Valve cares about PC gamers, but struggles to show it

I hadn’t even considered the possibility that Gabe Newell would be joining us.

When Valve invited me to its office last week for a series of roundtable interviews, the company made it clear that I wasn’t going to learn about Half-Life 3. “No new announcements,” Valve communications boss Doug Lombardi explained to me in a message. What Lombardi didn’t have to tell me, however, is that I wasn’t going to get to speak with Valve founder Gabe Newell. I already knew that.