get once you

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Speaker 1: went through this system. Now, at the end of this process,

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Speaker 1: the cabal produced a two hundred page document about Half Life.

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Speaker 1: This became the guiding design behind the game. More importantly,

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Speaker 1: this style of collaboration became synonymous with valves operating procedure.

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Speaker 1: Cabals became the model for game development and really all

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Speaker 1: projects with involved, not just game development, software development tools, patches,

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Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. All of it is centered around

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Speaker 1: this concept of cabals. And it all started with Half Life.

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Speaker 1: Once there was enough of Half Life to actually test

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Speaker 1: Sierra because remember Sierra was the publisher for Half Life

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Speaker 1: pulled in play testers to try stuff out. During those

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Speaker 1: sessions that people responsible for that level would observe the

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Speaker 1: players and they would take notes. So that had to

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Speaker 1: be a harrowing experience to have designed something and now

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Speaker 1: you're watching a stranger play through it for the first time,

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Speaker 1: and you're thinking, oh, they're gonna love that thing that's

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Speaker 1: around the corner, and then it turns out they never

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Speaker 1: even went around the corner. That's gotta be a sobering experience.

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Speaker 1: It's also how they found out if a puzzle they

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Speaker 1: designed was too easy and people just breathe through it,

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Speaker 1: or maybe they found out it was impossible that without

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Speaker 1: the fore knowledge that there was a puzzle and how

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Speaker 1: the puzzle worked, there's no real way to work it out.

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Speaker 1: And it also just showed them if there were any

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Speaker 1: elements that just weren't fun to play, and that would

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Speaker 1: allow them to go back and refine their design for

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Speaker 1: the next build of the game. Now, after Half Life

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Speaker 1: was done, the cabal process continued, but it did change

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Speaker 1: a bit. Birdwell says that for Team Fortress too, For example,

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Speaker 1: cabals tended to include between eight and twelve people, and

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Speaker 1: the meetings weren't nearly as long they were a couple

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Speaker 1: of hours, not six hours a day. But the collaborative

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Speaker 1: process became an important element for Valve, so much so that,

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Speaker 1: according to the two thousand twelve employee Handbook, which by

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Speaker 1: the way, you can actually find online and it is

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Speaker 1: a pretty entertaining read, at that point, all desks at

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Speaker 1: Valve were mounted on wheels that allowed him to move

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Speaker 1: around the office. Even when the office got large enough

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Speaker 1: to encompass multiple floors, there were freight elevators where you

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Speaker 1: could wheel your desk and take it to a different floor.

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Speaker 1: This would make it easier to form teams within Valve

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Speaker 1: and work close by, you know, shoulder to shoulder with

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Speaker 1: your teammates for as long as whatever the team project

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Speaker 1: was took, and then once it was over, you could

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Speaker 1: actually wheel your desk somewhere else and join a different

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Speaker 1: team or form a team yourself. In fact, rather than

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Speaker 1: just jumped down the chronology, it might be a good

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Speaker 1: time to talk about the actual corporate culture of Valve,

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Speaker 1: at least circa two thousand twelve, because that was the

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Speaker 1: latest employee handbook I have at my disposal. It may

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Speaker 1: be that things have changed since then, but the two

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Speaker 1: thousand twelve valve. I imagine it was not too different

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Speaker 1: from what today's valve is, But this gives you a

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Speaker 1: way of imagining how things work inside the company itself.

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Speaker 1: The two thousand twelve handbook refers to valves organizational structure

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Speaker 1: as flat land, so they don't have a strict hierarchy

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Speaker 1: of positions in which directors report to a president and

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Speaker 1: then manager's report to the directors and employees report to

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Speaker 1: managers or they're overseen by managers. Instead, it's at least,

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Speaker 1: in theory, a flat line across the company, with all

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Speaker 1: employees being equal. The handbook does say that Gabe Newell

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Speaker 1: is the founder slash president, but he it also says

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Speaker 1: that he is not quote your manager in the quote,

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Speaker 1: so every employee in theory at least has the power

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Speaker 1: to green light and ship products. Uh. Of course, the

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Speaker 1: manual also says that out of all the people who

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Speaker 1: are not your manager, Gabe Newell is the most not

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Speaker 1: your manager, and it almost sounds like a double speak

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Speaker 1: sort of thing, like he's not your manager, but he

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Speaker 1: runs the company. M of course, that could just be

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Speaker 1: my interpretation of the manual. So how does this corporate

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Speaker 1: culture work in practice. Well. I have not been to

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Speaker 1: Valve personally, and they are traditionally a pretty secretive company.

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Speaker 1: They've had a couple of different UH folks visit and

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Speaker 1: document their visits to the office, but it tends to

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Speaker 1: be really controlled and usually there are multiple floors that

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Speaker 1: people have no access to because there are top secret

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Speaker 1: projects going on in those floors. But it sounds to

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Speaker 1: me like the corporate culture Valve would be a rewarding

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Speaker 1: but extremely challenging environment for a lot of people because

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Speaker 1: instead of taking direction, instead of having a boss who says,

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Speaker 1: this is what your job is, these are your responsibilities.

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Speaker 1: Here is how we expect you to perform your duties,

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Speaker 1: and we will evaluate you based on that criteria. Employees

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Speaker 1: at Valve are expected to seek out projects that appeal

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Speaker 1: to them and then essentially glam onto them and contribute.

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Speaker 1: So you would look around at your fellow employees and say, hey,

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Speaker 1: what are you working on? Oh that sounds cool, I

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Speaker 1: would like to work on that too. I'm part of

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Speaker 1: your team now, Or you could say what are you

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Speaker 1: working on? What are you working on? You know what?

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Speaker 1: It sounds to me like no one is working on

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Speaker 1: this amazing idea I have so I am going to

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Speaker 1: launch this as a project, and I'm going to start

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Speaker 1: recruiting people to work on my own team so that

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Speaker 1: we can get this done. Uh, these projects can be

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Speaker 1: just about anything. There seems to be a huge number

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Speaker 1: of options to choose from, and for some people that

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Speaker 1: could be a little bit intimidating. I know for me

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Speaker 1: it would be extremely intimidating. I mean, if you just

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Speaker 1: take me to the cheesecake factory and watches I panic

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Speaker 1: while flipping through that fifty page menu, you'd understand, like

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Speaker 1: sometimes having unlimited options is more restrictive than it is freeing.

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Speaker 1: There's actually a whole paradox about that. But if you

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Speaker 1: have the aptitude, if you're the person who can thrive

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Speaker 1: in that environment, you can, in theory anyway, work on

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Speaker 1: any project inside Valve. The philosophy of the company is

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Speaker 1: that if you're good enough to be hired, you're already

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Speaker 1: on the right path. And in fact, they are very

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Speaker 1: careful in the hiring process. They don't want to hire

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Speaker 1: someone who is either just a generalist who is pretty

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Speaker 1: good at lots of stuff but doesn't have a deep

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Speaker 1: expertise in anything, Nor do they want to get someone

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Speaker 1: who has an exclusive expertise in one subject and no

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Speaker 1: interest or affinity for any other subject. They want to

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Speaker 1: find people who have a broad range of skills and

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Speaker 1: a narrow range of deep expertise. That's the sweet spot

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Speaker 1: for Valve employees. And honestly, they say that they want

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Speaker 1: people who can make senior level decisions because in a

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Speaker 1: flat hierarchy, where you don't have a boss to report to,

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Speaker 1: you are the one making these senior decisions. You might

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Speaker 1: end up contributing to one project, but you could end

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Speaker 1: up effectively leading another one. Now, within work groups, some

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Speaker 1: hierarchies can and do emerge, but they are informal. They're

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Speaker 1: not codified in the organizational chart of Valve. Typically, someone

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Speaker 1: on a project will end up being a team lead,

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Speaker 1: though that person is more often a repository of all

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Speaker 1: the information about the project instead of being like a

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Speaker 1: traditional manager. And while a group is working toward a goal,

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Speaker 1: certain roles and relationships might form because just on necessity

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Speaker 1: to make sure you get stuff done uh, and that

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Speaker 1: might look more like a traditional company's structure, at least

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Speaker 1: temporarily within the confines of that project. But all of

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Speaker 1: that will fade away once the goal is complete or

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Speaker 1: the project is concluded now. According to the handbook, the

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Speaker 1: company also wanted to avoid the problems of crunch time

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Speaker 1: because they had gone through that a couple of times

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Speaker 1: by the by the year two thousand twelve when this

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Speaker 1: handbook was written. Crunch is when you're coming up against

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Speaker 1: a deadline and you need to make the mountain of

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Speaker 1: work between you and the deadline go away. So typically

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Speaker 1: this means working very long hours with an increased amount

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Speaker 1: of stress. And if you've ever done a crash study

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Speaker 1: course before a test, you know you're just cramming before

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Speaker 1: a test. You get an idea of what this is like,

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Speaker 1: only crunch is way way worse. Valves Handbook says that

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Speaker 1: employee work life balance is really important and that for

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Speaker 1: that reason you should only work normal office hours, and

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Speaker 1: employees also have no holiday or sick leave policies, meaning

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Speaker 1: that you can take as much time as you need

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Speaker 1: at least in theory, as long as you're getting your

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Speaker 1: work done. Whether this actually happens at the company or not,

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Speaker 1: I can't say, but I can imagine why it was

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Speaker 1: added in, because, after all, one of the co founders

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Speaker 1: a Valve left after half life shipped and part of

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Speaker 1: the reason for his leaving was because he had poured

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Speaker 1: so much of his time and energy and effort into

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Speaker 1: getting the game out the door that it had had

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Speaker 1: a real impact on his life at that point, and

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Speaker 1: no one wants to drive their talent away. So they

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Speaker 1: made a formal policy saying, you know, you should just

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Speaker 1: be working your office hours, and anything that's causing you

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Speaker 1: to work longer hours than normal, maybe we need to

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Speaker 1: take a look at it and make sure that you

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Speaker 1: know the priorities are in the right spot so that

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Speaker 1: you can actually have your personal time. Again, I don't

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Speaker 1: know if that's how it actually shakes out in the company.

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Speaker 1: It's one thing to say it in the employee handbook.

