It’s going to be a short piece of news. As you probably know, Valve has recently released Half Life: Alyx as a new episode in the series, and a VR-only game at that. It’s an event in itself since there has not been a new Half Life game since the last coming of the Christ or something. As they were about to enjoy a record number of 32 sales of the game (seeing how massive the VR market is), Gaben was invited to answer some questions from IGN. Don’t expect very smart questions from IGN, but you can always count on Gaben to say something worth listening to. He went on some rants on the future of video games and entertainment using brain-computer interfaces (which is closer to us than we might think, based on what he said), and how to do things right in VR. Around the end of the talk, he delivered a gem that I wanted to share with you in video:

So, what do I think about this? Well, first, I think it’s fairly funny. Second, it’s revealing that Gaben himself is aware that Steam Machines were a shit-show, and that it’s the first thing that comes to mind when he thinks of “mistakes Valve made”. I don’t think that it means anything regarding the future, except that they probably won’t be trying an initiative that has the same kind of format - hopefully they learn something from it.

I am still expecting Valve to reveal some Linux-based VR hardware at some point: it’s such a glaring opportunity to challenge the VR Market and take the lead in a viable stand-alone product (no PC needed) that I would bet they are toying with the idea and what’s available hardware wise.

Otherwise, Gaben looked good. Glad to see him again.