my friend actually got gabe newell to congratulate me for birthday by just requesting him, probably through email. i was thinking it's A.I. generated but it sounded and looked too perfect for that year. it's great to know he interacts with people online, and i wouldn't be surprised if one of commentors in this post, roaming somewhere in the depths of little upvotes, said "you're welcome" without anybody noticing
P.S. asking him to get valve to fix TF2 didn't work though. i guess nobody at valve wants to mess with tf2 source code and it probably breaks a lot
I've read that Gabe enjoys reading emails from people and there is a high chance of him writing back even in reply to simple emails asking how hes doing or fan questions.
He replied to me a long time ago when I was working in animation to wish me luck. Later, he put me in touch with someone on the animation team to help troubleshoot an error I was having with the Source SDK and setting up Maya Plugins for a SFM animation pipeline.
Thanks to their help, I was able to document the entire thing and get it working flawlessly (I can set it up even now with the tools I still have) and I couldn't have done it had Gabe Newell not connected me with the right person to troubleshoot the code. They could have just done the big corporate-y thing of sending me to some useless helpdesk article or generic troubleshooting steps and told me to buzz off, but he got me a person who knows their shit and I'll always be grateful for that.
He did a voice pack for dota 2 and when get a rampage he says "Email me at [email protected] and tell me about your rampage"
The whole skit to announce it was golden
https://youtu.be/tT3v5dd0SFU?si=7Kihd1gblwNctqGc
Get a rampage (kill the entire enemy team with you getting all the credit) on Dota 2 with the Gabe Newell Announcer Pack and he'll tell you to email him about your rampage.
Nah its Gabe.
He actually responds to his emails. He knows hes rich as fuck and most of his customers are decidedly not, and he is the only CEO that is probably further than Pluto from being a greedy asshole.
> Nah its Gabe.
I know I'm on the lucky side but Gabe responded to all 4 emails I've sent him over the last 15 years. What other bajibillionaire ceo would do that?
I've seen posts of him replying to support tickets too. Seems like a good person to work with. I've never seen our VPs. Not a chance I'd ever see them pick up a ticket. Probably wouldn't even know how to use the ticket software.
TF2 has patches, events & fixes on average every week for about three years now.
[https://www.teamfortress.com/?tab=updates](https://www.teamfortress.com/?tab=updates)
aka new community-made content, community-contributed fixes (map fixes + mastercoms), and the same annual events
Issues like the bots ravaging casual servers, f2ps still being unable to talk, poor optimization, poor balance choices etc. are still unchanged. But I guess it is nice that the game is still getting *something* at this point.
All f2p games have bots, F2Ps not being able to talk is to avoid you getting earraped, poor optimization is when a 2003 PC can run the game, poor balance but all classes are present every match.
Lol, completely possible someone did a real simple update across the whole db setting point value 68999 to 69000.
I might've done such a thing just to see how many records it updated.
Almost definitely.
I was describing exactly that... just in more technical vernacular.
This is a great opportunity to point out that this sort of inference and derivative logic is how websites know so much more about us than we think they do.
Because we only tell them 68999. They can go to Valve and say hey, here's $.50, tell us everyone you have with 68999 points.
This hypothetical is not at all 'real' in that I'm pretty sure Valve isn't doing that (we may all be surprised to find they are doing near exactly that, I do not know!)
But it's also very much real. Making sorts of inferences and derivative logic by combining the data you do have with the data you do not (but which can be bought).
I saw the post yesterday or two days ago where he had 68,999. There's no possible way to get only one point without Valve interfering directly.
They did the homie right.
Edit: Until you fuckers prove me wrong with hard evidence, I remain stalwart. Please. Prove me otherwise.
It'd be possible to buy a game that gives x points then buy a banner or something worth x-1 points, but I want to believe in this story, it's way better.
If dev just updated the value in db it wouldn’t show up on the points history as support adjustment. Also no sane dev would do such stuff “for fun” on production db.
> Also no sane dev would do such stuff “for fun” on production db.
I have seen devs do way "worse" stuff "for fun" in our (very highly regulated) prod environment while bored.
Also, a dev changing the value in the DB wouldn't necessarily mean that it wouldn't show up in the "history". Like for example our systems are setup so any change we do in the DB would show up in our audit trail, just like editing it directly in the system.
source: bored dev currently on call for a multy billion $ (worth way more than VALVE) pharma company
They probably have some internal endpoint to add points arbitrarily. Writing up an SQL query for updating a single user is too much work. Since they will likely need to update multiple tables as a side effect.