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Speaker 1: It's another thing to see it play out in the

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Speaker 1: actual day to day office life. But since I don't

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Speaker 1: know anyone at Valve, I can't really get insider information

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Speaker 1: on that. If you do work for Valve or have

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Speaker 1: worked for Valve, and you have some insight into this

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Speaker 1: and whether or not that in fact is the way

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Speaker 1: it works within the company, or maybe it's the ideal,

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Speaker 1: but that's not how things turn out, let me know,

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Speaker 1: because I can tell you as a creative person on

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Speaker 1: my end, most of the people I know at this

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Speaker 1: company are working very long weeks, and just because you're

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Speaker 1: office hours are over doesn't mean you are done working.

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Speaker 1: You might be working quite a bit more, even at

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Speaker 1: home or on vacation. As it turns out anyway, peer

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Speaker 1: review would become the basis of employee reviews at Valve,

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Speaker 1: And because there's no real hierarchy, there's no manager director

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Speaker 1: that you're reporting to, you would have to rely upon

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Speaker 1: your fellow employees to describe your work, and they would

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Speaker 1: describe it to some people who would essentially be kind

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Speaker 1: of chosen each year to be responsible for interviewing employees

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Speaker 1: to find out how everyone is doing job performance wise,

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Speaker 1: and compensation decisions would rest on peer descriptions of an

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Speaker 1: employee's technical ability, their ability to work within a group

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Speaker 1: and contribute valuable input, how much the employee actually contributed

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Speaker 1: to products and development, and the employee's general output level.

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Speaker 1: So you would end up having, like if you work

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Speaker 1: for Valve, then your coworkers that you are in close

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Speaker 1: contact with because you're all working together on a specific project,

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Speaker 1: they would get interviewed by some of these employees and

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Speaker 1: they would give answers like, hey, Jonathan over there, he's

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Speaker 1: on your team. Uh, what's he like to work with?

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Speaker 1: Did he do anything really uh? Notable in context of

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Speaker 1: this particular product, you know, were his contributions meaningful? Did

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Speaker 1: they help make the product better? Did they help it

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Speaker 1: ship on time? All those sort of questions. The answers

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Speaker 1: to that are what informs the decision to increase your

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Speaker 1: compensation or not. As it turns out, and Valve really

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Speaker 1: wants to reward people based upon their value to the company,

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Speaker 1: but not over reward people, so it's a delicate balance.

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Speaker 1: They also pride themselves on being more generous with their

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Speaker 1: compensation than some other companies like Microsoft and Google. But

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Speaker 1: this is important because there's no there's no career ladder, right,

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Speaker 1: there's no hierarchy, so you can't be promoted. In fact,

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Speaker 1: most Valve employees don't really have a position uh not

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Speaker 1: not really not not a real position or even job

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Speaker 1: description apart from help Valve do stuff. Some Valve employees

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Speaker 1: have an effective job title because if you're ever interacting

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Speaker 1: with anyone outside of Valve, typically you need to have

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Speaker 1: some sort of job title to make sense of it,

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Speaker 1: because anyone who's chatting with you needs to have a

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Speaker 1: point of reference. So people who work at Valve who

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Speaker 1: have outside facing duties, like let's say it's someone who

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Speaker 1: represents Valve at a trade show like E three, they

402
00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:23,280
Speaker 1: probably have a working job title, though within Valve they

403
00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:27,120
Speaker 1: would just be considered another Valve employee. So you can't

404
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Speaker 1: really get promoted, but you can increase your compensation based

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Speaker 1: upon your personal performance at work and your technical expertise

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Speaker 1: and that sort of thing. Uh. The handbook also outlines

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Speaker 1: some amenities that the office had at that time. Now,

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Speaker 1: this is a different office than where Valve is currently,

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Speaker 1: but I suspect that the amenities haven't changed, or rather,

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Speaker 1: if they have changed, they've only expanded. But the ones

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Speaker 1: that were listed in the two thousand and twelve handbook

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Speaker 1: included laundry rooms. There was a room where you could

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Speaker 1: get a massage if you need in one. There's a gym.

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Speaker 1: There were recreational games like dartboards, that kind of stuff. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The lobbies sported an enormous valve which, as I understand

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Speaker 1: it is also in the new office space. This was

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Speaker 1: a gift from Gabe Newell's brother when Half Life one ship.

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Speaker 1: They also have a gold crowbar, which was a gift

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Speaker 1: from Sierra when half Life went gold. Uh, And not

420
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Speaker 1: to jump too much ahead, but Valve has moved a

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Speaker 1: couple of times in its history. During the half Life days,

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Speaker 1: there were only about twenty people working for the company,

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Speaker 1: but by that number had increased to more than two

424
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Speaker 1: hundred employees, and in the company moved into the Lincoln

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Speaker 1: Square Expansion, which is a skyscraper next to the Bellevue

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Speaker 1: Arts Museum in Washington, Washington State. That is, so, I

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Speaker 1: guess it would be good to go back and explore

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Speaker 1: how the company ended up getting so big, which means

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Speaker 1: dialing the time machine back to two thousands. So I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna hop in the time machine and head back there.

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Speaker 1: The old way back machine has been sitting getting a

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Speaker 1: little dusty in the corner. Before I do that, let's

433
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:15,240
Speaker 1: take a quick break to thank our sponsor, and we're back,

434
00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:19,119
Speaker 1: And by back, I mean back to the year two thousand.

435
00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:24,879
Speaker 1: The dot com bubble is poised to burst the final

436
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 1: original Peanuts comic strip publishes after Charles Schultz's passing, and

437
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:36,119
Speaker 1: Sony debuts the PlayStation two in Japan. Meanwhile, over at Valve,

438
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 1: what's going on there? Well, I mentioned in the previous

439
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 1: episode that Half Life Opposing Force came out. N I

440
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:49,040
Speaker 1: failed to mention in that episode that Valve didn't actually

441
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:52,720
Speaker 1: develop that game or expansion pack if you prefer, because

442
00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 1: it really was an expansion on the original Half Life

443
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:59,680
Speaker 1: game and not a fully fledged game on its own right. Instead,

444
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 1: this game was developed by someone else. It was actually

445
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:07,120
Speaker 1: developed by Gearbox Software, which would go on to make

446
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:10,680
Speaker 1: a two thousand one expansion for Half Life called Blueshift.

447
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 1: Gearbox became known later on as the creators of a

448
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 1: series called Borderlands. So the folks at Valve we're looking

449
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:23,480
Speaker 1: at other projects, namely half Life two and Team Fortress too,

450
00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:26,959
Speaker 1: and a couple of other projects as well. The company

451
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 1: was also supporting the work of the mod community, which

452
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:33,639
Speaker 1: helped entrenched Valve in the hearts of hardcore gamers everywhere.

453
00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 1: As I mentioned in the last episode, when the company

454
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:40,000
Speaker 1: really liked a mod, they were likely to acquire it,

455
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:42,639
Speaker 1: and that was the case with a little mod of

456
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 1: the Half Life competitive multiplayer mode called counter Strike. Now.

457
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:51,679
Speaker 1: That mod put players into one of two teams. You

458
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:55,639
Speaker 1: either played as a terrorist or a counter terrorist, and

459
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: each team had a certain goal depended upon whatever the

460
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 1: game type was is for that particular playing session, Completing

461
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:07,639
Speaker 1: the goal would gain your team a point for that round.

462
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 1: After a certain number of rounds determined before you actually

463
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:14,120
Speaker 1: start playing the game, the team which had the most

464
00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:17,160
Speaker 1: points would win. Now, that does not necessarily mean you'd

465
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 1: win if you've got more kills than your opponents, because

466
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:24,160
Speaker 1: sometimes the objective wasn't too just kill as many people

467
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:28,520
Speaker 1: as you possibly could. However, killing opposing team team members

468
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 1: tends to help no matter what the game type is.

469
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 1: The game rewards tight team play and ultimately became a

470
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:39,359
Speaker 1: popular title in the e sports realm because while you

471
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:42,720
Speaker 1: could excel at counter Strike if you were just an amazing,

472
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 1: lead skilled player, what you really needed was a team

473
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:50,640
Speaker 1: of people who could work well together in order to

474
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:53,399
Speaker 1: to excel at the game itself. If you are an

475
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:57,160
Speaker 1: amazing player and all your teammates are nubes, then you're

476
00:27:57,200 --> 00:27:59,480
Speaker 1: probably not going to do so well in the grand

477
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:02,119
Speaker 1: scheme of things, especially if you're up against a team

478
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:06,159
Speaker 1: that has, you know, decent communication skills. You need to

479
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: have a good, solid group together, and that's what made

480
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 1: it a prime candidate for E sports now. Counter Strike

481
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 1: was the work of two members of the Half Life

482
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:22,920
Speaker 1: modding community, and those were Meanly a k A. Gooseman

483
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:27,720
Speaker 1: and just Cliff Lee did nearly all the development on

484
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: the mod, while Cliff helped publicize it. He had a

485
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 1: Half Life fan site that would publish and promote mods

486
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: and maps in the half Life community. Their work so

487
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:41,200
Speaker 1: impressed Valve that the company extended to them the invitation

488
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 1: to become employees, and they both accepted that invitation. In

489
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 1: two thousand, Valve released counter Strike one point oh. It

490
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 1: became one of the most popular multiplayer games of all time,

491
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: right out there with games like Call of Duty. In fact,

492
00:28:56,680 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 1: even today, after nearly a decade and other versions of

493
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 1: counter Strike coming out, the original counter Strike is still

494
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: going and has more than fifteen thousand people playing it

495
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 1: as I do the research for this podcast. In fact,

496
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: the day that I did the research for this there

497
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: was a peak number of players hitting seventeen thousand, seven

498
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 1: sixty six, which is pretty incredible for a game that's

499
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 1: that old. By the way, Cliff provided the voice of

500
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:27,959
Speaker 1: the radio commands in the game, so you would get

501
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 1: little commands over your radio that came from the from

502
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 1: Jeff Cliff himself. Well, Meanly would stay on with Valve

503
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 1: for a little while and would shift work to counter

504
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: Strike to the full sequel to counter Strike. Eventually, Valve

505
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: decided that they were not going to develop counter Strike too.

