Valve's games are particularly good at spawning memes. In fact, the
Half-Life series,
Portal,
Team Fortress 2 and
Dota 2 now have their own pages, but there's plenty in some other games and the company itself.
Please add entries in the following format:
- The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary.[[/labelnote]] ExplanationLike this.
- Further mutations and successor memes, if any.
- Boom, Headshot!!!! ExplanationCounter-Strike, while not the first game to reward headshots, was the first to add a meaty thwack! sound when pulling one off. Then CS became the most popular mod ever, cementing the idea that headshots were supposed to sound like that and here we are. FPS Doug is the Trope Namer, and he cemented the meme as being related to Counter-Strike even though he first started using it to describe playing America's Army. Valve referenced this in Meet the Sniper.
- "DOOR STUCK! DOOR STUCK!"
ExplanationA video where one player gets wedged between a half-open door and another player. - "Terrorists Win." ExplanationThe two sides in Counter-Strike are Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists. When one of them wins the round, the gruff announcer says "[Counter-]Terrorists Win".
- FIREINTHEHOLEFIREINTHEHOLEFIREINTHEHOLEFIREINTHEHOLE... Explanation Every time the game starts, you're often greeted by the sound bite that plays when a teammate throws a grenade... except every teammate is throwing a grenade, often at the same exact areas.
- BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP WHAT THE FU-[BOOM!] HAHAHAHAHA! Explanation One part of the famous sound effect.
- The Hunter wants to be Altair. ExplanationOne of the Special Infected, the Hunter, has the ability to jump around from place to place. This mechanic is similar to Assassin's Creed, and there's also the similarity between the Hunter's hoodie and Altair's hooded cloak.
- "I hate small towns." "I hate planes." ExplanationOne of Francis's Catch Phrases has him professing his hate for various parts of the level. Flanderized to the point where the only thing he doesn't hate is vests.
- Louis is GRABBIN' PEELZ! ExplanationOne of Louis' lines from the game. Has mutated to suggest that Louis really likes pills.
- "I ever tell you about the time when me and Keith..." ExplanationEllis often tells stories about his friend Keith, who has gained Memetic Badass status for apparently surviving just about everything man, nature, or stupidity could possibly throw at him. Normally invokes Rochelle's reply of "Ellis, honey, can this wait?" or Nick's reply of "Ellis, is now the best time?"
- [X] startled the Witch! (Where x is, say, Nature, or Zoey.) ExplanationOne of the Special Infected, the Witch, will leave the player alone unless pissed off (which is very easy to do). When that happens the message "[player name] startled the witch" comes up.
- Entering the storage room....of love. Picking up the katana....of love. ExplanationOne of the locations in Left 4 Dead 2 is a Tunnel of Love. While in the tunnel, the characters in the game will refer to found weapons or landmarks as "[weapon name/landmark] of love" rather than simply its name.
- WUBUBU ExplanationWhen Ellis uses adrenaline, he makes a rather memorable noise in reaction to the effect. Used similarly to Louis' affection for pills.
- Karma Charger is watching you... ExplanationOne of the sequel's new Special Infected, Chargers, seem to have a nasty habit of turning up whenever a player does something overconfident or dickish. Thus, they gain the name "Karma Chargers". Also helps that one of their vocal grunts sound something along the lines of the aforementioned term.
- "No zombie is safe from Chicago Ted." ExplanationLeft 4 Dead's story is largely told through graffiti left on the walls by previous NPC survivors. One of them, calling himself Chicago Ted, left the above note in the final saferoom before the finale of "No Mercy."
- Coach's chocolate helicopter. ExplanationIn L4D2's intro video, Nick teases an exhausted Coach that the rescue helicopter might be made of chocolate. "Chocolate Helicopters" happens to be the name of the music playing when he said that.
- Both the Peek-a-boo Charge (or Jack-In-The-Box Charge)note A player-controlled Charger waits behind a door players have to open, then strikes as soon as they do so and PiƱata Timenote A Boomer spews on a player as a Smoker ties them up and dangles them in the air for the Common infected are growing in popularity.
Other:
- Whenever someone calls Gabe fat, he delays Episode Thr-... GODDAMN IT ExplanationGabe Newell is the co-founder of Valve. Valve is notorious for Schedule Slip with all of their titles, and Half-Life 2: Episode Three has seen the worst of it, especially since they started the episodic content with the justification that they could release titles quicker. Ten years later (longer than the wait between the original and HL2, at that), and there's no evidence that they even started on Episode Three.
- "Worth the weight." ExplanationMore Gabe Newell fat jokes, emerging from the TF2 commentary. The original line is "...after nine years in development, hopefully it will be worth the wait."
- "Wow, this (Insert name of obese game character) looks like Gabe Newell." ExplanationJokes about his size are rampant.
- "BOOMER!" Explanation Boomers are a horribly obese Special Infected in the Left 4 Dead games. The comparison was inevitable.
- "Valve Time" ExplanationThe standard answer for when anybody asks when the next Valve-related product is going to be released, related to both Schedule Slip and Vaporware. Half-Life 2: Episode 3's release date is apparently pegged as "Coincident with the Rapture."
- Meanwhile, at Valve..... [Insert nonsensical Valve-related image, or image of people - usually Gabe - slacking off] ExplanationRelated to the above, the meme that Valve staff are doing absolutely anything but working on new games. Officially parodied by Valve themselves with "Yesterday, at Valve...".
- Creating absurdly deformed faces in Garry's Mod by turning the facial muscle sliders way past where they were meant to go, or in combination with others they weren't meant to be combined with. Very popular in Garry's Mod based videos.
- Gabe's Watching ExplanationSomething of a meme on boards such as Steam Forums and Facepunch.
- GABEN ExplanationA meme resulting from Gabe Newell's email address, gaben@valvesoftware.com, said at the end of the first commentary piece in Team Fortress 2's commentary maps. It is pronounced "Gabe N.", which sounds like "Gay Ben", and is sometimes used in the latter context. Perhaps more infamously, 'gaben' was a password for one of Newell's accounts accessed by a hacker who then took and leaked an early beta of Half-Life 2.
- G-A-B-E-N ExplanationFor one of the Portal 2 commentary nodes, instead of pronouncing his name on the email address he spelled it out (maybe because of the above?).
- "Uhh, no. It's just me, Gabe Newell." ExplanationActually from a Mega64 sketch (specifically the Beatles Rock Band video). Gabe himself DID appear in the video. Is also a joke on how despite his reputation as a game developer, he's not as iconic as say Shigeru Miyamoto or Hideo Kojima; both who were also guests on Mega64's skits that did the same joke.
- "Valve Can't Count To Three" ExplanationEven though they're juggling more than half a dozen properties at this point, none of the games have received a proper third installment. And which episode of Half-Life 2 is being delayed absurdly long, even by Valve standards? Episode Three, of course. (Fun Fact: whoever pops up this meme anywhere in the internet will usually get a counter-argument involving Team Fortress 2's Level 3 sentry or maybe the Portal 2 soundtrack, which was released in three volumes.) An Ascended Meme from the Gabe Newell announcer in Dota 2, where he conspicuously will never say the word "triple" for triple kills and has a small chance to say "I'm not reading this."
- One, two, Alyx! ExplanationAn extension of the "Valve can't count to 3" meme that arose when Half-Life: Alyx was announced, due to the Sequel Gap of over a decade with no Half-Life installments until then.
- Gabe at E3ExplanationStories featuring Gabe at the upcoming E3, usually about to announce Half-Life 3, and involving his exaggerated weight leading to some kind of catastrophe on stage.
- The wallet-draining nature of Steam Summer Sales. