WEBVTT - The Story of Valve Part One 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.480 Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from stuff 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:14.000 works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to Tech Stuff. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:18.560 I am your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm a podcaster with 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:24.599 how stuff Works. Wow. Things be changing, y'all. Yes, I 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.240 am the podcaster host of Text Stuff, the show that's 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:31.920 been on the air waves of the internet for about 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.880 eight years now, nine years something like that. Nine years. 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.560 And we cover all things technology, you know, the stuff 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:42.600 that I love to chat about. Stuff what beeps, as 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:46.839 my former co host Chris Palette used to say. Today, 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:50.680 I'm gonna cover a topic that I have received numerous 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:53.880 requests to cover in the past. Multiple people have asked 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:56.640 me throughout the last few years to cover this topic, 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:00.319 and that is the company Valve. So to day, I'm 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:03.760 going to start down that pathway. But spoiler alert, that 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.560 story is pretty complex and pretty long, so it's going 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:10.400 to be more than a single part. I will do 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:13.440 at least two parts on this topic. I do not 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.360 know exactly how long it's going to go, because I've 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:21.120 only done enough research for one part. In full, I 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:25.160 suspect I will have enough to do three episodes about 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:29.000 Valve entirely to cover the full aspect of it. Unless 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:32.400 I really truncate things in part two. But since it's 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:35.000 too early for me to say, I'm not sure, I 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:38.320 will tell you another spoiler alert. This story could also 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.720 be called the Half Life story because the beginning of 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:46.160 Valve is very much concentrated on the development of their 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.600 first game, that is Half Life. And if you had 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:51.680 not guessed up to this point and you have not 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:55.960 heard of them before, Valve is a game developer company, 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:58.480 or at least that's how they started out. Today they're 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.639 known more for something else. But I'm getting ahead of myself. 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.920 They play a really important role in PC gaming, first 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:09.080 as the publisher of games and then of course as 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.600 the operator of the most successful online store for PC games. 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:16.839 But how did it all get started in the first place. Well, 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:20.119 you know me, I'm not gonna begin this episode with 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:24.600 the start date for the company itself. That's way too simplistic. 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:27.920 We need to look at the people who founded Valve, 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.480 where they came from, and how they got to where 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:35.320 they are. And those two people, the co founders of 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:40.680 Valve are Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. Now, Gabe Newell 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:44.959 was born on November third, nineteen sixty two, in Washington, State. 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:49.680 After he graduated high school, he enrolled in Havid University. 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:53.960 He attended classes at Harvard from nineteen eighty until nineteen 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:56.959 eighty three, at which point he chose to drop out 0:02:57.000 --> 0:02:59.720 of school and work for a little company called micro 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:04.520 offt The dropping out of school motif becomes a popular 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:08.359 one in this episode. That doesn't mean that, kids, you 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:11.000 should drop out of school if you want to become millionaires, 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.200 because trust me, it doesn't work out that way for everyone. 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:18.679 But in this case it worked out pretty well well. 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:21.760 He didn't just make the decision spontaneously to drop out 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.600 of Harvard. What actually happened was he was visiting his brother, 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:28.200 who worked for Microsoft out in Washington, and according to 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:31.760 Newell himself, he was getting in trouble with Steve Developers 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:36.920 Developers Developers Bomber for distracting his brother at work. See 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:40.520 it turned out his brother was so busy developing at 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.440 Microsoft that he couldn't take time off to go and 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:47.480 see the sites in Seattle with his brother Gabe. So 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:50.880 instead Gabe went to hang out with his brother over 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:54.840 at Microsoft. But because you know, he wanted to spend 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:57.320 time with his brother, he was taking some attention away 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:00.600 from his brother's tasks. Bomber said, Hey, I don't mind 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:02.200 if you hang out, but if you're gonna hang out, 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.640 you're gonna do some work. So Balmber actually put Gabe 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:10.520 Newell to work at Microsoft. Newell would later on say 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:14.320 that he learned more about computers and software development in 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:18.560 those three months working with Microsoft than he ever did 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:22.200 in his undergraduate studies over at Harvard, and so he 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:26.760 made the decision to quit school and started Microsoft full time. 