506
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 1: They made some other counter Strike spinoffs, but the sequel

507
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 1: itself got scrapped and Lee would leave Valve. As a result,

508
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 1: Cliff would actually stay on with Valve. Lee would go

509
00:29:56,320 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: on to work for other games for other developers. The

510
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 1: count Strike series did continue with spinoffs. Uh, there just

511
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 1: wasn't a counter Strike two. So in two thousand four,

512
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 1: counter Strike Condition zero published. This was a game that

513
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 1: was developed by Turtle Rock. They developed that particular version

514
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 1: of counter Strike and it was still using the gold

515
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:20,400
Speaker 1: Source game engine, which was the same one that powered

516
00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 1: Half Life and the original counter Strike Mod two. Other

517
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: games would follow. There was counter Strike Source, which used

518
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 1: a different game engine that we'll talk about a little

519
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 1: bit later in this episode. That one also published in

520
00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 1: two thousand four, and then there was Counterstrike Global Offensive,

521
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: which would not publish until two thousand twelve. That one

522
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:42,520
Speaker 1: was developed in partnership with Hidden Path Entertainment five years later.

523
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 1: That particular version of counter Strike, that is Counterstrike Global

524
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 1: Offensive remains one of the most popular games on the

525
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 1: Steam platform. In fact, when I checked it today as

526
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 1: I do this podcast, there were more than four hundred

527
00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 1: seventy five thousand concurrent players. Nearly half a million concurrent

528
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 1: players playing a game that's five years old. That is phenomenal.

529
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 1: Back to two thousand, Valve released a game called Ricochet

530
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 1: in two thousand and It was developed by a guy

531
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 1: named Robin Walker who was an Australian game designer. He

532
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:18,200
Speaker 1: was part of the team who had developed the Team

533
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:22,920
Speaker 1: Fortress mod for Quake World, and when Valve decided that

534
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 1: they were going to acquire the Team Fortress assets and

535
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 1: end up acquiring the company essentially or the group that

536
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: developed them, uh, Robin Walker was one of those guys

537
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: and came over to Valve. So he had joined Valve

538
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:41,280
Speaker 1: about two years earlier. Now the employee handbook describes Ricochet

539
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: as an example that quote demonstrates to the mod community

540
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 1: how a game can be created quickly and easily with

541
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 1: Valves s d K end quote. S d K stands

542
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: for Software Developer Kit, So in other words, Ricochet was

543
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 1: meant to say to the mod community, Hey, we want

544
00:31:57,480 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: you to make awesome games, and here are the tools

545
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:02,040
Speaker 1: you can used to do that, So go out there

546
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:07,840
Speaker 1: and make the next cool, super awesome game. And obviously

547
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 1: Valve has a vested interest in this because if people

548
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: go out and create an awesome game, and Valve sees

549
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 1: a way of marketing that they can acquire that game,

550
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:19,080
Speaker 1: the game developers get rewarded for the work they've done,

551
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:22,360
Speaker 1: and then Valve can sell that game to a wider audience.

552
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: Ricochet was developed internally. This was not a moded game

553
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 1: that they picked up, but Walker created Ricochet and modified

554
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 1: Half Life into a new type of game. It was

555
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: a competitive multiplayer game, so you know something counter Strikes

556
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:40,280
Speaker 1: a competitive multiplayer game as well, but Ricchet is very

557
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: different from Counterstrike and Ricochet. Players would control the character

558
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 1: first person shooter style, but you would have all these

559
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:51,200
Speaker 1: different disc shaped platforms in a giant arena that are

560
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 1: suspended over an infinite pit it appears to be so

561
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 1: you can jump from platform to platform as part of

562
00:32:57,400 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: this game, those part of the strategy is jumping from

563
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:02,960
Speaker 1: one platform to the next while trying to take out

564
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 1: your opponents. So you had to worry about all these

565
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 1: sorts of different angles. You had to worry about making jumps.

566
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:11,160
Speaker 1: If you missed a jump, then you would fall to

567
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:14,320
Speaker 1: your death. You had to worry about where your opponents were,

568
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 1: and there are also little elements along the edges of

569
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 1: the playing field that would allow you to bounce off

570
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 1: of them, so if you jump toward them, it would

571
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 1: redirect your jump or allow you to ricochet. Thus the

572
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 1: name and actually reminds me a lot of the disc

573
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 1: game in Tron in a lot of ways, although that

574
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 1: may just be the graphics that are really reminiscent of that.

575
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 1: The gameplay itself is quite different now. Originally, Valve wanted

576
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: to release this game and then have updates come out

577
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 1: over time, allowing it to continually evolve. That would eventually

578
00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 1: become the model for Team Fortress to further down the line,

579
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: but Ricochet never quite got that benefit. It just sort

580
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 1: of languished, and a lot of folks look at it

581
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 1: as a totally failed title. It became something of a

582
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 1: joke within the gaming community and definitely something that Robin

583
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 1: Walker would find painful to discuss, because clearly there was

584
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:15,120
Speaker 1: the gem of a really cool idea here, but it

585
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:19,080
Speaker 1: just never got the support outside of its initial development

586
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:21,840
Speaker 1: that it really needed in order for it to become

587
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:26,719
Speaker 1: a really compelling game. However, I would argue that if

588
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:29,719
Speaker 1: you look at something like Ricochet, you could easily see

589
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 1: where the other future developers would come up with ideas

590
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 1: that were really compelling that put their own twist on

591
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:43,160
Speaker 1: the first person shooter genre. I'm specifically talking about Portal,

592
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 1: but that's a game we'll have to cover in Part

593
00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 1: three of this series. Also spoiler alert, there will be

594
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 1: a Part three of this series. And I don't mean

595
00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:55,279
Speaker 1: to suggest that Valve is so important a company that

596
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 1: requires three episodes, but rather that there are a lot

597
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:00,760
Speaker 1: of lessons to be learned in the story of Valve,

598
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 1: that there are a ton of things that happened through

599
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 1: the course of valves history that are really valuable to

600
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:13,600
Speaker 1: understand for other companies. It's not just Valve. So while

601
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: I understand that i've I've covered other companies with fewer

602
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 1: parts that had longer histories than Valve, I feel like

603
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:24,520
Speaker 1: there's a lot of deep lessons to be learned in

604
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:27,360
Speaker 1: these histories. So that's the only reason I'm really spending

605
00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:30,520
Speaker 1: that much time on this one now. In two thousand one,

606
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 1: Valve released a couple of half life expansions. While counter

607
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 1: Strike would become the most popular online action game that year,

608
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 1: and behind the scenes work would continue on Team Fortress Too,

609
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:45,040
Speaker 1: as well as the sequel to Half Life, but it

610
00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 1: became clear that, at least for Team Fortress Too, things

611
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:51,400
Speaker 1: were going to take a lot longer than game Newell

612
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:54,239
Speaker 1: initially expected. In fact, in many ways, it was going

613
00:35:54,280 --> 00:36:00,239
Speaker 1: to become another Half Life, in that numerous delays and

614
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:03,799
Speaker 1: internal issues would cause the game to come out much

615
00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 1: much later than what they had hoped. These days, gamers

616
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:10,920
Speaker 1: call this sort of thing Valve time, So it's kind

617
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: of a dismissive term, almost a pejorative about the delay

618
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:18,960
Speaker 1: between when you expect a game and whether or not

619
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:22,840
Speaker 1: it ever comes out. That that time in between is

620
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:25,600
Speaker 1: called Valve time. Like, yeah, but how long is that?

621
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 1: In Valve time, you might say, all right, what was

622
00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 1: coming out next year, But in Valve time, that really

623
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:35,959
Speaker 1: means two, three, six years from now. So uh. These

624
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,840
Speaker 1: long stretches have made Valve employees a bit more hesitant

625
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:41,640
Speaker 1: to talk about big projects because of the issues that

626
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: stirs up within the gaming community. I mean, you don't

627
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:47,080
Speaker 1: want to announce that a game is coming out, have

628
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 1: that day come and go with nothing shipped, and then

629
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:53,319
Speaker 1: have to answer to the gaming community over and over again,

630
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 1: because they are persistent and largely unforgiving, and it can

631
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 1: be very frustrating from a creative perspective to deal with

632
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:08,839
Speaker 1: that level of animosity, or even not even if it's animosity,

633
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:11,840
Speaker 1: let's say that there's no ill will or anything. Just

634
00:37:11,880 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 1: having to answer the same question over and over again

635
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:17,720
Speaker 1: can become demoralizing. So these days Valve is less likely

636
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 1: to talk about the stuff that's in development. So we'll

637
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 1: check back with Team Fortress two in the next episode

638
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 1: and maybe touch on it a couple of times throughout

639
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 1: this one and talk about some of the stuff that

640
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:32,319
Speaker 1: went down during its development. But the following year, two

641
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 1: thousand two, was when Valve relocated to a new office space.

642
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:39,319
Speaker 1: So they had started off in Kirkland, Washington, they had

643
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:43,920
Speaker 1: signed a five year office rental agreement, and they decided

644
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:46,719
Speaker 1: that they would relocate to Bellevue, Washington. It was also

645
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 1: in two thousand two that Valve made an announcement that

646
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,759
Speaker 1: would end up transforming the company on a level that

647
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 1: I suspect no one anticipated at that time. And this

648
00:37:56,200 --> 00:37:58,920
Speaker 1: was an announcement that happened at the Game Developer Conference

649
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:03,840
Speaker 1: in two thousand two. That's when Valve announced Steam. Now,

650
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: the actual platform of Steam wouldn't launch until two thousand three,

651
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:11,560
Speaker 1: but they announced it in two thousand two. So what

652
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 1: is Steam and why is it such a big deal? Well,

653
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:17,759
Speaker 1: when it launched, it wasn't nearly as big a deal

654
00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:19,839
Speaker 1: as it is today, and I don't think anyone could

655
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 1: have anticipated it. But first, at the time, Steam was

656
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:28,680
Speaker 1: pretty much necessary for Valve. So Valve was working on

657
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:33,760
Speaker 1: developing or supporting tons of multiplayer games, either the games

658
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 1: that they had developed in house or the mods that

659
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:40,560
Speaker 1: were based upon the game they had developed. That game

660
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 1: essentially being Half Life right, So Half Life and all

661
00:38:43,640 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 1: the different modifications that came out, all of them required

662
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:51,400
Speaker 1: this kind of ongoing support because Valve would constantly tweak

663
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:55,239
Speaker 1: things so that they would run a little better, more smoothly,

664
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:59,240
Speaker 1: that they would remove exploits, that they would remove vulnerabilities.

