Monica Harrington, one of Valve’s founders and its first CMO, said that the company’s legendary co-founder Gabe Newell considered creating a social network in the early 2000s. However, Valve eventually abandoned the idea and created Steam.
Monica Harrington, one of Valve’s founders and its first CMO, said that the company’s legendary co-founder Gabe Newell considered creating a social network in the early 2000s. However, Valve eventually abandoned the idea and created Steam.
Harrington said this at the Game Developer’s Conference 2025, PC Gamer reports .
According to her, Gabe Newell, from around 1998 to the early 2000s, had his eye on the idea of a social network.
«Gabe had interesting ideas that had nothing to do with software. I mean, with games — and some of them would be really interesting,» Harrington said.
One of those ideas, she said, was an interactive social hub project. Harrington says both she and Newell «had a good sense of where the gaming industry was going» and how massive it could become. But they also knew that the internet in general could be an incredibly effective social hub.
«He understood very well — and so did I — that the internet could be an incredibly social place, and people didn’t think about that back then. You know, people were making transactions, creating technology companies… they weren’t thinking about the psychological and social aspects of it,» Harrington says.
She’s right: Myspace debuted in 2003, Facebook came in 2004, Twitter in 2006, Tumblr in 2007, and Instagram in 2010. Valve’s social network could have been included in this list, but the company ultimately abandoned the idea.
«Gabe was thinking about expanding the social component, but not in a gaming context… I think it would be completely different from Facebook or what happened, but yes,» says Monica Harrington.
Instead, Valve conquered the video game market with another product, the digital service Steam, which debuted in 2003. Today, it is much more than a video game store that provides access to multiplayer — it is now an entire digital service with many features, including elements of social networks.