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.799 He began to work mainly on the Windows operating system. 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:34.719 You might be familiar with it, or as Newell described it, 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:38.480 he was the producer of the first three releases of Windows. 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:41.400 He joined the ranks of what was known as the 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:46.520 Microsoft millionaires. These were employees during the relatively early days 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:50.560 of Microsoft who ended up making more than a million 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:54.800 dollars through their stock options with the company. So, Microsoft, 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:58.520 like a lot of software companies out there, would reward 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:02.719 their employees with stock options. As it turns out, Microsoft 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:07.080 was remarkably successful, as we all know, and so the 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:10.800 people who had been rewarded with those stock options made 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:14.159 out like bandits, except for the fact that they actually 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:18.120 earned the money that they earned. Right they created the 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:22.880 value in that company, and so the company grew exponentially, 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.599 and as a result, so did the value of those 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:29.960 stock options, So people like Gabe Newell became millionaires, at 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:34.880 least on paper. Well. Mike Harrington, the other co founder 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:37.960 of Valve, attended the University of Oregon before he too 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.680 dropped out of school. Now, he went originally to go 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.520 work for a company called Dynamics, that's d Y in 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.640 a m i X. This was a software company that 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:54.680 created titles for PC games publisher Activision. So in the 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:57.880 world of PC games, you typically have a couple of 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.040 different entities. Sometimes they can be one and the same, 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:04.560 but typically you will have game developers who actually make 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.839 the games you play, and game publishers that take the 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:12.200 games that other people have made and then published them 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:15.080 or get them out to consumers put them out on 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:18.360 the market. So in this case, Dynamics was a game 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:22.080 developer and Mike Harrington was working for Dynamics. They would 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:24.479 create games for Activision, which would then go on to 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:29.720 publish them. Now this would be a seven when he 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:33.640 was working for Dynamics and he leaves that company to 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:37.560 go and work for Microsoft. So he joins Microsoft in 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.800 seven whereas Newell had joined a couple of years earlier. 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.800 At Microsoft, Harrington worked as a software developer and later 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:47.800 a manager on a few big projects, including Windows in 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:56.040 T and the infamous software bomb known as Microsoft Bob. 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:00.360 His wife, Monica Harrington, was the communications man up from 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:04.600 Microsoft Bob. Although they were not married when Harrington first 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.240 went to go work for Microsoft, they met at Microsoft. 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.200 According to Monica Harrington, she was the one who was 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:13.840 really interested in getting married. They started dating for a while. 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:18.040 She wanted to marry him, he was not certain yet 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:20.720 if that's what he wanted, and then they broke up. 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.200 Then they decided to just kind of go on a 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:26.600 date together. They weren't even really going out. They just 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:28.960 spent the day together, and at the end of that day, 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:32.080 Harrington decided that in fact, he did want to marry Monica, 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.320 and he proposed and she accepted. And I think that's 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:38.440 a very sweet story. However, that sweet story is somewhat 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:43.920 balanced out by the terrible disaster that was Microsoft Bob. 