665
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 1: But that meant that people had to use the latest

666
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:04,800
Speaker 1: version of the game or to play with each other.

667
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:06,960
Speaker 1: In other words, if you have the latest version of

668
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:10,919
Speaker 1: counter Strike, but I've got a version that's two versions behind.

669
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 1: Let's say that you've got one point four and I

670
00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:15,080
Speaker 1: have one point too, we can't play together because our

671
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:18,720
Speaker 1: games are no longer compatible. I I cannot match everything

672
00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 1: you have. There might be new maps that you have

673
00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:24,439
Speaker 1: that I don't have, and this sort of mismatch meant

674
00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:27,759
Speaker 1: that we could not have a compatible gaming session with

675
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:30,960
Speaker 1: one another. I would need to update my game to

676
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 1: be the same version as yours. Uh. And actually it

677
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 1: ends up being more complicated than that, because I would

678
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:38,360
Speaker 1: need to have the right version to even log into

679
00:39:38,400 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 1: a server and be able to play on that server.

680
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:43,600
Speaker 1: So what Valve wanted to do was develop a platform

681
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:46,240
Speaker 1: that would make it easier to patch games like counter

682
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:50,080
Speaker 1: Strike and Steam was that solution. It's an online platform,

683
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:52,400
Speaker 1: which means you have to log into an online account.

684
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:54,800
Speaker 1: You have to have an Internet connection for it to work.

685
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,120
Speaker 1: Once you're logged in, the platform can scan the versions

686
00:39:58,239 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 1: the various Valve games. Later on it would be other

687
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 1: games as well, but in the early days it was

688
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:06,440
Speaker 1: just Valve and really it was just Half Life and

689
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 1: the various mods, and then it would make sure that

690
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 1: the version you were using was up to date. And

691
00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:15,320
Speaker 1: if the version you're using isn't up to date, it

692
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 1: could automatically update those games to make sure that you're

693
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: ready to go and you could log in and have

694
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 1: your online gaming session. Eventually, Valve would extend this to

695
00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 1: apply not just to online multiplayer games, but also single

696
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 1: player games that you can play offline. Let's say you

697
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 1: buy Half Life and you only want to play the

698
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:37,319
Speaker 1: single player campaign, you have no interest in playing the

699
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:42,359
Speaker 1: multiplayer campaign. Well, once this really got going, you had

700
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 1: to have a Steam connection even to play your single

701
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 1: player game on your computer, because even though the whole

702
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:51,400
Speaker 1: thing is self contained, even though you are playing data

703
00:40:51,560 --> 00:40:54,760
Speaker 1: that lives on your computer, you would require that persistent

704
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:57,920
Speaker 1: connection to the Internet in order to actually play it.

705
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:01,239
Speaker 1: And a lot of gamers do not like this, particularly

706
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:04,200
Speaker 1: since at the time in the early two thousand's, not

707
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:07,640
Speaker 1: everyone had a persistent Internet connection. It wasn't really common

708
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 1: in the gaming world or in the households in general,

709
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:14,839
Speaker 1: and some gamers really resented having to log onto an

710
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:17,440
Speaker 1: online service just to play a game that, in their minds,

711
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:20,239
Speaker 1: should exist completely on their own machines with no need

712
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 1: for outside access. And I can't say that I fully

713
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:25,759
Speaker 1: blamed them. I mean, I find it very frustrating to

714
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:28,879
Speaker 1: try and play certain games that should not have any

715
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 1: real Internet component and find out I can't do it

716
00:41:32,040 --> 00:41:38,319
Speaker 1: because my Internet connection is uh is down or is unreliable.

717
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 1: I have an Internet connection that sometimes just poops out

718
00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 1: on me, and if I have a game installed on

719
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:48,840
Speaker 1: a computer or a console, is really frustrating to have

720
00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:51,520
Speaker 1: that experience of launching the game and being told, oh,

721
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 1: by the way, you can't actually play this because I

722
00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 1: can't connect to the servers to authenticate. In fact, that's

723
00:41:57,040 --> 00:42:00,760
Speaker 1: another point that Steam was made for. It was for authentication.

724
00:42:01,520 --> 00:42:04,760
Speaker 1: This is a way to combat piracy. So the idea

725
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 1: is that if you want to play a game, you

726
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:09,360
Speaker 1: log into Steam, which would check to make sure the

727
00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: game you were playing was in fact a valid copy.

728
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:13,880
Speaker 1: It would make sure that you had the license to

729
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:16,480
Speaker 1: play that game and you weren't just pirating a copy

730
00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:19,760
Speaker 1: of it. Now, if you're an honest customer, that doesn't

731
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 1: necessarily sound bad, right like, well, you know I bought

732
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:24,879
Speaker 1: the game. It's checking to make sure I bought the game.

733
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:28,719
Speaker 1: I get it fine, you know whatever, you might think.

734
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 1: The only people who really get upset at this tactic

735
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:34,439
Speaker 1: are software pirates, the people who steal games and that

736
00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:36,719
Speaker 1: they find out that the stuff they stole they can't

737
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 1: actually play. But it turns out that you can be

738
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:45,400
Speaker 1: a completely honest customer and still have really negative experiences

739
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:49,360
Speaker 1: due to this sort of authentication or digital rights management strategy.

740
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:52,759
Speaker 1: The implementation caused problems to people even when they had

741
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:57,719
Speaker 1: legitimately purchased their copy of a game. So here's one

742
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:02,800
Speaker 1: way Valve games are popular. They are really popular games.

743
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 1: They a lot of people end up buying them on

744
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 1: day one, and then they launched their games, they want

745
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:09,080
Speaker 1: to play them right away. Well, if you have an

746
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:13,240
Speaker 1: authentication strategy that requires your games to dial into a server,

747
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:17,840
Speaker 1: and on day one of your game, everybody is trying

748
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 1: to play it, your servers could get overwhelmed with all

749
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 1: these requests. Tons of people are logging in they just

750
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:26,040
Speaker 1: want to play their games, and these may be single

751
00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:30,399
Speaker 1: player games that have no multiplayer component. Because the server

752
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:34,640
Speaker 1: that authenticates the play sessions would be overloaded. This could

753
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:36,640
Speaker 1: cause delays, and then you have a growing number of

754
00:43:36,640 --> 00:43:39,799
Speaker 1: gamers who are frustrated that the single player game that

755
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:42,759
Speaker 1: they own on their machine cannot launch because of a

756
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:45,440
Speaker 1: problem on some other computer out there on the internet.

757
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 1: They have no control over that, and that gives credence

758
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:53,840
Speaker 1: to the argument that authentication strategies frequently punished legitimate users

759
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 1: more than they prevent piracy, because pirates, they'll go to

760
00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 1: an extra step. They'll often work to strip out those

761
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:05,480
Speaker 1: protections in games entirely so they aren't hampered by these

762
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:08,360
Speaker 1: same issues because they've gone into the code and removed

763
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 1: those protections. So they turns out the only people who

764
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 1: are getting affected by this anti piracy policy are the

765
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:18,759
Speaker 1: legitimate customers because the pirates have already taken it out.

766
00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:21,720
Speaker 1: So this is a common problem in digital rights management

767
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 1: solutions in general, not just this particular one, but different

768
00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:29,840
Speaker 1: DRM approaches. So it's a big challenge to create DRM

769
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:32,880
Speaker 1: that does its job while also not creating a negative

770
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:36,759
Speaker 1: impact for actual customers. But that's another topic. I could

771
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 1: do a full episode, and in fact I have done

772
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 1: full episodes about digital rights management and why it's both

773
00:44:44,239 --> 00:44:50,160
Speaker 1: important and problematic. It's important because people steal stuff and

774
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:55,200
Speaker 1: it's really easy to distribute digital content without any checks

775
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:58,919
Speaker 1: or balances, and that has a real impact on finances

776
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 1: down the line. Um, it's a real problem because more

777
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:04,359
Speaker 1: often than not it ends up punishing your customers and

778
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: does nothing to dissuade pirates. So yeah, big issue. The

779
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:12,920
Speaker 1: thing to remember right now is that when Steam launched.

780
00:45:13,280 --> 00:45:15,799
Speaker 1: It was really done so as a means to distribute

781
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:20,960
Speaker 1: patches and also to sell digital copies of Valve games.

782
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 1: Later on, Steam would become much more than that and

783
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:28,320
Speaker 1: has played a large role in the gradual shift away

784
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:32,759
Speaker 1: from physical media to more digital distribution. Valve saw the

785
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:34,800
Speaker 1: writing on the wall way back in two thousand two

786
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: and got ahead of the curve big time. But we'll

787
00:45:38,200 --> 00:45:41,440
Speaker 1: talk more about that in part three. Now. Steam launched

788
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 1: on September twelve, two thousand three, and in another year

789
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:48,280
Speaker 1: it would become a huge deal because that's when Half

790
00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:51,960
Speaker 1: Life two would come out. Meanwhile, we're still back in

791
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:55,760
Speaker 1: two thousand two. Remember that's when Valve announced that Steam

792
00:45:55,800 --> 00:45:57,840
Speaker 1: was going to launch. It was that the game developer

793
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 1: a conference in two thousand two. Valve also launched that

794
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 1: year a second initiative called Valve Anti Cheat or v

795
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:07,640
Speaker 1: A c VAC. There have been a couple of different

796
00:46:07,719 --> 00:46:11,200
Speaker 1: versions of that. This was software that was designed to

797
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:14,640
Speaker 1: detect modifications to games that allowed players to cheat in

798
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 1: multiplayer matches, and there are a lot of different variations

799
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:20,960
Speaker 1: of this. You know, things that would cause bullets to

800
00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 1: miss you, or things that would allow you to have

801
00:46:24,640 --> 00:46:29,200
Speaker 1: like an auto aim feature essentially on players, especially for headshots,

802
00:46:29,239 --> 00:46:32,799
Speaker 1: because those would be instantly fatal in games like Counterstrike.

