Valve is one of today’s premier game developers, and is the company responsible for Steam, the PC digital delivery and games matchmaking service that stands as one of the last bastions for gaming on that platform.
Valve is responsible for some of the best games ever made; Half-Life and its sequel, Portal, Team Fortress and more. Thing is, they’d be nothing without id, the company that brought you Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, and then lots more Doom and Quake.
In the latest episode of Steamcast, rotund Valve boss Gabe Newell has lavished praise upon John Carmack and id software for the role they played in getting Valve its start. As you likely know, Valve’s great entry to gaming was through Half Life, developed using the Quake engine in 1996. He managed to secure a licence for the engine through a friend of his, Michael Abrash at id – but the support they got from the company extends deeper.
“One thing that everyone should remember is that Valve got its start through the support and community mindedness of id [Software],” he said. “So if it hadn’t been for John Carmack, Jay Wilber, Michael Abrash supporting us and encouraging us in what we did, Valve wouldn’t have gotten its start,” adding that it’s the level of trust and support they got that gave them inspiration.
“Our expectation is, and certainly our hope is, when we work to provide people with the same level of enthusiastic support that we received, that we’ll benefit years down the road by getting to play your games or to be entertained by your websites or content,” he said.”We really are all in this together, and the more effective we are as a community in gathering and supporting talented and smart people to build the kinds of entertainment we love the better of we’re all going to be. So we really mean that, and view our activities in this area as being of long-term benefit to all of us.” “Those are the things that made it easy to jump off a cliff and start a video game company when people who you respect very highly, who have in fact been very successful in this space, encourage you to give it a go; that makes it pretty easy.”
What, no mention of John Romero? Has anybody actually seen John Romero lately? I’m starting to worry that perhaps Gabe’s eaten him.
Source : CVG
Last Updated: March 16, 2011
