In an interview with game consultant Indie Game Joe, Counter-Strike co-creator Minh Le revealed a hilarious anecdote about Valve boss Gabe Newell that’s going viral for just how absurd it is.
Le claimed that, at one point during his tenure, Newell became so enamored with the concept of Mongolian throat singing that he couldn’t stop practicing it in Valve’s corporate offices — to the point where his employees started closing their office doors to avoid the noise.
If you’re not familiar with Mongolian throat singing, it’s a vocal technique most popularly associated with the people of Tuvan, a region in Russia located northwest of Mongolia. The Tuvan people call it Khöömei, and it’s achieved by using circular breathing to produce two or more notes simultaneously. It’s a seriously impressive talent that has become popularized over time, and has been utilized in a number of famous films and TV series (like the Sardaukar chant in the first Dune movie, for example).
Apparently, Newell wanted to try it out for himself — but his choice to practice in the workplace wasn’t necessarily conducive to a collaborative work environment.
“At one point, he got into Mongolian throat singing,” Le explained. “In Mongolia, they have these throat singers that sing really interestingly, just using their throats. Gabe watched this documentary on them. He got really fascinated with this concept, and he started to practice that. He was doing it throughout the office. He would just walk around the halls doing this throat-singing thing.
“You would hear him try to sing with his throat as he’s walking down the hall. I remember a lot of the people in the office were kind of annoyed with this, because, you know, it’s kind of loud, right? …He would do it daily. People would just start closing their doors. It started to become quite a closed office. It was an interesting time. Thankfully, he didn’t do it for more than — I think it lasted for about five months.”
As pointed out by a commenter on Instagram, Le isn’t the only Valve veteran to have mentioned Gabe’s Mongolian throat singing phase; in the Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Documentary, senior developer Charlie Brown mentioned that the office was “normally pretty vibrant and loud,” with staff “riding scooters in the hallway and doing all sorts of stuff,” while Gabe was “Tuvan throat singing.”
Fans can watch the man practicing for themselves in the Dota 2 Mega-Kills Announcement Pack video on YouTube, which shows him warming up a sound booth as part of a skit.
Unsurprisingly, Le’s most recent story has resulted in no end of jokes and memes about Gabe’s Mongolian throat singing phase, with fans joking that he “yearns for the steppe” and affectionately dubbing him “Gabe-is Khan.”
This is the latest amusing news to come from Newell after he purchased a $70.8 million super mansion in June, which came with its own underground tunnel. You know, in case the Headcrabs try to get him or something.
Image Credits: YouTube – Valve
Virginia Glaze
News Editor
Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.