803
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:34,839
Speaker 1: So there were a lot of different cheats out there

804
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:40,440
Speaker 1: that would take advantage of the fact that you know,

805
00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:44,800
Speaker 1: Valve wanted the mod community to be really, really healthy,

806
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:48,239
Speaker 1: which meant releasing the software developer kits. But that means

807
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:52,800
Speaker 1: you're giving people the tools to see how the game works,

808
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:57,319
Speaker 1: understand it, and potentially make these workarounds, these cheats that

809
00:46:57,360 --> 00:47:01,319
Speaker 1: will allow you to UH to boost your abilities or

810
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:06,960
Speaker 1: remove your opponents abilities unfairly. And in order to counteract that,

811
00:47:07,239 --> 00:47:10,240
Speaker 1: Valve began to develop this software. There are other pieces

812
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:12,560
Speaker 1: of software that were in place at the time that

813
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 1: Valve could have acquired, but instead they chose to develop

814
00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 1: their own in house software and they just stopped supporting

815
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:23,160
Speaker 1: the other types of anti cheating software. So the way

816
00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:25,319
Speaker 1: this one would work is it would look for anomalies

817
00:47:25,480 --> 00:47:28,719
Speaker 1: within games. UH. It would first look for anything that

818
00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:31,560
Speaker 1: it was identifiable, stuff that was already listed in its

819
00:47:31,640 --> 00:47:34,759
Speaker 1: cheap code database, so it's looking for anything that it

820
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:40,319
Speaker 1: has already recognized previously. It would also look for other anomalies,

821
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:43,440
Speaker 1: unfamiliar anomalies. Maybe there's a new cheat code, because the

822
00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: way hackers work as they keep on making stuff, as

823
00:47:47,080 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 1: as code changes, hackers will change up their approach to

824
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 1: try and take advantage of the way that code works.

825
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 1: So the software itself had to have the ability to

826
00:47:56,239 --> 00:48:00,480
Speaker 1: identify things that were outside the norm of regular gameplay,

827
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 1: and then upon detection, the various game engineers could take

828
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:09,680
Speaker 1: a look at those anomalies and determine, all right, is

829
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:14,239
Speaker 1: this actually indication of a cheat? Is it a glitch?

830
00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:17,279
Speaker 1: Is it just a weird thing that happened because this

831
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:21,080
Speaker 1: one particular seve circumstances that had never happened before in

832
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:24,480
Speaker 1: a game, did happen in this game? Because sometimes that happens.

833
00:48:24,719 --> 00:48:27,640
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's not so much someone's cheating as it's just

834
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:34,480
Speaker 1: something that the game cannot typically handle. Happens because infinite possibilities,

835
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 1: you know, and the game reacts in a way that

836
00:48:37,160 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 1: you could not predict. So these engineers would review things

837
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:43,880
Speaker 1: and then they could ban a player. Now, the original

838
00:48:43,960 --> 00:48:45,840
Speaker 1: duration of the band this was back in the counter

839
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 1: strike days, because counter Strike was really the the target

840
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:53,319
Speaker 1: of a lot of cheating. I mean, there was tons

841
00:48:53,360 --> 00:48:57,200
Speaker 1: of cheaters who were flocking to a counter strike That

842
00:48:57,239 --> 00:48:59,840
Speaker 1: original band length was twenty four hours, so if you

843
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: are caught cheating, you would be banned for twenty four

844
00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:05,959
Speaker 1: hours from the servers and you could not play. As

845
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 1: the system evolved, the bands would actually grow in length.

846
00:49:08,719 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 1: They become one year or five years, and eventually in

847
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:15,080
Speaker 1: two thousand five they became lifetime bands. So don't cheat.

848
00:49:15,360 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 1: I guess it's the lesson there. So I mentioned what

849
00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 1: was happening on the back end. Um. Once people were

850
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:25,239
Speaker 1: able to take a look at something an anomaly and

851
00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:27,520
Speaker 1: determined that yes, in fact, this is a cheat, they

852
00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:29,799
Speaker 1: could then add that to a database, which meant that

853
00:49:29,880 --> 00:49:33,279
Speaker 1: from that point forward, the system could automatically detect other

854
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 1: instances of that same cheat. So even if someone developed

855
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:40,919
Speaker 1: a new type of cheating software and they rolled it out,

856
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:44,000
Speaker 1: this particular anti cheat software could pick up on it

857
00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:48,480
Speaker 1: relatively quickly, and after review, it could be built into

858
00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:51,360
Speaker 1: the system to be detected automatically when it happens in

859
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:54,840
Speaker 1: the future, so that bands happened without too much human

860
00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:58,440
Speaker 1: interaction required. Now, there's some types of hacks that the

861
00:49:58,480 --> 00:50:02,520
Speaker 1: software could not detect. For example, if you use the

862
00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 1: software Developer Kit to modify the game engine in a

863
00:50:06,440 --> 00:50:09,600
Speaker 1: way where you can see through the various textures. It

864
00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:12,080
Speaker 1: essentially gives you the equivalent of X ray visions. You

865
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:15,279
Speaker 1: can look right through walls and other obstacles and just

866
00:50:15,320 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 1: see where other players are. No matter where they are at.

867
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:20,560
Speaker 1: You might just see an outline for things like walls

868
00:50:20,560 --> 00:50:23,799
Speaker 1: and doors and that kind of stuff. Uh, that kind

869
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:27,480
Speaker 1: of cheat would not get picked up by the VAC software,

870
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 1: So there were people who were using that so they

871
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:32,279
Speaker 1: could keep an eye on an opposing team. Even if

872
00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:35,439
Speaker 1: they were hidden behind cover or sneaking around, it didn't matter.

873
00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:38,359
Speaker 1: You could see them. And that could also explain how

874
00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:40,560
Speaker 1: if you are up against an opponent and they always

875
00:50:40,560 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 1: seem to know where you are, no matter how careful

876
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:45,799
Speaker 1: you are, it could be they're using that cheat against you,

877
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:49,120
Speaker 1: or they might just be really wicked good. Sometimes, if

878
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:51,799
Speaker 1: you play enough games, you'd learn all the tricks and

879
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:55,920
Speaker 1: you just go with the probabilities. If you know, people

880
00:50:55,960 --> 00:50:58,759
Speaker 1: tend to rush out this one door at the top

881
00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:01,480
Speaker 1: of matches, you know, to camp that door and take

882
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:05,920
Speaker 1: people out. But there are people who will cheat. I

883
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:08,279
Speaker 1: don't get it. I don't understand cheats. I mean I

884
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:09,840
Speaker 1: realized that when you play a game, you want to

885
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:13,000
Speaker 1: feel like you're the best, But using cheats doesn't mean

886
00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 1: you're the best at all. In fact, very much means

887
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:18,320
Speaker 1: the opposite of that. You're really just taking the game

888
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:22,360
Speaker 1: out of it. There's no skill there, You're just cheating,

889
00:51:22,719 --> 00:51:25,600
Speaker 1: and all you're really doing is punishing other players. I mean,

890
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:29,520
Speaker 1: any sort of success you're experiencing isn't due to your

891
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:34,439
Speaker 1: own skill. So if you're only happy because you're making

892
00:51:34,440 --> 00:51:37,759
Speaker 1: other people miserable, well I would suggest that you start

893
00:51:37,800 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 1: asking yourself some pretty tough questions about why making other

894
00:51:40,520 --> 00:51:44,359
Speaker 1: people unhappy makes you happy, because that doesn't seem cool

895
00:51:44,440 --> 00:51:46,520
Speaker 1: to me because it's kind of messed up. Man. But

896
00:51:48,040 --> 00:51:50,759
Speaker 1: never mind it. That's off topic. We've got a lot

897
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:53,960
Speaker 1: more to chat about with the story of Valve Part two,

898
00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:58,120
Speaker 1: but first let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor.

899
00:52:04,800 --> 00:52:07,600
Speaker 1: All Right, we're back now. It's two thousand three and

900
00:52:07,640 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 1: a major event happens to Valve. That becomes an example

901
00:52:11,040 --> 00:52:14,000
Speaker 1: of how game companies have some huge issues to contend

902
00:52:14,000 --> 00:52:17,280
Speaker 1: with that are outside of actually making a game work.

903
00:52:17,760 --> 00:52:20,440
Speaker 1: That's that's enough right there, right, just trying to create

904
00:52:20,440 --> 00:52:23,719
Speaker 1: a game that does what's supposed to do. That's fun

905
00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:26,799
Speaker 1: to play that can be a successful product in a

906
00:52:26,920 --> 00:52:30,879
Speaker 1: very crowded marketplace. That's already a huge challenge, but Valve

907
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:36,160
Speaker 1: encountered something else that was even more complicated. Someone managed

908
00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:41,000
Speaker 1: to infiltrate valves computer system. They stole the source code

909
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:44,680
Speaker 1: for Half Life two, which was in development at the time.

910
00:52:44,719 --> 00:52:48,400
Speaker 1: It was not finished, and then that source code found

911
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:52,400
Speaker 1: its way onto the Internet and got wide distribution across

912
00:52:52,440 --> 00:52:55,520
Speaker 1: the Internet. People were pirating the source code for the

913
00:52:55,560 --> 00:53:01,800
Speaker 1: game left and right. This was a disaster, so gamers

914
00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:05,240
Speaker 1: were really eager to continue those adventures of Gordon Freeman

915
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 1: from Half Life. They began to scoop up this source code,

916
00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:11,759
Speaker 1: and it wasn't really finished. It wasn't a full game.

917
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:14,800
Speaker 1: It was only the way you know as the game engine.