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:48.600 Microsoft Bob is an incredible story, so incredible that I 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.920 actually did a full episode of tech Stuff about that 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:57.200 disastrous software release if you want to learn more about it. 0:07:57.520 --> 0:07:59.680 And I encourage you to do so, because it is 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:02.720 an amazing story. You can listen to the Tech Stuff 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:07.600 episode titled what About Microsoft Bob, which published on May eighth, 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.760 two thousand thirteen. It's really the software package of the 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:16.400 millennium in my estimation, and Lauren Vogelbaum was my co 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:18.640 host on that episode, So if you guys, miss Lauren, 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:20.640 you should go back and listen to that episode and 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:25.760 learn all about that attempt to create an operating system 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:29.720 for the average person that ended up being a complete 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:33.760 and total failure in all sense of the word. Anyway, 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.319 Harrington also became a Microsoft millionaire because he was also 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:41.920 awarded stock options. And you had Newell and Harrington to 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:46.760 Microsoft employees who were at least on paper millionaires. But 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.080 what were they gonna do with all this filthy lucre. 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:54.520 The answer to that question followed a former Microsoft employees path, 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:57.080 and this is where we have to talk about another 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.959 guy named Michael A. Brash. Now A Brash attended the 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:04.559 University of Pennsylvania and had been programming since the early 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:08.440 nineteen eighties, and like Newell and Harrington, his work focused 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:11.400 on lots of different types of software. Now he cut 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.160 his teeth on building computer games, one of them being 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:18.600 Space Strike, which was essentially a clone of Space Invaders. 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:23.880 By the early nineteen nineties, he had joined Microsoft, and 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.120 he credits the science fiction novel snow Crash, which was 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:30.600 written by Neil Stevenson, with inspiring him to work on 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:35.400 a networked three D engine. In the world of snow Crash, 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:40.320 there is a virtual reality kind of Internet construct that 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:45.160 characters can enter into, and they have avatars within this 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.840 virtual world that they inhabit, and they can do all 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:52.000 sorts of stuff in the virtual world as a result 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:56.040 of that, and our main character, hero protagonist, which is 0:09:56.080 --> 0:10:00.240 a great name, is one of the early developers in 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:04.640 this metaverse that is created in the world of snow Crash. Now, 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:08.680 we have a Brash who wants to create a three 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:12.760 D networked engine, and he's at Microsoft, and he tries 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.720 to convince people in Microsoft that this is a project 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:19.160 worth pursuing, but he doesn't get anywhere. No one really 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:22.079 shows any interest in supporting such a project. It doesn't 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:27.199 really align with Microsoft's plans at that point. So a 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.520 Brash ended up having a meeting with John Carmack of 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:35.840 IT software fame. This was a and Carmack and A 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:41.440 Brash started talking about networked persistent Internet game servers, and 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:45.160 Carmack had already tried to lure A Brash away from 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:47.840 Microsoft a couple of times in the past, but A 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:52.720 Bresh had always resisted this because Microsoft was a stable 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:57.400 and lucrative gig. Those stock options were no joke. A 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:02.400 Bresh would be leaving a guaranteed job with security to 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.040 go work for ID software, and he had never really 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:08.720 been tempted to seriously consider it before. But with this 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.520 conversation about these persistent game engines and the fact that 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:14.880 that seemed to be a step toward what A Bresh 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:18.400 envisioned as the future of the Internet, this future that 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:22.360 was envisioned in Neil stevenson snow Crash, A Brash felt 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:27.320 the sirens call and decided to go join in Software 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:31.080 finally after all those other failed attempts to lure him away. 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:34.880 So he was eager to try and create this metaverse 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:36.840 like the one in Stevenson's book, and he felt that 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:40.839 CarMax approach might be the right way to try this. 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:44.360 His departure from Microsoft to work for a game studio 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:46.880 we kind of serve as a sort of inspiration for 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:50.840 Newell and Harrington, they would not consider leaving for another 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:54.440 couple of years, So a brash leaves in n in 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.319 ninety six. That's when Harrington and Newell started to consider 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.640 doing something similar. Uh. Now, Abresh would later on become 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:07.960 an important liaison and even later still an employee over 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:11.240 at Valve Software. But that's getting ahead of the story 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:14.760 a bit. Let's talk about Harrington and Newell's decision to 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:19.400 strike out on their own and leave Microsoft behind. Harrington 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.040 was actually the one to make the first move, as 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:25.800 he would say later on in interviews, I like developing software, 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:30.199 good working environments, and games. I put all together and 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.800 decided that I couldn't just leave Microsoft and do nothing. 