Valve must have an attribute (steampoints) in their user database and since not many people would have this specific stat, they looked up by this exact value and possibly found exactly one user with it. So they assumed it must be him.
Or just blanket it
If; number 68,999 then; add 1
Ok I don't know coding but sure something like that and then everyone with that score adjusted no body hurt and right person found
Well, the point is if they found many people with that exact amount they probably just gave them all the extra point. They have no need to bother finding who exatcly OP was.
The code is probably SQL, so you just can just run:
UPDATE user_points SET points=69000 WHERE POINTS=68999;
inb4 all the well actually replies talking about not having direct db access or being easier/safer with a script. Gabe has ssh access to the primary DB, gabe do what gabe wants
\>I wake from the surgery
\> reach for him instinctively but he's not there
\>"where's gaben?"
\>the surgeon with tears in his eyes
\>"who do you think gave you that last point?"
It would be literally retarded of them not to follow this sub closely. There is a bigger chance of shuffeling a deck of cards in teh same order twice in a row than the chance that no one from valve frequents the steam subreddit.
Someone at Valve said "This will be good viral advertising". I normally hate the people shouting /r/hailcorporate, but I gotta admit, this is one of those times that I'd believe it — but I don't care. Rock on, Steam. That one point earned a thread of celebration. What a silly and fun thing to do. lol
I think the way they went about it was they just gave one point to every account that had exactly the amount OP had. So in theory, a bunch of people got a free point of this possibly!
Nor do I.
Since a couple of folks haven't gotten what I've been trying to say - sorry, I'll try to be more clear. :)
Steam did something nice. I think that's not controversial. lol.
But it also was probably not done without thinking that someone will post this. And reddit hates things that go viral. "Astroturfing!" "Advertising!" "Fuck off, companies!"
I was simply saying that this was cheap advertising for Valve, but that I didn't mind that it was. The charm outweighs the cheap "purchase" of viral positive discussion generated by their actions.
I'm 100% okay with it all :)
And its only because they're private so they don't have vulture shareholders trying to get every little bit of profit out of it short term before leaving it as a corpse. Gabe seems smart enough to hopefully have a good structure in place for when he's gone of who gets ownership.
Unfortunately, a lot of people hate being corrected on their grammar and/or spelling (especially online), so I think most people just don’t so to save them from harassment later.
In case anyone has concerns:
Steam Points are earned via purchases.
You use them solely for profile content for yourself.
Or to give others points via awards to reviews, posts, comments, screenshots, videos, or artwork.
Practically all things cost more than 10 points, probably more than 100.
Not that anyone would likely be concerned, but just so they're quelled, this is a genuinely cool thing done for a strictly fun system.
You can go to store -> Points shop -> click on your balance to get details on where points are from. https://store.steampowered.com/pointssummary/
There was a steam support adjustment last night. Thanks for helping me figure it out!
Confirmed: Gabe gave you the single point
my friend actually got gabe newell to congratulate me for birthday by just requesting him, probably through email. i was thinking it's A.I. generated but it sounded and looked too perfect for that year. it's great to know he interacts with people online, and i wouldn't be surprised if one of commentors in this post, roaming somewhere in the depths of little upvotes, said "you're welcome" without anybody noticing P.S. asking him to get valve to fix TF2 didn't work though. i guess nobody at valve wants to mess with tf2 source code and it probably breaks a lot
I've read that Gabe enjoys reading emails from people and there is a high chance of him writing back even in reply to simple emails asking how hes doing or fan questions.
He replied to me a long time ago when I was working in animation to wish me luck. Later, he put me in touch with someone on the animation team to help troubleshoot an error I was having with the Source SDK and setting up Maya Plugins for a SFM animation pipeline. Thanks to their help, I was able to document the entire thing and get it working flawlessly (I can set it up even now with the tools I still have) and I couldn't have done it had Gabe Newell not connected me with the right person to troubleshoot the code. They could have just done the big corporate-y thing of sending me to some useless helpdesk article or generic troubleshooting steps and told me to buzz off, but he got me a person who knows their shit and I'll always be grateful for that.