918
00:53:14,800 --> 00:53:16,279
Speaker 1: Really it was the way the game worked, and it

919
00:53:16,360 --> 00:53:19,360
Speaker 1: had some stuff in it, but it wasn't a fleshed

920
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:24,239
Speaker 1: out product. And part of that ended up being a

921
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:27,360
Speaker 1: huge black eye for Valve, not just because the source

922
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:30,000
Speaker 1: code leaked that someone managed to infiltrate their systems, but

923
00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:33,040
Speaker 1: also because the game was supposed to come out in

924
00:53:33,080 --> 00:53:35,800
Speaker 1: two thousand three. Half Life two was supposed to debut

925
00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:39,600
Speaker 1: in two thousand three, but it wasn't ready, and the

926
00:53:39,640 --> 00:53:43,600
Speaker 1: company had not yet publicly addressed this issue. They had

927
00:53:43,640 --> 00:53:47,400
Speaker 1: not admitted that the game was going to be a

928
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:51,959
Speaker 1: year a moother another year in development. Uh, it was late,

929
00:53:52,680 --> 00:53:55,440
Speaker 1: but they had not actually said that it was going

930
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:59,279
Speaker 1: to take another year. So this was a big issue

931
00:53:59,320 --> 00:54:01,360
Speaker 1: because Valve not get a chance to get ahead of

932
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:04,560
Speaker 1: the story and say, you know, we promised this game

933
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:07,319
Speaker 1: in two thousand three. It is not ready. We don't

934
00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:10,040
Speaker 1: want to release a game before it's ready, because it

935
00:54:10,080 --> 00:54:12,799
Speaker 1: will be a terrible experience for you. It will be

936
00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:16,439
Speaker 1: a terrible experience for us. So trust us, We're going

937
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:18,600
Speaker 1: to continue working on the game. It will come out

938
00:54:18,640 --> 00:54:21,520
Speaker 1: next year. They didn't even have that chance. It was

939
00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:26,680
Speaker 1: spoiled for them. So game Newell ultimately discovered that his

940
00:54:26,800 --> 00:54:30,000
Speaker 1: own corporate email account had been compromised and that key

941
00:54:30,040 --> 00:54:33,440
Speaker 1: logging software had been installed on machines in the Valve offices.

942
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:36,880
Speaker 1: Key logging, by the way, does exactly what it sounds like.

943
00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:41,200
Speaker 1: It logs key strokes. Hackers use these programs to spy

944
00:54:41,480 --> 00:54:44,360
Speaker 1: upon people in general, and in particularly use them to

945
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:48,720
Speaker 1: get login ideas and passwords to systems. So you essentially

946
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:52,520
Speaker 1: get a a document of all the different key strokes

947
00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:56,840
Speaker 1: used on that machine while the key logging software was active,

948
00:54:57,480 --> 00:55:00,000
Speaker 1: and if someone was using it to log into accounts,

949
00:55:00,040 --> 00:55:03,480
Speaker 1: then you get those passwords. It's a clever way to

950
00:55:03,520 --> 00:55:10,560
Speaker 1: get around all that encryption nonsense, right, It's also really nasty. Well.

951
00:55:10,560 --> 00:55:14,800
Speaker 1: The culprit turned out to be a young German guy.

952
00:55:15,200 --> 00:55:17,080
Speaker 1: I think he was a teenager, might have been eighteen

953
00:55:17,120 --> 00:55:21,919
Speaker 1: at the time. I think his name was Axel Gimbe. Uh,

954
00:55:21,920 --> 00:55:25,040
Speaker 1: it might just be gimb My German is really rusty,

955
00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:28,200
Speaker 1: so on my apologies, but gimb g E m b

956
00:55:28,440 --> 00:55:34,720
Speaker 1: E had gotten into hacking after he himself had been hacked. Uh.

957
00:55:34,760 --> 00:55:38,640
Speaker 1: He had installed malware on his system accidentally. He was

958
00:55:38,680 --> 00:55:41,359
Speaker 1: trying to get a pirate copy of the game Warcraft

959
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:45,720
Speaker 1: three at the time, and instead of getting really upset

960
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:49,160
Speaker 1: and he decided to reverse engineer the malware. He learned

961
00:55:49,160 --> 00:55:52,280
Speaker 1: how it worked, and I learned more about creating malware

962
00:55:52,280 --> 00:55:55,960
Speaker 1: of his own in order to infiltrate systems. His goal

963
00:55:56,600 --> 00:55:58,440
Speaker 1: was to be able to play games. He wanted to

964
00:55:58,440 --> 00:56:00,640
Speaker 1: play as many games as he possibly could, and he

965
00:56:00,880 --> 00:56:03,520
Speaker 1: felt like he couldn't buy them. He didn't have the

966
00:56:03,560 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 1: money for them, and he had what was described in

967
00:56:07,280 --> 00:56:10,040
Speaker 1: multiple sources as a rough upbringing. So I suspect that

968
00:56:10,080 --> 00:56:11,960
Speaker 1: he didn't have a whole of support at home to

969
00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:16,080
Speaker 1: get into the hobby that he enjoyed. So he really

970
00:56:16,080 --> 00:56:18,480
Speaker 1: wanted to play the games, and he decided that stealing

971
00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:20,880
Speaker 1: them would be fine. That it was. You know, it

972
00:56:20,920 --> 00:56:23,440
Speaker 1: wasn't that he was trying to sabotage a game. He

973
00:56:23,560 --> 00:56:26,320
Speaker 1: just really wanted to play things and he didn't otherwise

974
00:56:26,360 --> 00:56:28,719
Speaker 1: have an opportunity. By the way, this is no way

975
00:56:28,800 --> 00:56:32,400
Speaker 1: justifies stealing a game. In case you were wondering, just

976
00:56:32,440 --> 00:56:35,000
Speaker 1: because something exists doesn't mean that you have a right

977
00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:38,000
Speaker 1: to it. That might come as news to some of you,

978
00:56:38,080 --> 00:56:39,600
Speaker 1: and I know that there have been people in the

979
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:42,560
Speaker 1: past who have yelled at me for getting on my

980
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:48,279
Speaker 1: soapbox about this, but it it remains true that just

981
00:56:48,360 --> 00:56:51,120
Speaker 1: because something exists doesn't mean you have a right to it.

982
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:56,759
Speaker 1: Now that being said, any company that makes something and

983
00:56:57,080 --> 00:57:01,839
Speaker 1: does not make it available to everyone, uh, they don't

984
00:57:01,880 --> 00:57:06,080
Speaker 1: deserve to be the targets of theft. But they certainly

985
00:57:06,080 --> 00:57:10,080
Speaker 1: are making themselves big targets because if they make something

986
00:57:10,080 --> 00:57:13,920
Speaker 1: people want and then they don't make it available, that's

987
00:57:14,040 --> 00:57:19,040
Speaker 1: just encouraging lots of bad behavior, so blame goes all around,

988
00:57:19,080 --> 00:57:21,480
Speaker 1: although ultimately it falls on the thief, I would argue

989
00:57:22,080 --> 00:57:24,960
Speaker 1: while Axel found the source code for Half Life too,

990
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:27,959
Speaker 1: while he was snooping around Valves network. He was able

991
00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:32,200
Speaker 1: to get access to the network because he found access

992
00:57:32,240 --> 00:57:35,000
Speaker 1: to another company that was doing business with Valve and

993
00:57:35,040 --> 00:57:38,280
Speaker 1: there was sort of a tunnel between that company's server

994
00:57:38,520 --> 00:57:43,120
Speaker 1: and Valved servers. So by infiltrating this partnered company that

995
00:57:43,240 --> 00:57:47,440
Speaker 1: had pretty poor security, he was able to then get

996
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:52,120
Speaker 1: access to Valves system, which had pretty good security on

997
00:57:52,200 --> 00:57:54,800
Speaker 1: the whole, but did not have good security with this

998
00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:59,840
Speaker 1: partnered relationship. Uh. He then started looking around. At first,

999
00:57:59,880 --> 00:58:03,440
Speaker 1: he was pulling out documentation about the game and just

1000
00:58:03,560 --> 00:58:06,480
Speaker 1: reading about it and getting really excited, and then one

1001
00:58:06,520 --> 00:58:09,160
Speaker 1: day he discovered the source code and he made the

1002
00:58:09,200 --> 00:58:12,240
Speaker 1: decision to download it. He did that on September nineteen,

1003
00:58:12,360 --> 00:58:15,200
Speaker 1: two thousand three. Now, Axel has said that he never

1004
00:58:15,280 --> 00:58:18,840
Speaker 1: uploaded that source code to the Internet, but he does

1005
00:58:18,880 --> 00:58:22,720
Speaker 1: admit that he shared that code with someone else, and

1006
00:58:22,840 --> 00:58:25,800
Speaker 1: that person, who as far as I know, was never named,

1007
00:58:26,600 --> 00:58:29,800
Speaker 1: did take the step to upload it to the internet.

1008
00:58:29,920 --> 00:58:34,920
Speaker 1: Axel had said that he was initially promised that this

1009
00:58:34,960 --> 00:58:37,840
Speaker 1: person he showed the source code to wasn't going to

1010
00:58:37,960 --> 00:58:40,880
Speaker 1: do anything with it. Axel was very proud of his

1011
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:43,320
Speaker 1: accomplishment and he wanted to kind of brag a little bit.

1012
00:58:43,800 --> 00:58:47,560
Speaker 1: But apparently he took this person at his or her

1013
00:58:47,640 --> 00:58:49,920
Speaker 1: word that they were not going to share the code,

1014
00:58:49,960 --> 00:58:54,120
Speaker 1: and then of course the code got shared, so the

1015
00:58:54,200 --> 00:58:56,640
Speaker 1: code made the rounds on the internet. People downloaded it

1016
00:58:56,720 --> 00:59:00,600
Speaker 1: like crazy. The potential impact of val of his bottom

1017
00:59:00,600 --> 00:59:04,960
Speaker 1: line was catastrophic, or it could have been catastrophic. It's

1018
00:59:04,960 --> 00:59:09,600
Speaker 1: actually impossible to say you never know how many sales

1019
00:59:09,680 --> 00:59:13,000
Speaker 1: you miss out on on these things. You can't say

1020
00:59:13,040 --> 00:59:17,040
Speaker 1: that for sure, because you until you actually make the sales.

