A Reddit user by the name of vism did, so they emailed Valve boss Gabe Newell. And actually got a response, if not from the big man himself.

The man in question, who is displayed during the opening credits of Valve games (and can be seen in the clip above), sadly remains a mystery, but the story of how he (and the other "intro guy", with a Valve stuck in his eye) got the gig opening some of the greatest video games ever made is still an interesting one.

Valve veteran Ray Ueno explains:

I worked with Gabe and team to develop the "guy in the logo" back when we first named the company, Valve (circa 1995/6), and needed to develop the visual brand vocabulary to go along with it.

Interesting that you should ask about the bald guy. Back then, the casting agencies we were using to find models only had "supermodel"-type talent. We kept requesting "heavy-set", "normal" models, and they kept sending us "beautiful", "thin", "perfect" headshots to review.

So, we finally asked them to just go out on the street and pull "everyday Joes" who were more "interesting", "common", and for the bald guy, "kinda big, heavy-set, and bald".

They went out to the streets of Seattle's Broadway district, took tons of polaroids of the types of folks we were looking for, and brought the shots back to us. We selected the bald guy from the batches of "off-the-street" polaroids-he was literally pulled out of a coffee shop or book store!

A few days later, we brought him into studio and shot the image you now see at the beginning of our games. We also shot a 2nd image of a different guy with a valve in his eye using the same process (you might remember him as well-attached below). The two comprised the "Open your mind. Open your eyes." concept for our initial brand, respectively.

It's been very long since we did that work, so we don't know who the models were. And the fact that they weren't professional models, would make it very difficult to find them-if not impossible for the bald guy (not facing camera).

If by some freak occurrence either of the gentlemen in question (or any of their friends or relatives) are reading this, get in touch! It'd be great to put a name to a face. And see what you look like without large metal valves sticking out of your head.

The guy in the Valve splash screen [Reddit]

From an interview with Valve Software's Chet Faliszek from Beefjack.com:

With regards to the co-op campaign, how does it fit in the Portal universe?

Chet Faliszek: It has its own separate story, with its own characters, and takes place after the single-player game. GLaDOS has a little thing for you to do, and I'll say no more to avoid spoilers! The story in co-op really has to step back a little bit because you need room for people to breathe and talk. They have their own story that's competing against it, you know? They won't go: "Remember when I was playing P-Body and you were Atlas and I pulled the light-bridge out from underneath you?" They're going to say: "Hey, remember when I pulled the light-bridge out from underneath you, and you fell off into the goo?" There's more of a personal story that comes from that.

Of course, no one's quite sure how the overall Portal 2 story will be woven into Half-Life, but there is some speculation (among a few random gamers that I've talked to) that part of the reason we haven't heard anything about Half-Life 3 at all is because events in Portal 2 will heavily affect the Half-Life universe. I'm starting to get a totally speculative hunch that we'll be hearing about Half-Life 3 soon after Portal 2 is on shelves. (Wishful thinking?)

Related: Valve Plans to Bridge Portal and Portal 2 With a Surprise, Keep Gordon Freeman Out Of It [Kotaku]

William "Robotwo" G from Sweden reimagines Half-Life as a Master System game. There's shades of Batman: Caped Crusader here. Which is a very good thing.

A group of hardcore Half-Life fans with a pretty good camera, twelve hundred bucks and years of their lives have completed their short film Beyond Black Mesa, a tribute to Valve's dystopian sci-fi shooter.

If you've seen the trailer, you know what to expect. Explosions. Attractive members of the resistance. It has so much more too: Half-Life gun sounds, Combine soldiers getting their skulls crushed with crowbars and the return of Opposing Force protagonist Adrian Shephard. Twelve minutes of Half-Life inspired action will make the wait for Half-Life 2: Episode Three go by so much quicker.

Beyond Black Mesa [YouTube - thanks, Tom!]

The Half-Life series is a fan favourite for a ton of reasons, but the main one is that its universe and story are so strong. Strong enough, even, to be re-told in under seven minutes using...paper.

Below is the first Half-Life, re-enacted using little paper men, and told in 2:14. Below that is Half-Life 2, which thanks to its beefier plot runs to 3:57.

Both clips are the work of Stepan Yurov. He may tell a shorter story than Valve's epic shooter series (and include more Pac-Man cameos), but it's all the more charming because of it.

[Thanks Fish!]

Do we need to be drawn into our games, or can we just play and enjoy? That's the question pondered by commenter RAMeyer19 in today's installment of Speak-Up on Kotaku.