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.960 But he also knew he couldn't just do this by himself, 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:41.240 so he started to search around and see if there 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.400 was any interest among his co workers in striking out 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:48.120 and trying to create a new company. But he wasn't 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:51.440 meeting with a whole lot of enthusiasm. Most people were 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.720 interested in just pursuing research projects, whether it was at 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:58.920 Microsoft or striking out independently. But they didn't they didn't 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:02.280 really want to develop software. They were wanting to to 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.280 kind of push the envelope in finding out what you 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.160 can do with code, which is kind of cool, but 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:11.640 it wasn't really what Harrington was interested in. There was 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:17.120 one notable exception, Gabe Newell. Newell seemed interested in this 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:20.600 concept of going out and creating a game company. Harrington 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.880 and Newell decided that they would fund the company themselves. 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:28.079 They would cash in their stock options and fund this 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.720 whole formation of their new company out of pocket, and 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:35.559 they called the company Valve. Here's a fun bet of trivia. 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:38.240 They had other names that they were considering before they 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:43.400 settled on Valve. The next in line, the second most 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:49.720 popular of the contenders was hollow Box, so Valve could 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:55.120 have been called hollow Box had they gone a different way. Now. 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:58.320 The two had agreed already that they wanted their company 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:03.400 name to be something cool, but not be reflective of 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:10.800 some sort of macho, testosterone driven bro version of gaming. 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:13.960 They didn't want it to be you know, kicking the 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:18.319 pants games or anything like that, or or you know, uh, 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:23.240 biden nerd games. They didn't want something that had that 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:27.200 sense to it. They wanted something a little less aggressive, 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:30.400 I guess is the right word. They ended up signing 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:34.920 the limited liability company agreement for Valve on August twenty four. 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.000 That was a really big day for game Newell because 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:43.640 it wasn't just the day that Valve Software was officially born, 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:47.000 it was also his wedding day. He got married on 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:48.960 that day, so he took some time out from his 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:53.120 wedding day to sign the official papers to form this company. 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:55.440 It was also a big day for Harrington as well. 0:14:56.320 --> 0:15:00.360 His wife, Monica was a little leery about this Elves 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:03.280 Software venture. When she first heard that Harrington wanted to 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:05.400 do this. She thought it was going to end up 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.800 being some sort of modest little side project, that it 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:11.360 was going to end up being a company run out 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:15.280 of their garage, which wouldn't be unusual in Silicon Valley. 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:18.160 If you've been listening to tech stuff, you know that 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:22.480 in Silicon Valley, which granted isn't in Washington, it's in California, 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.160 that it was a place where numerous companies got their 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:30.000 start in garages. You had like Apple getting started in 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:33.560 a garage, and HP and lots of other ones. Microsoft 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.720 too got started in a garage, although that was in Washington, 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:40.760 not in California. But it turns out this was not 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:45.320 what Newell and Harrington had in mind. Instead, they signed 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:49.640 a five year lease on an office space in Kirkland, Washington. 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:54.280 So this was real business here, and Monica Harrington was 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.360 a little bit nervous about it. She wasn't sure that 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.560 this was going to pan out to be a good 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:07.760 economic decision. Fortunately, her her worries were ultimately unfounded, although 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.960 it wasn't exactly smooth sailing from the start. Now, the 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:14.800 question then was what sort of game should they develop? 