Count me jealous. Last week, Gabe Newell, Darth Valve himself, did a teleconference with Tippecanoe Valley High School’s sports and entertainment marketing class. I’m not sure how this class got so lucky as to get 40 minutes of the CEO’s time, but they get schooled in some great lessons about digital marketing and online experimentation.
This is seriously some fascinating stuff. There are a few generic questions like “what’s your favorite video game”, etc., but eventually Newell digs into the nitty gritty, talking specifically about TF2’s marketplace as well as his background at Microsoft. It’s crazy to think that this guy now runs a company worth something between 2 to 4 billion dollars. For real, give this a watch.
When i saw this on PC Gamer i immediately stopped what i was doing and watched it. He does make some valid points in the video about marketing and other things,(especially the punishment for jerks in online games, but damn i wish i could go to that High School for one day just to be in that room.
this is why I love Valve. it is so cool that they put so much emphasis on the community and truly care about, in this case, the future of the industry by nurturing future game developers/marketers, I am definitely jealous.
P.S. I new the guys at valve were smart but WOW, they really know their stuff.
Haven’t watched the whole thing yet, but if someone doesn’t ask about Half Life (Episode) 3 I might rage.
It’s nice to see an “interview” from legitimate business-student hopefuls instead of from a panel of industry geeks with hard-ons for valve. He said some great things, and I would love for Valve to track “Jerks” or good Admins and award them for keeping their games alive, especially CS 1.6 servers that manage to keep bringing people in… ;).