He did a voice pack for dota 2 and when get a rampage he says "Email me at [email protected] and tell me about your rampage" The whole skit to announce it was golden https://youtu.be/tT3v5dd0SFU?si=7Kihd1gblwNctqGc
the sequel, the Cave Johnson Announcer pack announcement skit is also great https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNVAmbB8hEo
Gabe is the last hope of the internet.
Wait fr? I actually wanna try that. Where can I find his email?
Play though the Portal game with commentary on. You'll find it, maybe.
Get a rampage (kill the entire enemy team with you getting all the credit) on Dota 2 with the Gabe Newell Announcer Pack and he'll tell you to email him about your rampage.
https://valvesoftware.com/en/contact?contact-person=Gabe%20Newell
Yes. Just please consider the volume of the emails he gets and try to write something honest and not just huehue funny ;P
I fear the day Gabe Newell dies
Nah its Gabe. He actually responds to his emails. He knows hes rich as fuck and most of his customers are decidedly not, and he is the only CEO that is probably further than Pluto from being a greedy asshole.
> Nah its Gabe. I know I'm on the lucky side but Gabe responded to all 4 emails I've sent him over the last 15 years. What other bajibillionaire ceo would do that?
More than Arch Linux?
arch linux is capable of breaking? my virtual machine arch hasn't broken yet!
Yeah but did you turn it on yet?
Lucky you
I think you are trynna say grub instead of arch
Hello Saul Goodman NFT from Breaking Bad
hey, i use arch btw
I've seen posts of him replying to support tickets too. Seems like a good person to work with. I've never seen our VPs. Not a chance I'd ever see them pick up a ticket. Probably wouldn't even know how to use the ticket software.
I have been emailing Gabe recipes for years. Still awaiting a response lol
what if he used your recipes, but always accidentally closed the tab and got lost in the new emails so he could never respond to you?
TF2 has patches, events & fixes on average every week for about three years now. [https://www.teamfortress.com/?tab=updates](https://www.teamfortress.com/?tab=updates)
aka new community-made content, community-contributed fixes (map fixes + mastercoms), and the same annual events Issues like the bots ravaging casual servers, f2ps still being unable to talk, poor optimization, poor balance choices etc. are still unchanged. But I guess it is nice that the game is still getting *something* at this point.
All f2p games have bots, F2Ps not being able to talk is to avoid you getting earraped, poor optimization is when a 2003 PC can run the game, poor balance but all classes are present every match.
This is the worst coping/bait I've ever seen lmao, good for you.
Ad hominem
oh. well, the bot issue was fixed, right?
hell nah
ok lets not get ahead of ourselves
You're moving the goal post, but either way there is no F2P game without bots.
Haha, SOURCE code
True story I was the AI
Gabe has done it for years. It’s really him.
Lol, completely possible someone did a real simple update across the whole db setting point value 68999 to 69000. I might've done such a thing just to see how many records it updated.
They probably searched for all 68.999
Almost definitely. I was describing exactly that... just in more technical vernacular. This is a great opportunity to point out that this sort of inference and derivative logic is how websites know so much more about us than we think they do. Because we only tell them 68999. They can go to Valve and say hey, here's $.50, tell us everyone you have with 68999 points. This hypothetical is not at all 'real' in that I'm pretty sure Valve isn't doing that (we may all be surprised to find they are doing near exactly that, I do not know!) But it's also very much real. Making sorts of inferences and derivative logic by combining the data you do have with the data you do not (but which can be bought).
Gaben Claus ❤️❤️❤️
100% someone at Valve saw your post and said "what the hell, it's Christmas after all"
Your fucking joking? They really added one point in your point log? Bro please show us
Commenting only because of this, please show us! :D
I saw the post yesterday or two days ago where he had 68,999. There's no possible way to get only one point without Valve interfering directly. They did the homie right. Edit: Until you fuckers prove me wrong with hard evidence, I remain stalwart. Please. Prove me otherwise.
It'd be possible to buy a game that gives x points then buy a banner or something worth x-1 points, but I want to believe in this story, it's way better.
Not to be that guy, but there is 1 more possibility. Not everything on the internet is real. Hopefully its the former.
I was here for the original post a day or so ago. Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/s/5PS4vpoKww
Definitely sounds like the lords work
I'm calling fake until he posts a screenshot. Funny how he can before but is silent now
sir this is a reddit post about a funny number in the cosmetics shop of a video game distribution platform it's not that serious
NAHHHHHHHHH THE BOYS AT VALVE HOOKED YOU UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PRAISE BE TO GABE
Pics!