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:19.000 And it might seem unusual that a couple of people 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:23.240 would leave a very lucrative job to go form a 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.440 company and not already have a firm idea of where 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:28.960 they wanted to go, but that's kind of what was 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:33.440 happening with Valve in those early days. Now, they were 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:38.200 both interested in the burgeoning world of three D games, 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:41.600 specifically first person shooters. Keep in mind, in the mid 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:45.680 ninety nineties these were just starting to take off games 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:49.840 like Wolfenstein three D and Doom. They were really creating 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:54.120 a whole new genre of games for the PC. So 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:57.400 they wanted to create a first person shooter in that 0:16:57.520 --> 0:16:59.960 Vein they wanted to have sort of a science fiction 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:05.160 in horror motif, but rather than start completely from scratch, 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:07.520 where they'd have to build everything from the ground up, 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:11.440 they decided that they would take elements that already existed 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:15.720 and then improve upon them, because that would be easier 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:19.160 than just building a game engine from the ground up. 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:24.960 That's enormously complicated, and they honestly didn't have any experience 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:28.200 in developing game engines on that level at this point, 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:33.760 So they decided that they would take the work out 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:37.320 of creating those underlying physics of the game off of 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:40.000 their plates. And they were able to get in touch 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:44.520 with A Brash. Remember he had been working for Microsoft 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:46.399 and then in ninety four he went to work for 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:49.880 ID Software. Well, they touched Base with a Brash. They said, hey, 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:52.679 we've decided we're going to create this game company. We 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:55.399 know you went to work for ID Software. We wondered 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:57.480 if maybe there was some way we could work with 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.520 you guys to get the source code for your Quake 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:04.800 engine and use that as the basis for our game 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.560 engine for the game we want to create. And A. 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.879 Bresh was able to secure for them a meeting for 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:13.840 them to come over to ID Software and meet with 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:18.840 the various executives over there and kind of pitch their idea. Now, 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:21.840 in an interview, A Bresh would elaborate on this and 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.920 he said, quote, I don't recall that when they came 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:29.000 down to it, there was a lot of great chemistry. 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:31.920 Let's put it this way. It wasn't like when nine 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:34.840 inch Nails came to visit that was a cool thing. 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.240 These were guys that worked on stuff like Microsoft, Bob 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:42.280 and home automation. You're not going to walk into the 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:44.560 coolest game company on the face of the earth and 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.160 have the guys say, Wow, nice to hang out with you. 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:54.199 End quote. Yikes. Nevertheless, they were able to secure this meeting, 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:56.840 and through that they were able to get a licensing 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:00.119 agreement for the Quake source code. And then they got 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:04.320 to work, and that work involved modifying that Quake engine. 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:06.879 So while they didn't have to build a physics engine 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:11.000 from the ground up, they did seriously rework the Quake 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:14.439 engine itself. Now. To do that, they looked for people 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:18.480 in the Quake community, which was filled with enterprising coders 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:22.560 who were bending quakes code to their will. So these 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:25.240 weren't people who worked for ID Software. These were people 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.440 who were using the Quake source code themselves. Are using 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:33.520 the Quake Engine to create their own modified games and levels. 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:38.679 So two of those developers who were in this world 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:42.800 were John Guthrie and Steve Bond. The two of them 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:45.600 were living out of Florida and they had launched a 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:50.640 fan site called Quake Command, and they both received invitations 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.359 from Gabe Newell to come to Washington and visit the 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:56.520 Valve office. And they were both very skeptical of this offer. 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:59.280 At first. They didn't think that this was really a 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:01.679 serious at ump to get them to come look at 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:05.840 a game development development company. They neither of them anticipated 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:10.560 that ever becoming a reality, but Steve Bond eventually agreed 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.360 to this and gave Newell flew him out to Seattle, Washington, 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:16.879 and gave him a car rental and a hotel and 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:19.879 had him stay for several days, and by the end 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:22.600 of it, Bond was convinced that Valve was the place 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:25.359 he wanted to work, and so he joined the company. 