1. Gaben used to work for Gates
Before founding Valve, Gaben used to work for Microsoft for 13 years, even dropping out of Harvard just to work there! (Does this remind you of anyone?) Armed with 13 years of experience, he then left Microsoft along with his colleague Mike Harrington and created the hugely successful Half-Life and making Valve a household name amongst gamers worldwide.
2. Valve’s founding was inspired by ID Software
DOOM is of course hella popular because of its nature as a first-person shooter, something never before seen at the time of its release. This got Microsoft to take an interest in it, and it appointed Gaben as head honcho of the PC porting team. The opportunity to sort of help out in developing DOOM left Gaben really wanting to one up it with an even better FPS. He also says he was inspired by Mike Abrash, who left Microsoft to work with ID Software on Quake.
3. Gaben is a huge knife fan
No, I’m not talking about the knife collection in Counter Strike: Global Offensive, but ACTUAL FREAKIN’ KNIVES. Gaben loves them so much, he pulled an Imelda Marcos and collected over 600 knives in his office. Perhaps now you’ll think twice before breaking into his office and demanding a release date for Half-Life 3, eh?
4. Gaben once ‘honeypotted’ a hacker
As you all probably know, Half-Life 2 was supposed to come out in September 2003, but its release was forcibly set back after a hacker managed to pull it off (along with Counter Strike: Source) Steam’s internal network. Gaben released a public appeal for anyone who knew the hacker’s identity to report him to Valve. In 2004, the FBI apprehended individuals involved in the hacking, until they finally learned of the identity of the lead hacker: German national Axel “Ego” Gembe. Gembe then contacted Gaben through e-mail saying that his motivation behind hacking Valve was to get a job there. (Okaaaayyyy…) Gaben, though, was in no mood for that shit, and straight-up took the piss out of the hacker, telling him he should fly to Valve’s headquarters for a job interview. What do you know, he was arrested as soon as he showed up. Fail.
5. Gaben is a TF2 God
You might be thinking Gaben is an actual whiz at TF2. Wrong! He simply has the most powerful weapon of all: the Banhammer. It’s got so much damage, you can even be kicked out and banned indefinitely from Valve’s servers after just one hit!
6. Gaben’s favourite hero in DotA 2 is Sand King
Yep, Gaben simply adores DotA, which is probably why he recruited Icefrog to make DotA 2 (which is now one of the most popular e-Sports games in the world). On his Reddit AMA thread two years ago, someone asked who his favourite DotA hero was, and Gaben answered “Sand King.” [Insert Darude – Sandstorm joke here]
7. Gaben’s favourite game is Super Mario 64
This factoid comes straight from his AMA thread on Reddit. When asked what non-Valve game he liked the most, Gaben answered “Super Mario 64” without hesitation. This pleased Nintendo so much they even tweeted about it:
This isn’t the first time he’s said Super Mario 64’s his favourite game. Back in 2011, he said that it wasn’t just that, but that one game that got him to think that video games were an art.
8. Gaben’s a… brony!?
Before I start explaining this one, apparently many of you are not familiar with what a Brony is. A brony is basically a male viewer of My
Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (bro + pony = brony, geddit?). Even if it is for all ages, society in general does frown a bit on adults
liking such a show. In a 2012 Geek A Week podcast, the host got a chance to ask the man some questions. One of them concerned any skeletons in his closet, and Gaben straight-up came out and answered, “I watch My Little Pony.”
9. Gaben hates consoles and Windows 8
Well, this one is kind of an open secret. As befits the Lord and Saviour of the PC Master Race, Gaben openly expresses his displeasure with consoles. In 2007, he said making console games are the worse, especially for the PS3, which he considered had an impossible hardware architecture. He also claims that developing them are just a waste of time. Even so, Valve still released Orange Box and Portal 2 for consoles.
As regarding Windows 8, Gaben said in 2012 that it was an unqualified disaster. Burn.