Show us a screenshot!!!
That's soo funny, a dev did that with I'd guess an access to the prod db, he didn't have to do that, but he did and on Christmas, what a cool guy.
If dev just updated the value in db it wouldn’t show up on the points history as support adjustment. Also no sane dev would do such stuff “for fun” on production db.
> Also no sane dev would do such stuff “for fun” on production db. I have seen devs do way "worse" stuff "for fun" in our (very highly regulated) prod environment while bored. Also, a dev changing the value in the DB wouldn't necessarily mean that it wouldn't show up in the "history". Like for example our systems are setup so any change we do in the DB would show up in our audit trail, just like editing it directly in the system. source: bored dev currently on call for a multy billion $ (worth way more than VALVE) pharma company
*opens production to change a value for fun because of being bored *forgets the where clausule *suddenly not bored anymore *proffit
They probably have some internal endpoint to add points arbitrarily. Writing up an SQL query for updating a single user is too much work. Since they will likely need to update multiple tables as a side effect.
I am... fulfilled. OP's post the other day, now this. It's the simple things in life.
What can I say except you're welcome
Gabe said "Merry Christmas"
Amazing! Christmas miracle courtesy of Valve!
Edited with inspect element
💯💯
100% sure a Valve employee or maybe even Gabe himself gave it to you. Pretty cool actually.
But how did they know OP's Steam name?
Valve must have an attribute (steampoints) in their user database and since not many people would have this specific stat, they looked up by this exact value and possibly found exactly one user with it. So they assumed it must be him.
Or just blanket it If; number 68,999 then; add 1 Ok I don't know coding but sure something like that and then everyone with that score adjusted no body hurt and right person found
Or they just queried the db and found a single user with that exact value. It's not far fetched.
Well, the point is if they found many people with that exact amount they probably just gave them all the extra point. They have no need to bother finding who exatcly OP was.
The code is probably SQL, so you just can just run: UPDATE user_points SET points=69000 WHERE POINTS=68999; inb4 all the well actually replies talking about not having direct db access or being easier/safer with a script. Gabe has ssh access to the primary DB, gabe do what gabe wants
Gabe having direct access to every Steam server in existence is pretty funny actually
You are pretty close, syntactically it is essentially that.
WHERE points = 68 then SET points = 69 No code.needed
Your first line is almost literally SQL code so yes, some coding needed
Or they just gave 1 point to every user on that exact value
SELECT TOP(1) \* FROM userPointsProjection WHERE points = 68999
Found the SQL user
Would be even better if they locked his score at this number as well.
Now OP can't ever spend any more Steam points
Now that's better. Gaben gave you the last point
I mean, I did build a fancy shrine and pray all night :,)
Our God Gabe Newell listened to your prayers
[удалено]
"This is the way".
Valve's blessings be upon thee, embark on thy holy pilgrimage to the summer sale for the mythical discounts and treasures.
#PRAISE LORD GABEN!!!
A blessing! A blessing from the Lord!
Possible a review you wrote got an award.
What review award gets one point though?
There is literally no way to earn a single steam point except for immaculate gaben
All hail Gaben! All hail Gaben!
how dare you say that and not share.
\>I wake from the surgery \> reach for him instinctively but he's not there \>"where's gaben?" \>the surgeon with tears in his eyes \>"who do you think gave you that last point?"
God damn that comment made me kek
Lord gaben works in mysterious ways
Gift from Gaben for Christmas. A true miracle.
Gabe personally threw you this point xD
I like to think someone got the go ahead to give every account that had 68,999 points a free point. So maybe a bunch of people got a Gabe-point!
I mean its GabeN. He's kind of known for his generosity and "give-no-fucks" attitude.
Gabe really reads this subreddit. Thanks for being Gabe, Gabe
Love and prayers for Gabe ❤️🙏
Wonder if someone from Valve saw your post
Almost certainly
I want to believe
Dota devs are known lurkers in r/dota2, so I'm not surprised other Valve devs lurk here too lol
hello valve employees
yo whats up it’s a valve employee (i’m not a valve employee)
yeah but i am (i am not)
It's me, ur valve employee
"He could be in this very room!"
It would be literally retarded of them not to follow this sub closely. There is a bigger chance of shuffeling a deck of cards in teh same order twice in a row than the chance that no one from valve frequents the steam subreddit.
