Father Neville: Changing the way computer games are sold

Gabu Neville (right) and Mac platform Valve Steam game Client Game client developers left work 13 years of Microsoft, sold all the shares, in order to valve company, Gabu Neville almost bankrupt, the issue of "counter-strike" such a surprise, this is only a small part of his success, He's changed the way he sells computer games. This reporter lie in the summer of 1999, a game development company's several employees have nothing to do, a whim to create a fight between the police and the theme of the MoD (game Plot supplement program). Originally, they just to the company's earlier development of the original game "half Life" to play more fresh, did not expect that the test version of the package to upload to the network, an instant beyond all the well-known games, easily become the United States game Sales List Champion.　　The MoD is the world's first shot at shooting the game "counter-Strike." The "good" employee of the game development company named Valve, "Half life" is the only small company created in 1996 before the only product released, "Counter-strike" almost made it overnight fame.　　Valve, also known as the founder of Gabu Neville (Gabe Newell), is a fat guy with a height of 1.92-meter pounds. Although the emergence of "counter-Strike" is an accidental factor, however, this is because of the shape of the Internet jokes often become the protagonist of the "Game of talent", perhaps the open valve success of the real key to the door.　　In the field of game development, Gabu Neville resolutely will look to the network retail industry and again broke out, his talent and personality, achievements valve brilliant. Steam, chairman of the retail John Risedino, said his business partner: "Neville is brilliant, one of the smartest people I've ever met, and he has a keen eye to harness the tide of technology and find a way to win a game." "In fact, Gabu Neville almost become blind, he has been suffering from corneal endothelial dystrophy (Fuchs dystrophy) obsession, the hereditary disease slowly eroded his cornea, undergone two keratoplasty surgery, he repaired the pair of" dead eyes. " After a good health, Gabu Neville said, the silent resistance to illness not only made him see the light, but also enabled him to see farther than ever before, and he could feel that the future was striding toward people in unexpected ways.　　In digital sales, Neville has always had a pair of very penetrating eyes. Since the "counter-Strike" after the hot, Valve developed the game product has been the player's darling, 2004 the company launched the "Half Life 2", sales reached 12 million, in the most authoritative game review site "Metacritic" on the top of the list so far. However, game development let Valve earn more is popular, really let its profit multiplied is anotherBusiness--steam, a full-featured game platform terminal. Steam has much in common with Amazon and itunes, which sells books and music on the Internet, while steam sells computer games online. At the time, Amazon, itunes and Netflix, the world's largest online film-rental provider, had started to move people's buying habits from physical stores to the Internet.　　But in the field of gaming, steam was the first to specialize in this business. At first, steam only for "counter-Strike" and "Half Life 2" to update the use of the game, with the average U.S. home to speed up the Internet, download the way through the Internet to buy games have the value and possibility of existence.　　Gabu Neville realized that technology will be doomed to change people's lifestyles, the game industry is inevitable, he saw the time, decisively decided to transform steam into a professional computer game network retailer. Soon, steam had 30 million registered users, and only a large, historic company, such as Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, could rival the game's retail sales. Last year, internet retailing overtook physical retailing for the first time, according to data from market research firm NPD Group, which ushered in a milestone in the retail of computer gaming networks.　　Steam has 50% to 70% of the market share of the huge computer game market, with a sales of 4 billion dollars a year, and the renowned computer game developer EA and Activision are steam's long-term customers. As copyright owners, developers can get 70% of the sales from steam, traditional sales channels can only get 30%.　　Compared to the physical store retail and even Amazon-style network retail, and steam cooperation more flexible, with the help of a large registered user at any time to interact with the convenience of the steam will regularly provide players for these game developers to market information and price fluctuations of the response, can let the game sales continue to blowout. Partners believe that steam convenient and efficient sales channels can bring them more profits, but also be Gabu Neville unique personality charm.　　"I don't know what words to use to describe his obsession, which is a sort of morbid madness in Work," John Risedino explained Neville's success. Game work life until today, Valve is still a "small" company with only 250 employees, and the company has no obligation to disclose its financial position to outsiders because it is not publicly listed, but it is certain that they have made a lot of money, saying in Gabu Neville's own words, "the profits are considerable". In a 2005 report, Forbes speculated that Valve's annual turnover amounted to $70 million trillion, with net profits exceeding 55 million.　　Last October, Gabu Neville announced that corporate profits were growing at a rate of 200% per cent, with valve employees earning more than Apple and Google. Reference tieKoeberg created 40 to 6 billion US dollar Facebook market capitalisation, speculation that valve company's total market capitalisation is likely to have reached 20 to 4 billion dollars. A few years ago, there have been buyers for large prices to buy valve steam platform, was Gabu Neville flatly rebuffed, so far, Valve has not received any venture capital.　　In Neville's heart, Valve is more than just a company, more like his life. Like Bill Gates, Gabu Neville, born in 1962, was also a Harvard dropout. After leaving school, he worked in Microsoft for 13 years, during which he held countless jobs-advanced technology development, system design, application development, and so on, in his own words, the first 3 versions of Windows were designed by him.　　Gary Neville and his colleague, Mack Har, left Microsoft in 1996, founded Valve company with money to sell shares, and in 2000, decided to travel around the world with his wife Harrington to leave Valve, Neville bought all his shares in the company and kept it as his private business. Valve should thank Microsoft, the latter who made the company's two founders a millionaire, as a result, Valve was able to have a huge amount of money independently at the beginning of its inception, and Neville once said that he and Harrington did not use the money from Microsoft to consume expensive cars and properties, but instead paid the money out of their own pockets.　　