US Travel Ban has Negatively Affected Valve Says Gabe Newell

Gabe Newell, the president of Valve, candidly spoke about the latest US travel ban in a roundtable with gaming journalists at their Bellevue, Washingon studio offices recently. President Donald Trump’s travel ban has hit Valve in two fronts according to Newell: employees and eSports.

According to Newell, there are Valve employees who cannot go home. “They’ve been here for years. They pay taxes. They cheer for New England in the Super Bowl and we try to not hold that against them but you know, they can’t leave the country.” He also adds that this affects potential employees and their hiring process.

The travel ban has also negatively impacted eSports according to Gabe Newell, since most of the players are from outside the US and the travel ban has made getting Visa’s much more difficult in general, not strictly because of the countries included in the list.

“If you’re an opera singer, it’s pretty easy to get a visa. Like the State Department kind of understands who these people are. If you’re a Nobel Prize winner, they kind of know who you are” said Newell. eSports on the other hand, Gabe Newell says is such a nascent industry that getting visas for players, many of whom are underage, is much more difficult. For the 2014 The International tournament, China-based team CIS-Game was not able to compete because they were not granted entry after several attempts while Malaysian team Arrow Gaming was only able to obtain visas and compete after four attempts.

The International is a Dota 2 eSports tournament hosted by Valve held close to their offices in Seattle with a prize pool of over $20M and attracts tourists from all over the world.