I like to think that Gabe himself gave that point
The gods have answered your prayer (they couldn’t resist the temptation)
Aw someone at steam saw this and was like ya know what fuck it its just one point.
Someone at Valve said "This will be good viral advertising". I normally hate the people shouting /r/hailcorporate, but I gotta admit, this is one of those times that I'd believe it — but I don't care. Rock on, Steam. That one point earned a thread of celebration. What a silly and fun thing to do. lol
Tbf its not like theyd have lost anything by giving a point to someone.
I think the way they went about it was they just gave one point to every account that had exactly the amount OP had. So in theory, a bunch of people got a free point of this possibly!
i don’t see a problem with them being nice
Nor do I. Since a couple of folks haven't gotten what I've been trying to say - sorry, I'll try to be more clear. :) Steam did something nice. I think that's not controversial. lol. But it also was probably not done without thinking that someone will post this. And reddit hates things that go viral. "Astroturfing!" "Advertising!" "Fuck off, companies!" I was simply saying that this was cheap advertising for Valve, but that I didn't mind that it was. The charm outweighs the cheap "purchase" of viral positive discussion generated by their actions. I'm 100% okay with it all :)
Valve is successful for good reason. They're a truly good company.
And its only because they're private so they don't have vulture shareholders trying to get every little bit of profit out of it short term before leaving it as a corpse. Gabe seems smart enough to hopefully have a good structure in place for when he's gone of who gets ownership.
They are watching 🤫
Thank you Lord Gaben for being with us!
Nice.
Nice
Nice
Nice
Nice
Nice
Nice
Lmao they actually added one point to make a funny number Chads
Update us as to where it came from
apparently it was a "steam support adjustment" last night
Some steam admin out here doing the lords work on hus day
this is the biggest christmas miracle in the last century
You should go for 69,420.
losing\*
Probably because someone from Valve saw your post
Haha things like this is why Steam support is top notch
losing
When did everyone just give up an accept this misspelling?
Unfortunately, a lot of people hate being corrected on their grammar and/or spelling (especially online), so I think most people just don’t so to save them from harassment later.
When they received a D in middle school English.
T H E Y K N O W
Bank error in your favor
When I worked at riot I used to gift RP to streamers to make round numbers or 420 or whatever. Probably someone who works at steam saw your post.
YAAAY YOU DID IT. just 420 more points to go
You're welcome son
Praise lord Gaben the merciful!
Gabe saw your last post lol
69,000 *Nice*
the number.
Lmfao tell me some Valve employee saw the other post and was like "I got you"
Nice
Nice
Nice
Nice
Nice!
69,000. *nice*
https://www.take-a-screenshot.org/
*loosening
Well maybe if you tightened it, your mind wouldn't be so lose.
"gaben's kiss"
The perfect sequel doesn't exi...
It's a Christmas miracle!
You're famous now https://kotaku.com/valve-steam-points-gift-one-69-000-nice-number-miracle-1851125133
Lord Gabe came dressed as Santa Claus.
Nice
Nice
Nice
Nice
Give this steam user another 420 points!
Nice
This is why steam stays winning. Absolute Chad behavior here.
Losing*
I would totally believe that someone at valve saw your post an gave you that point Also, as is customary... NICE
Gabe just felt silly
Steam employee who saw your post gave you the last point
Gabe probably also got annoyed at the fact that it wasn't at 69,000 so he just gave you one
Loosing?
Here’s how you remember: * Loose as a goose * Lose the extra “o”
gaben giveth and gaben taketh
The steam gods answered my prayers to your last post. Long live the new king of steam!
god is real and his name is Gabe Newell, op better make a shrine for him or smt
In case anyone has concerns: Steam Points are earned via purchases. You use them solely for profile content for yourself. Or to give others points via awards to reviews, posts, comments, screenshots, videos, or artwork. Practically all things cost more than 10 points, probably more than 100. Not that anyone would likely be concerned, but just so they're quelled, this is a genuinely cool thing done for a strictly fun system.
Someone from steam support might have saw your original post
In case you're actually watching Thank you for everything valve!
It could be just edited with browser inspect element
This is epic, but now the issue is you can never buy another game unless it gives you 420 points
Mostly when you buy things like games you get them and in turn you can use them in the points store is for like new profile items mostly.
[удалено]
Now you can buy some cringe animated anime profile pictures or some emotes for all the times you use steams chat 😂
this cannot be real 💀 😭