This almost cost their entire savings, buy "Thor Hammer 1" engine, no investors valve team without considering the outside pressure, calmly will own the first product "half life" to achieve perfection. Despite the delay in the release date of the debut, the excellent details of the game have made it a great success in business and commentary, winning 50 of prizes, which has become the valve and Neville's future style: a protracted development cycle and an unfulfilled release promise.　　Players have dubbed this style "Valve time", and the irony Neville has always broken his promise and is actually full of certainty and anticipation. The man who knew Neville felt he was a man who could not tell his life from his work. A few years ago, a friend of Neville's told him: "You should have a hobby." So Neville was determined to make himself an engineer, he put his garage vacated, converted into a small workshop, bought abrasive belt grinder, milling machine, salt bath furnace, self-taught, when the fitter.　　Now, amateur work in the workshop has included an ipad metal stand and a handmade sword. Gary Neville has finally realised that there are more interesting things about the computer screen than the whole day, and the pressure on the staff is something he has been worrying about. Valve research and development teams often work overtime because of a project, and many people voluntarily leave their weekends in the office without the company's demands. "I believe valve employees enjoy their work in the company and how to cope with stress, but I am concerned that the pressure will affect their families," Neville said. "He tried to hold the employees ' annual homeTo make their families feel like a part of the company, he said he was "happy to get the experience of managing the company from the constructive criticism of the employee's family." Weird elegance I'm afraid that no other company in the world is as weird as valve.　　Among the Gabu Neville's research and development teams are paratroopers, pizza-delivery agents, lawyers, dentists, three-stream singers, and himself, a fat-covered dropout. Steam attracts players not only because it simplifies the tedious downloading, installation, and upgrade procedures in online game buying, but also because it encourages players to create, publish, and sell mods. Last October, Valve held a virtual goods fair where players could sell weapons and accessories like props.　　Some highly enthusiastic players can earn 20,000 dollars a week on the steam platform. Neville wants players to gain more on the steam platform, as well as to identify potential employees, and Valve's regular "mod show" has uncovered a lot of talent. He says half of his employees started as mods and became career developers. The chief developer of "Half Life" was a manager at a Florida dessert chain, "counter-Strike" developers, from Vietnam to the United States people (Minh Le) and Jess Criff to valve before only two playful young people, because they participated in the "Thor Hammer" and "Half Life"　　MoD was created by Gary Neville. As long as there are skills, Neville will be "eclectic", but not everyone he can accept. "Half Life 2" soon after the release of the network, the game source code for free download, while another unpublished game has also been published online, in the face of a year of hard work, Neville and his team almost collapsed. Soon after, Neville received a letter from a hacker claiming responsibility for the spill.　　Neville promised to provide a job for the hacker, and soon a 21-year-old German boy appeared, but instead of joining Valve, he went to jail, where Neville told the police to arrest him beforehand. All sorts of staff do not hinder the healthy development of valve, and everyone in this company is involved in Neville's blood. In a sense, it is a group of quirky and gifted geeks who have come together.　　It is said that many of Neville's games were inspired by the father who had joined the Marines, and most of the games developed by Valve were directly war subjects. Traditional retailers and online rivals are both fearful and respectful of valve and Neville, and David Perry, the steam, a game-bound itunes, warns: "Like Apple's online music business, Steam's online game sales will become a monopoly sooner or later." "In fact, companies such as Microsoft, EA, Blizzard (Blizzard) and GameStop have already invested heavily in developing their ownOnline sales, host-maker Nintendo and Sony also have their own online sales network, but as GameStop chairman Tony Bater said: "Neville is a well-deserved leader in the trend, and there are others who are trying to get into the field, but no one can be as graceful as he is." "The Road to Survival" Neville is not afraid of competition, but rather love and competitors play a "war of words." He likened PS3 (PlayStation 3) to a "downright disaster", and thus forged a liangzi with Sony.　　Last June, valve a rival--onlive company on the cloud gaming platform. Unlike steam, OnLive does not rely entirely on a single game download, but rather allows the user to calculate by traffic, although it is not certain how many users exist, but can expand the business to the desktop (Android tablets), smartphones and TV set-top boxes. "OnLive does set an example for streaming, but I don't think it's inefficient or cost-effective," Neville said of the technology. "OnLive company president Stephen Perman, he said, the cost of streaming is very reasonable, can be controlled in every GB (gigabytes) about 3 cents, and the company has begun to profit from it, Pearman ridiculed valve in front of high-performance computers can only act as a troublemaker, and claimed that　　OnLive will have 1 million TV subscribers by the end of the year. There are comments that Valve's strength in the field of computer game sales is precisely thanks to its limitations, in the entire 50 billion-year sales of the game market, computer games accounted for only 8% of the share. Neville admits he ignores mobile games, experience games and web games, and says: "If you try to do something in every field and trend, I will be bankrupt." "It's another character of Gary Neville to insist on something." Perhaps it foresaw a new revolution in the retail industry, though still clinging to its own way of doing things, but this time he was no longer as stubborn as he used to be. Although steam is still a media-tree sales banner, Neville has begun to move towards the entire industrial chain like GameStop: The valve Development Game "Survival Road 2" sold in the physical store in 2009, this year, Neville will also launch Valve's first PS3 platform game, Portal 2, which is sold only in physical stores.