1021
00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:18,960
Speaker 1: You don't know how many people bought the thing, and

1022
00:59:19,240 --> 00:59:21,480
Speaker 1: you'll never know how many people would have bought it

1023
00:59:21,560 --> 00:59:25,520
Speaker 1: had they not pirated it. They impact on sales. Argument

1024
00:59:25,560 --> 00:59:30,200
Speaker 1: against piracy is a shaky one because we make those

1025
00:59:30,280 --> 00:59:35,240
Speaker 1: arguments without knowing how many sales were actually prevented. At

1026
00:59:35,280 --> 00:59:39,280
Speaker 1: any rate. It was an embarrassing situation for Valve, and

1027
00:59:39,360 --> 00:59:42,320
Speaker 1: it's certainly caused them financial issues because they had to

1028
00:59:42,360 --> 00:59:45,720
Speaker 1: respond to it, and they also had to respond to

1029
00:59:45,760 --> 00:59:50,000
Speaker 1: the fact that gamers now knew that Half Life two

1030
00:59:50,160 --> 00:59:54,240
Speaker 1: was nowhere close to being finished game. Newell actually took

1031
00:59:54,240 --> 00:59:56,640
Speaker 1: to posting to a thread and half Life two. This

1032
00:59:56,760 --> 01:00:00,240
Speaker 1: was on October second, two thousand three, and there was

1033
01:00:00,520 --> 01:00:03,800
Speaker 1: a forum official forum on Valves website for half Life two,

1034
01:00:04,240 --> 01:00:07,640
Speaker 1: and Newell wrote and laid the cards on the table

1035
01:00:07,680 --> 01:00:10,840
Speaker 1: and said, hey, half Life two is not ready. It's

1036
01:00:10,880 --> 01:00:13,600
Speaker 1: not gonna be ready for another year. The source code

1037
01:00:14,000 --> 01:00:16,960
Speaker 1: that is not the game, but is the work on

1038
01:00:17,040 --> 01:00:21,520
Speaker 1: the game in progress got released, uh prematurely. It was

1039
01:00:21,600 --> 01:00:24,240
Speaker 1: leaked and released, and we would like some help tracking

1040
01:00:24,280 --> 01:00:27,920
Speaker 1: down the person who did this. Within Valved, things were

1041
01:00:27,920 --> 01:00:31,080
Speaker 1: looking pretty grim. Development for half Life two was costing

1042
01:00:31,080 --> 01:00:33,960
Speaker 1: about a million dollars per month and the game was

1043
01:00:34,040 --> 01:00:37,240
Speaker 1: clearly a year out from being finished. So even if

1044
01:00:37,320 --> 01:00:40,280
Speaker 1: you had not read Gabe Newell's post, if you looked

1045
01:00:40,320 --> 01:00:42,880
Speaker 1: at that source code, you realize, like, this isn't a game,

1046
01:00:43,520 --> 01:00:46,680
Speaker 1: this is a lot of code. In fact, initially if

1047
01:00:46,680 --> 01:00:48,640
Speaker 1: you just download the source code, it went and run

1048
01:00:48,680 --> 01:00:52,240
Speaker 1: on most machines, you would have to build a platform

1049
01:00:52,400 --> 01:00:55,000
Speaker 1: upon which it could run. So a lot of people

1050
01:00:55,160 --> 01:00:58,560
Speaker 1: it was just useless information, and there was a legitimate

1051
01:00:58,600 --> 01:01:01,400
Speaker 1: fear within Valve that the leak would cause enough damage

1052
01:01:01,440 --> 01:01:04,600
Speaker 1: to destroy the company before it could even complete Half

1053
01:01:04,640 --> 01:01:07,800
Speaker 1: Life too, and a lot of employees felt demoralized. Their

1054
01:01:07,840 --> 01:01:11,280
Speaker 1: unfinished work was stolen and was being judged unfairly because

1055
01:01:11,280 --> 01:01:15,400
Speaker 1: it wasn't finished. Uh, it was not remotely a fun

1056
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:18,600
Speaker 1: or complete game. So they were going to be judged

1057
01:01:18,640 --> 01:01:21,560
Speaker 1: on something that was just the bones of a game,

1058
01:01:21,720 --> 01:01:25,120
Speaker 1: and they were dealing with a community that was mad

1059
01:01:25,160 --> 01:01:27,840
Speaker 1: at them because the title was so far behind schedule

1060
01:01:27,920 --> 01:01:31,120
Speaker 1: and they had not yet you know, admitted to that

1061
01:01:31,800 --> 01:01:35,760
Speaker 1: when this all happened. Axel would eventually send an email

1062
01:01:35,800 --> 01:01:38,600
Speaker 1: to Valve admitting his theft and said that he felt

1063
01:01:38,600 --> 01:01:40,760
Speaker 1: badly about how it turned out that he did not

1064
01:01:40,880 --> 01:01:44,680
Speaker 1: intend for the code to go public. He also perhaps

1065
01:01:45,080 --> 01:01:49,200
Speaker 1: brazenly asked about getting a job at Valve now. Newell

1066
01:01:49,280 --> 01:01:51,800
Speaker 1: said he would be interested to talk to Axel and

1067
01:01:51,880 --> 01:01:55,040
Speaker 1: they would set up a phone interview. At the conclusion

1068
01:01:55,040 --> 01:01:58,240
Speaker 1: of that phone interview, at which Axel was, you know,

1069
01:01:58,280 --> 01:02:00,240
Speaker 1: talking with a different person at Valvue was and toy

1070
01:02:00,320 --> 01:02:04,080
Speaker 1: that Gabe Newell himself self. But Axel was told, Hey,

1071
01:02:04,120 --> 01:02:05,880
Speaker 1: you know, we're interested in flying you out to the

1072
01:02:05,960 --> 01:02:08,840
Speaker 1: United States and have a second interview here in person.

1073
01:02:10,120 --> 01:02:13,520
Speaker 1: What Axel suspected but did not know for sure, was

1074
01:02:13,560 --> 01:02:15,520
Speaker 1: that this could be a trap. In fact, it was

1075
01:02:16,320 --> 01:02:19,080
Speaker 1: allegedly a trap. It was not a real job interview.

1076
01:02:19,120 --> 01:02:20,800
Speaker 1: It was an attempt to get Axel to come over

1077
01:02:20,840 --> 01:02:22,640
Speaker 1: to the United States where he could be apprehended by

1078
01:02:22,680 --> 01:02:29,080
Speaker 1: the FBI and then held and interrogated there for the

1079
01:02:29,080 --> 01:02:34,560
Speaker 1: whole purpose of prosecuting him on US soil. Axel agreed

1080
01:02:34,600 --> 01:02:38,040
Speaker 1: to the interview, but before he could actually be flown

1081
01:02:38,080 --> 01:02:39,560
Speaker 1: over to the United States, you know, they had to

1082
01:02:39,560 --> 01:02:42,040
Speaker 1: get visas for him and his family and everything. Before

1083
01:02:42,040 --> 01:02:45,040
Speaker 1: he could do that, the German authorities acted and they

1084
01:02:45,160 --> 01:02:48,240
Speaker 1: raided his house and they arrested him, and happened on

1085
01:02:48,280 --> 01:02:52,840
Speaker 1: May seventh, two thousand four. That's when they burst into

1086
01:02:52,880 --> 01:02:55,800
Speaker 1: his house and they held him for questioning. And they

1087
01:02:55,800 --> 01:02:59,040
Speaker 1: were concerned not just with his involvement with the valve

1088
01:02:59,120 --> 01:03:02,800
Speaker 1: infiltration and the leaking of the half life source code.

1089
01:03:02,840 --> 01:03:05,960
Speaker 1: In fact, that really wasn't what they were really worried about.

1090
01:03:06,040 --> 01:03:09,600
Speaker 1: They thought that he might have had some involvement with

1091
01:03:09,920 --> 01:03:13,000
Speaker 1: a different piece of malware called the sassor worm. I'll

1092
01:03:13,040 --> 01:03:15,080
Speaker 1: have to do a full episode about the Sassor worm.

1093
01:03:15,120 --> 01:03:17,800
Speaker 1: It was a big deal at the time. Axel actually

1094
01:03:17,800 --> 01:03:20,520
Speaker 1: was a bit insulted by this accusation because he felt

1095
01:03:20,520 --> 01:03:24,640
Speaker 1: the Sassor worm was shoddy coding. He actually said, well,

1096
01:03:24,640 --> 01:03:27,760
Speaker 1: the the malware of the Sassor worm. Sure, it's based

1097
01:03:27,800 --> 01:03:32,040
Speaker 1: off the same basic vulnerability that my stuff was based

1098
01:03:32,040 --> 01:03:34,920
Speaker 1: off of. But the sasser worm would cause your system

1099
01:03:34,960 --> 01:03:37,040
Speaker 1: to crash where his mind would keep it stable. So

1100
01:03:37,200 --> 01:03:39,960
Speaker 1: I would never code something that crappy. It's kind of

1101
01:03:39,960 --> 01:03:42,960
Speaker 1: funny really, but authorities were really concerned about it. It

1102
01:03:43,000 --> 01:03:47,640
Speaker 1: was freaking havoc in Europe. So Axel admitted uh to

1103
01:03:48,080 --> 01:03:51,120
Speaker 1: infiltrating Valve. He explained the whole thing, how he was

1104
01:03:51,200 --> 01:03:55,000
Speaker 1: able to do it, what he had stolen. He continued

1105
01:03:55,040 --> 01:03:57,960
Speaker 1: to to say that he was not the person to

1106
01:03:58,000 --> 01:04:00,960
Speaker 1: share the information on the internet, but he did, you know,

1107
01:04:01,000 --> 01:04:03,840
Speaker 1: he was ultimately responsible for the code getting out there

1108
01:04:03,920 --> 01:04:06,080
Speaker 1: because he was the one who gave that code to

1109
01:04:06,120 --> 01:04:09,280
Speaker 1: the person who did share it. And um, he said

1110
01:04:09,280 --> 01:04:11,160
Speaker 1: the whole thing was motivated by his desire to play

1111
01:04:11,200 --> 01:04:14,080
Speaker 1: the games, that he wasn't trying to do industrial sabotage

1112
01:04:14,160 --> 01:04:17,840
Speaker 1: or anything like that. The German authorities told him that

1113
01:04:17,920 --> 01:04:20,640
Speaker 1: he was actually lucky to have been apprehended in Germany

1114
01:04:20,760 --> 01:04:23,560
Speaker 1: rather than finding himself overseas and in the custody of

