MEDIA: Gabe Newell is going to move Valve to New Zealand (UPDATED: not really going to)

The co-founder of Valve claims that due to remote work, the company’s productivity has fallen to 50-75%. As a solution to the problem, he considers the relocation of developers to New Zealand, where the strictest quarantine measures almost coped with COVID-19.

Last Sunday, Canadian gaming journalist Geoff Keighley hosted the Game Awards Zoom, an online meeting with selected fans. Among the guests of the event was Valve CEO Gabe Newell. Most of the conversation is under a non-disclosure agreement, but some information got online. In particular, the Valve News Network channel shared Newell’s plans to relocate Valve developers to New Zealand.

It is reported that the head of the corporation is concerned about the current affairs of the company. Newell suggests that forced self-isolation due to the coronavirus pandemic has reduced the productivity of Valve employees to 50-75%.

Now the head of Valve is going to meet with the Prime Minister of New Zealand to discuss the temporary relocation of developers. Whether he will ask to move the entire company to this country or the conversation will only touch on individual teams is unknown.

Note that Newell himself has been living in New Zealand for more than six months.

At the moment, New Zealand is considered one of the safest countries where the chance of contracting COVID-19 is close to zero. During the entire pandemic, less than two thousand people fell ill in the country, and 25 died from coronavirus.

Update

In comments to 1 NEWS, Newell denied reports of a possible transfer of Valve to New Zealand. He also noted that he had not planned a meeting with the Prime Minister.

At the same time, Newell said that he had applied for a residence permit in this country.

Also on the topic:

• The income of the New Zealand game dev has more than doubled in two years. But the market lacks personnelNo promotion of games outside of Steam.
• New Valve Rules (UPDATED)Valve is working on a new cloud platform — Steam Cloud Play
• Is there any news?