Gabe Newell's first appearance in months is the most Gabe Newell thing imaginable: a yacht ad

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Valve boss and Steam billionaire Gabe Newell makes a few brief appearances, and even receives a hand-drawn thank-you portrait, in a new advertisement for yacht company Oceanco, which Newell invested in last year.

Newell can briefly be seen gearing up for a scuba dive – part of his daily routine, apparently – at 1:35, and again at 2:58 laughing along with his fellow yacht enthusiasts. At 2:43, we see a drawing of him and a dragon which seems quite grateful judging by the caption: "Thank you Gabe!!"

Enter the World of Leviathan - YouTube Watch On

Even short and informal cameos from Newell attract the internet's attention, and Steam gamers were quick to latch onto this video, whatever their interest in buying or boarding a Leviathan yacht. The promo has considerably more views on YouTube than almost all of Oceanco's recent uploads – and by recent, I mean going back several years – and the comments are amusingly stuffed with Valve-adjacent chatter.

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"Another 10 yachts to Gabe," reads one top comment.

"Suspiciously pattern-recognizable profile of Gabe Newell on the thumbnail," observes another, and Oceanco did indeed seem to know what it's doing here.

There's also some talk of Newell's own mega-ship, which got its very own announcement last year, set to combine deep sea mapping tech with submersibles and a helideck. I was thrilled to get a new stainless steel skillet recently.

"So that's the Mega Yacht with 15 Gaming PCs Gabe Newell talked about," another YouTube viewer writes.

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The video, of course, is not about the patron saint of Steam sales. "Enter the World of Leviathan," entreats Oceanco's promotion, showing off the mega-yacht's "revolutionary layout" and "ergonomic design," which seem to have compressed the attractions of a cruiseliner into something that's somehow more excessive.

WIth massage chairs, extravagant buffets, instrument collections, basketball courts, scuba rigs, and more LED panels than your average LAN party, the Leviathan ship is certainly stuffed with extravagances. We even get some proper PC gaming action around two minutes into the video, with several people grouping up to play Counter-Strike 2. It almost sounds like a wind and headset-muffled Newell says, "Stick together team. All right, let's move out," on comms during this section, but that might be a longshot.

Gamers obsess over Valve boss Gabe Newell telling critically ill Half-Life and Portal writer Erik Wolpaw to "get better" instead of resigning, but the full story is even better.

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Austin WoodSenior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

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