1115
01:04:23,600 --> 01:04:27,080
Speaker 1: the FBI. Axel eventually would stand trial for his crimes

1116
01:04:27,120 --> 01:04:30,880
Speaker 1: against Valve and was sentenced to two years probation, and

1117
01:04:30,960 --> 01:04:34,120
Speaker 1: since then he's expressed deep regret over his action, saying

1118
01:04:34,120 --> 01:04:36,560
Speaker 1: he wished he could go back in time and not

1119
01:04:36,840 --> 01:04:40,760
Speaker 1: do those things because he genuinely loved the games, and

1120
01:04:40,800 --> 01:04:43,080
Speaker 1: while he was motivated with a desire to play the games,

1121
01:04:43,080 --> 01:04:47,600
Speaker 1: he realizes that that was a kind of childish and

1122
01:04:47,840 --> 01:04:51,960
Speaker 1: selfish motivation and ultimately it caused a lot of problems

1123
01:04:51,960 --> 01:04:54,920
Speaker 1: for Valve, the very company that he loved, and he

1124
01:04:55,000 --> 01:04:59,000
Speaker 1: loves the games from Valve. So he certainly feels a

1125
01:04:59,040 --> 01:05:01,520
Speaker 1: lot of regret for his role in that whole thing,

1126
01:05:02,120 --> 01:05:03,880
Speaker 1: and he says that, you know, he you know, he

1127
01:05:03,920 --> 01:05:09,080
Speaker 1: has apologized numerous times and interviews for those actions, and

1128
01:05:09,120 --> 01:05:12,000
Speaker 1: I think that's an important little thing to look at

1129
01:05:12,080 --> 01:05:16,640
Speaker 1: as well outside of Valve, just this whole motivation for

1130
01:05:16,760 --> 01:05:19,400
Speaker 1: you know, why hackers do what they do. Not everyone

1131
01:05:19,520 --> 01:05:21,560
Speaker 1: is doing it in a way to actually make a

1132
01:05:21,600 --> 01:05:25,400
Speaker 1: profit or to hurt anyone and yet their actions can

1133
01:05:25,440 --> 01:05:28,960
Speaker 1: cause a great deal of harm, so you can't dismiss it.

1134
01:05:29,560 --> 01:05:33,040
Speaker 1: But you also can't just assume the darkest of motivators

1135
01:05:33,080 --> 01:05:36,000
Speaker 1: on behalf of those hackers. As I mentioned earlier in

1136
01:05:36,040 --> 01:05:38,640
Speaker 1: this episode, two thousand three was also when Steam launched,

1137
01:05:38,640 --> 01:05:41,280
Speaker 1: although it was much more modest than what it is today.

1138
01:05:41,320 --> 01:05:44,280
Speaker 1: And Valve also acquired another popular Half Life mod in

1139
01:05:44,320 --> 01:05:47,040
Speaker 1: two thousand three, and that mod was called Day of

1140
01:05:47,200 --> 01:05:50,560
Speaker 1: Defeat and it featured the Western Front of World War

1141
01:05:50,600 --> 01:05:54,080
Speaker 1: Two as it's game setting. This was a multiplayer only

1142
01:05:54,160 --> 01:05:57,040
Speaker 1: game in which players chose characters of various classes to

1143
01:05:57,120 --> 01:06:01,680
Speaker 1: complete objectives either on the Allied side are the access side,

1144
01:06:02,320 --> 01:06:04,520
Speaker 1: and they would compete against other teams obviously on the

1145
01:06:04,560 --> 01:06:07,760
Speaker 1: other side of the game, which leads us up to

1146
01:06:07,800 --> 01:06:10,200
Speaker 1: two thousand four. Now, that would end up being a

1147
01:06:10,280 --> 01:06:13,240
Speaker 1: huge year for Valve, and I think I'm gonna have

1148
01:06:13,320 --> 01:06:16,120
Speaker 1: to wrap up right here and include two thousand four

1149
01:06:16,120 --> 01:06:19,120
Speaker 1: in our next episode, and we'll build from there. But

1150
01:06:19,560 --> 01:06:23,040
Speaker 1: as a preview for what happens in two thousand four,

1151
01:06:23,320 --> 01:06:25,520
Speaker 1: the stuff I'm going to cover more thoroughly in our

1152
01:06:25,560 --> 01:06:29,680
Speaker 1: next episode. Two thousand four would see Valve release a

1153
01:06:29,680 --> 01:06:32,959
Speaker 1: new game engine called Source. So they had been using

1154
01:06:32,960 --> 01:06:35,520
Speaker 1: a game engine called gold Source, which was based off

1155
01:06:35,600 --> 01:06:38,280
Speaker 1: the Quake game engine, and as I mentioned in the

1156
01:06:38,320 --> 01:06:41,440
Speaker 1: previous episode, they changed about seventy of the code in

1157
01:06:41,560 --> 01:06:45,680
Speaker 1: Quake Engine to become gold Source. Source would be a

1158
01:06:45,720 --> 01:06:49,440
Speaker 1: further branch off of that and become the next generation

1159
01:06:49,480 --> 01:06:53,280
Speaker 1: of game engines upon which most of Valves games would

1160
01:06:53,320 --> 01:06:56,160
Speaker 1: be based from that point forward. It's also the year

1161
01:06:56,200 --> 01:06:59,480
Speaker 1: that Half Life two would come out. So in our

1162
01:06:59,480 --> 01:07:02,160
Speaker 1: next episod and we'll talk about the Source engine, we'll

1163
01:07:02,160 --> 01:07:04,360
Speaker 1: talk about Half Life two, we'll talk about the evolution

1164
01:07:04,360 --> 01:07:07,760
Speaker 1: of Steam and where Valve is today. So we'll compress

1165
01:07:07,800 --> 01:07:10,920
Speaker 1: a lot of things our next episode. I know that

1166
01:07:11,040 --> 01:07:14,320
Speaker 1: in Part one and Part two I was getting really

1167
01:07:14,360 --> 01:07:17,920
Speaker 1: granular year by year with what was going on with Valve,

1168
01:07:17,960 --> 01:07:20,040
Speaker 1: but again, this was so that we could understand the

1169
01:07:20,120 --> 01:07:24,880
Speaker 1: corporate culture of Valve and its effects on how things

1170
01:07:24,960 --> 01:07:27,880
Speaker 1: came out, as well as get a deeper understanding of

1171
01:07:27,920 --> 01:07:33,760
Speaker 1: why gamers are so emotionally invested in this company. In

1172
01:07:33,880 --> 01:07:36,560
Speaker 1: large part is because the company had already shown a

1173
01:07:36,680 --> 01:07:42,479
Speaker 1: great deal of respect and value toward its customers. So

1174
01:07:42,560 --> 01:07:47,000
Speaker 1: in our next episode will kind of compress the last

1175
01:07:47,120 --> 01:07:50,680
Speaker 1: decade a little bit more than that of Valves existence,

1176
01:07:50,800 --> 01:07:53,960
Speaker 1: and talk about where it's gone from there, including what

1177
01:07:54,160 --> 01:07:57,520
Speaker 1: the heck happened to Half Life three, a question that

1178
01:07:57,640 --> 01:08:01,280
Speaker 1: refuses to die well. Also talk about some other games

1179
01:08:01,280 --> 01:08:05,040
Speaker 1: like Left for Dead and the Portals series and how

1180
01:08:05,080 --> 01:08:08,600
Speaker 1: those got started and how they got wrapped up in Valve.

1181
01:08:09,240 --> 01:08:11,840
Speaker 1: But for now, it's time to close this episode down.

1182
01:08:11,880 --> 01:08:14,880
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this episode. Remember if you have

1183
01:08:14,920 --> 01:08:18,680
Speaker 1: any questions or suggestions for future episodes, whether it's a

1184
01:08:18,720 --> 01:08:20,719
Speaker 1: topic you want me to cover, maybe it's a company,

1185
01:08:20,800 --> 01:08:24,639
Speaker 1: maybe it's a specific technology, maybe it's a person who's

1186
01:08:24,680 --> 01:08:27,680
Speaker 1: influential in technology, you should send me a message. Or

1187
01:08:27,720 --> 01:08:30,400
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions for people I should interview

1188
01:08:30,680 --> 01:08:33,320
Speaker 1: or guest hosts who should join me on an episode

1189
01:08:33,320 --> 01:08:35,400
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff. You can get in touch with me

1190
01:08:35,479 --> 01:08:38,320
Speaker 1: by sending me an email. The address is tech Stuff

1191
01:08:38,560 --> 01:08:41,880
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com, or drop me a

1192
01:08:41,920 --> 01:08:44,479
Speaker 1: line on Twitter or Facebook. The handle for both of

1193
01:08:44,479 --> 01:08:49,200
Speaker 1: those is tech Stuff hs W. Remember I stream these

1194
01:08:49,240 --> 01:08:53,360
Speaker 1: episodes live on twitch dot tv slash tech Stuff every

1195
01:08:53,400 --> 01:08:57,240
Speaker 1: Wednesday and Friday. Please join me on those days and

1196
01:08:57,280 --> 01:08:59,120
Speaker 1: you can be part of the chat room and talk

1197
01:08:59,200 --> 01:09:02,479
Speaker 1: with me. I'm always happy to have conversations with the

1198
01:09:02,520 --> 01:09:05,080
Speaker 1: chat room, let you know what's going on. You also

1199
01:09:05,120 --> 01:09:08,280
Speaker 1: get to see when I goof up, which happens, you know,

1200
01:09:08,439 --> 01:09:11,599
Speaker 1: a few times per episode, so you never know. Also,

1201
01:09:11,680 --> 01:09:15,639
Speaker 1: occasionally I'll just serenade you. That could also be a warning.

1202
01:09:16,400 --> 01:09:18,760
Speaker 1: Remember go to twitch dot tv slash tech stuff. You'll

1203
01:09:18,760 --> 01:09:21,240
Speaker 1: see the schedule there and I will talk to you again.

1204
01:09:22,000 --> 01:09:30,360
Speaker 1: Really sick for more on this and thousands of other

1205
01:09:30,439 --> 01:09:42,439
Speaker 1: topics because it has stop works dot com