Why in video games is "immersion" so often quoted as an important factor that a game has or lacks? Can I not love playing Pac-Man without needing to feel that I am Pac-Man?

Honestly, Half-Life 2, often cited as the peak of immersion in modern games, more often than not had me testing boundaries as opposed to feeling immersed. How come I can smash some things with a crow bar and they'll break, but not others? Why can't I shoot supporting character Alyx in the face but I can shoot and kill a mutated monster? If Valve was trying to make the player feel a part of the Half-Life universe through their rigidly first-person design how come I am so constantly questioning the rules and limits of what I can do, only to be constantly reminded that I am indeed, only playing as Gordon Freeman who can single-handedly save humanity from an alien race, but can't kill one measly old scientist with an assault rifle?

I think this is a big question that's important to address in modern game culture. Francois Laramée said, "All forms of entertainment strive to create suspension of disbelief, a state in which the player's mind forgets that it is being subjected to entertainment and instead accepts what it perceives as reality." According to this standard, one would assume that a piece of entertainment would do everything in its power to reach this goal. But look at how effective games like Metal Gear Solid are when they break the fourth wall.

Maybe it's because interesting meta-communicative moments, like those in Metal Gear, are more important to meaningful gameplay than "immersion" in the classical narrative sense. To me at least, applying Laramée's theory of immersion to games implies a false sense of simplicity on the medium as a whole.

I think we should look beyond "immersion," the term that's become such an industry buzz-word, and try to focus on the more subtle complexities that make a game truly interesting.

And yeah, sorry for the long post, but if you made it this far I'd love to hear what you think.

About Speak-Up on Kotaku: Our readers have a lot to say, and sometimes what they have to say has nothing to do with the stories we run. That's why we have that little box on the front page of Kotaku. You know, the one with "Got something to say?" written in it? That's the place to post anecdotes, photos, game tips and hints, and anything you want to share with Kotaku at large. Just make sure to include #speakup in your comment so we can find it. Every weekday we'll pull one of the best #speakup posts we can find and highlight it here.

The head-chomping, zombie-making alien of Half-Life looks good in a powdered wig when painted by Gearbox Software artist and Team Fortress 2 hat maker Shaylyn "ChemicalAlia" Hamm, as seen at deviantArt.

Dean Fraser hits it out of the park once again. As seen on Springfield Punx.

The hilarious, universally acclaimed "Meet the Team" shorts for Team Fortress 2 are more than fan service or game promotion. Valve founder Gabe Newell says they're experiments in movie-making, because the studio would prefer to do a Half-Life movie itself.

Speaking to PC Gamer, Newell says Hollywood bombarded Valve with story pitches for a Half-Life movie, not long after the first game shipped in 1998. "Their stories were just so bad. I mean, brutally, the worst," Newell said. "Not understanding what made the game a good game, or what made the property an interesting thing for people to be a fan of."

Newell said the team reached a consensus to not sign a movie deal, because the only way it would be don right was if it made the film itself. "And I was like, ‘Make it ourselves? Well that's impossible,'" Newell said. "But the Team Fortress 2 thing, the Meet The Team shorts, is us trying to explore that."

It's a leap from animated, comedic shorts to a feature-length science-fiction drama, so at this rate, it's more likely that Half-Life: The Movie doesn't get made. But good on Newell and company for staying committed to seeing something done right, if it's done at all.

"As a [World of Warcraft] player, I would much rather that the WoW team made the movie, right?" Newell said. "I like Sam Raimi, I've been a fan ever since Evil Dead came out, but I would rather see Blizzard making the movie. We think that customers are like, ‘OK, we're kind of sick and tired of the way you guys are slicing and dicing the experience of being a fan of Harry Potter, or Half-Life, or The Incredibles, and you need to fix it.' And the people that fix it will be rewarded, and the people that don't will be on the rubbish heap of history, or whatever the phrase is."

Valve Want To Make The Half-Life Movie Themselves [PC Gamer]

Hey, it's another Disney attraction recreated in Half-Life 2! Last time it was the Tower of Terror, this time it's the sadly now-closed Adventurer's Club at Disney World.

Video games as a virtual archive for shuttered theme park rides (or, in this case, nightclubs). It's not the most expected role for the medium, but I have to say, it's definitely one of the most charming. Especially since the interior is so painstakingly depicted. There's love and history at work here, and those two together can do wonderful things.

[via Boing Boing]