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:29.240 A couple of like a week later, Guthrie would also 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.560 join the company. He would drop out of college in 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:36.200 order to do so, so the tradition would continue another 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:41.040 college dropout to join Valve Software. Newell and Harrington. Meanwhile, 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:44.120 we're making other hires. They were luring people away from 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:47.960 companies like three D Realms and Microsoft, and once they 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:52.440 had their base team together, they began to work on 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:56.800 modifying the Quake engine. According to some estimates, they ended 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:00.800 up changing about seventy of that source code to create 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:05.879 Half Life, and that game at the time didn't have 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:08.240 that name. It wasn't called Half Life. It had a 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:13.800 code name called Quiver. Part of that massive modification was 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:18.400 the addition of skeletal animation valve, depended upon a developer 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:22.800 named Ken Birdwell. Birdwell's background was a bit unusual for 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:25.400 the video game industry. He had actually made a name 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:29.520 for himself developing software that would scan a person's foot 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:33.400 so that a custom shoe in Soul company could design 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:37.080 an insul for that person. So he was looking at 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:40.680 technology to actually look at the contours of a person's 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:44.040 foot in order to design insuls that would support that 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:48.000 person inside a shoe. It's kind of cool, but he 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:51.119 was the developer who actually created the skeletal animation system 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:56.480 that drastically simplified the animation process. So instead of having 0:21:56.520 --> 0:21:59.840 to control all the elements of a body so that 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:03.040 at you could animate things on a very granular level, 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:07.040 the body ends up being essentially a skin laid over 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.720 top a digital skeleton which has various joints and points 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:15.639 of articulation. The skeletal animation system would end up indicating 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:20.320 how those skeletons could move, and that was developed by Birdwell. 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:24.359 Birdwell was even able to solve the problem of talking 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:29.080 characters by creating virtual bones around the mouths and then 0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:33.399 animating those virtual bones, which sounds both fascinating and super 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:38.000 duper creepy. By the time all of these modifications were done, 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:40.600 the team was really working on a new game engine. 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:43.840 It really wasn't Quake anymore, so they gave it a 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:47.320 new name. It was called gold Source or g O 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:51.840 L D s r C. Now, an early challenge for 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:54.919 the team ended up not being technical in nature. It 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:58.400 was all on the business side. See Valve was set 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:00.840 up as a game developer coup, but they were not 0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:04.560 a game publishing company. Remember I talked earlier about their 0:23:04.600 --> 0:23:08.280 being developers and publishers, so they needed to find someone 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:11.480 out there who could publish their game. They just couldn't 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:14.360 handle that side of the business on their own, especially 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:19.439 not as a startup, So Newell and Harrington started looking around, 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:23.360 but they encountered resistance from a lot of established game publishers. 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:28.320 They found this really frustrating. Newell mentioned that it was 0:23:28.560 --> 0:23:32.520 particularly difficult for him. He's had achieved really great success 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:36.080 and respect within the world of Microsoft, and yet he 0:23:36.119 --> 0:23:38.879 was getting trouble even landing a meeting with some of 0:23:38.920 --> 0:23:42.000 these game publishers. He said it was really kind of 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:45.080 insulting in a way, although if you think about it, 0:23:45.119 --> 0:23:49.120 he was moving from developing operating system software to developing 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:53.399 game software. So from a publisher's standpoint, they were saying, well, 0:23:53.440 --> 0:23:56.040 this is apples and oranges. You you haven't proved that 0:23:56.119 --> 0:23:58.520 you know what you're doing in this world, so I 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:00.720 don't really think that it's a good use of our time. 0:24:02.040 --> 0:24:05.199 But then they got lucky. Newell would end up writing 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:09.000 to Ken Williams, who was one of the real pioneers 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:13.480 of PC games and the founder of Sierra Online. Williams 0:24:13.520 --> 0:24:16.240 had been looking for a game in that three D 0:24:16.440 --> 0:24:20.240 first person shooter genre, something similar to Quake. He had 0:24:20.280 --> 0:24:24.000 resisted getting into that field when it first started launching. 0:24:24.040 --> 0:24:26.920 He wasn't sure that it was going to be very popular, 0:24:27.440 --> 0:24:29.720 and then he really regretted the fact that he didn't 0:24:29.800 --> 0:24:32.800 jump on it earlier. So when he got this email, 0:24:33.200 --> 0:24:36.000 he got excited because he had already been thinking about 0:24:36.040 --> 0:24:39.000 possibly getting into that realm and here was a company 0:24:39.040 --> 0:24:42.040 saying we're creating a game in that realm, but we 0:24:42.080 --> 0:24:45.480 need a publisher. Could we maybe work with you? And 0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:49.440 so Williams said, it was the right email at the 0:24:49.560 --> 0:24:52.879 right time. Now, I have a lot more to say 0:24:52.920 --> 0:24:56.520 about the early days of Valve Software in the development 0:24:56.520 --> 0:24:58.520 of Half Life, but before I get into that, let's 0:24:58.560 --> 0:25:08.520 take a quick break and thank our sponsor. So game 0:25:08.600 --> 0:25:11.399