Gabe Newell ‘spotted hand-delivering Steam Decks’

Valve co-founder and CEO Gabe Newell has reportedly been hand-delivering Steam Decks to customers this week – and even some fans who didn’t order the handheld.

Reddit user ‘bitfiddler0’ claims they received a “spammy looking email” last week notifying them that their Steam Deck order arrived early and would be delivered on Saturday.

“I was honestly skeptical and didn’t want to get my hopes up too much,” they wrote. “Fast forward to today… I told my wife to watch for deliveries while I went on a full day ski trip with friends.

“The ‘delivery guy’ comes and wife opens the door. He asks, ‘Is Mike (not real name) home?’ She says ‘no but you can leave the package with me….. and what’s with the camera crew?’ Little did she know that the ‘delivery guy’ was Gabe Newell.”

They added: “Gabe was a super cool and down to earth guy though. He said to email him if she has any feedback (to which my wife replied “OK, but what’s your name again?)”

The Reddit user shared the following image, taken by their door cam, which they claimed shows Valve’s CEO hand-delivering their Steam Deck:

Another Reddit user also claimed to have had a Steam Deck delivered by Gabe Newell this weekend – and they allegedly didn’t even order one.

“[I] Saw a camera crew going up to my neighbour’s house while I was loading stuff into my truck,” wrote ‘SeattleRainPidgeons’. “My roommate recognized the guy being followed as Gaben, I didn’t believe him, our other roommate then verified it was indeed Gabe.

“After delivering my neighbour’s Deck, we yelled ‘Hi Gabe!’. At which point he asked how many were living in the house, then he went back to his van and grabbed us each a Deck. Was also filmed receiving ours so I assume these will be used in some promo or online. Very cool day.”

The user shared an image of their SteamDeck case seemingly signed by Newell:

Steam Deck officially began shipping last week. However, the backlog of pre-orders means that anyone submitting a new order now will have to wait until the second half of 2022 before their device actually arrives.

Announced in July 2021, Steam Deck is described as “a powerful all-in-one portable PC” capable of running the latest AAA games.

Steam Deck runs the latest version of Valve’s SteamOS software – which is based on Linux – allowing players to access their Steam games library and all the platform’s features.

However, Valve insists Steam Deck is also an open PC with the ability to install any software or connect with any hardware.