“And he sang every day, people started closing their doors.”
That is how Minh “Gooseman” Le, creator of the original Counter-Strike, remembers one of Gabe Newell’s longer-running enthusiasms. In an interview with the YouTube channel Indie Game Joe, Le said the Valve boss watched a documentary about Mongolian throat singers, got hooked, and started practising. For five months he did it around the office. “Many people were annoyed by it because it was quite loud,” Le said.
The question nobody could answer
Le’s first meeting with Newell was no calmer. It was a company lunch during his first year at Valve, when he was somewhere between 20 and 23. Newell asked him point-blank: “What do you think makes a game great?”
“That’s a very difficult question to ask [someone as young as me],” Le said. He does not take it as a trap. In his telling Newell simply asks direct questions and does not notice they are uncomfortable. “He’s just a very honest person and wants to get to the bottom of things,” Le said. “He doesn’t like to beat around the bush.”
Knives, then swords
Le also recalled Newell’s collecting. He kept a whole room of knives, and over time huge medieval swords and axes joined them.
It is a small portrait: an eccentric boss with a loud new hobby every few months and a habit of asking big questions over lunch. No complaint came of the singing. People shut their doors and got on with work.
