Gabe Newell: The richest man in the video game business
American entrepreneur Gabe Newell is the head of the Valve video gaming company.
Gabe Newell oversaw the creation of Valve’s digital distribution platform Steam, which debuted in 2003 and by 2011 had the majority of the market for downloadable PC games.
His net worth was assessed by Forbes to be US$ 3.9 billion in December 2021, making him one of the richest people in the country.
Early Life
Early in the 1980s, Gabe Newell enrolled at Harvard University but left to work for Microsoft, where he contributed to the development of the initial iterations of the Windows OS. As the principal developer for the first three iterations of the Windows operating system for 13 years, Newell amassed a million-dollar fortune.
One of the main factors in Newell’s decision to leave Harvard was that he claimed to have learned more during his initial 3 months at Microsoft than he did at Harvard. At Microsoft, Newell oversaw the creation of a Doom port for Windows 95, which is credited with establishing Windows as a competitive gaming platform.
Success Story
On August 24, 1996, Newell and another colleague, Mike Harrington, left Microsoft to create the video game firm Valve, inspired by Michael Abrash, who departed to work on the game Quake at id. The first Valve game, the critically acclaimed and financially successful first-person shooter Half-Life (1998), was developed thanks to funding from Newell and Harrington.
Half-Life, a first-person shooter with a science fiction theme, was Valve’s first game. It was praised for its excellent graphics and seamless story, and it deservedly won multiple “Game of the Year” awards. In 2000, Harrington resigned, leaving Newell as the sole proprietor.
Half-Life 2 (2004) was developed by Valve with no timeline and a nearly unlimited budget, with Newell offering to contribute himself if necessary. He spent months creating Steam, a digital game distribution service, in the interim. The majority of Valve’s revenue was derived from Steam, which in 2011 held between 50%-70% of the industry for downloadable PC games.
Forbes dubbed Newell “A Name You Should Know” in 2010 in part because of his work on Steam and connections with numerous important developers. The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences inducted Newell into its Hall of Fame in 2013. He was given the BAFTA Fellowship that March in recognition of his services to the video gaming industry.
With an assessed net worth of over 5.5$ billion, Newell was included in the top 100 richest Americans by Forbes in October 2017. According to a December 2021 Forbes assessment, Newell owned at least 25% of Valve and had a net worth of around 3.9$ billion. Newell was the richest individual in the video game industry as of 2021, as per Charlie Fish, author of The History of Video Games.
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