Gabe Newell - billionaire yacht enthusiast, daily Dota 2 player, Valve co-founder. Now, you can also add bladed weapon maestro to his resume, according to Counter Strike co-creator Minh 'Gooseman' Le.

The co-developer of the Half-Life mod that spawned the ultra popular Counter-Strike series, Le recently talked to Indie Game Joe about his experience working at Valve and with its president Gabe Newell, a figure who leads quite a colorful, side-quest-filled life when he's not arguing in court about whether or not Steam is a monopoly, say.

"I remember one time he got into knives," Le says of his former boss. "He started collecting knives and axes. He had this whole room full of knives and blades and swords and sh**. Just some crazy sh**. He would just have this room and order all these biga** medieval swords and axes, and he would just put them in the room. He became this collector of bladed weapons."

Not only did Newell become an avid blade collector, he apparently became somewhat of a blade smithy. If you're gonna do something, do it right, I guess was the mindset here.

"After that, he got into knife making," Le adds. "He would start to make these knives. He would go and take lessons on how to make knives, and he got really into it. So basically, he would find these little interesting things and get super into it. He'd get super drawn into these. I guess he just had a lot of time on his hands, and he was very curious. He wanted to explore things, he was a learner, and he never stopped learning. You kind of see that in what he's doing now."

Gaben's not very front and centre in Valve and Steam's operations anymore. While some thought his yacht and blade fixations might have something to do with it, a former Portal 2 developer recently said Newell "stepped back" from game development because people kept agreeing with him.

Gabe Newell asked Valve's top lawyer "What the f*** do I pay you for if that’s your opinion?" in heated debate over porn games on Steam, report says

I want to establish my old school RPG sicko bona fides really quick: My favorite Fallout games are 1 and New Vegas. My least favorite is 3 (4 is better than it gets credit for in critical circles). I really did not like Starfield and did not make it past the first planet. Obsidian is one of my favorites to ever do it. Troika Games forever.

With that out of the way, it is deranged how a lot of fans talk online about Bethesda as a studio, and Todd Howard as a guy. I have no doubt as to the accuracy of Kuhlmann's assessment of his former boss.

And I don't blame Howard one bit for being protective of the series in this way⁠. It's pretty relatable, and I'm sure it wasn't the only consideration around avoiding mainline-style spinoffs, as Kuhlmann's thoughts on ESO indicate.

Reading this in bad faith, you could parse it as an admission of weakness or insecurity, but I don't see it that way. I've spoken to senior Bethesda devs myself and watched them in other interviews: They're proud of their own work, speak positively of New Vegas, and seem to respect their peers at Obsidian. I think it's YouTubers impugning their character or calling for their coworkers to be fired over a perceived mishandling of the series that gets on their nerves.

Fallout memers seem to have gotten what they wanted, but in a monkey's paw kind of way. Obsidian is making a new Fallout game now, but with a gun to its head. Given all the layoffs and studio closures Xbox has under its belt, with more no doubt on the way, it doesn't feel like anybody's winning.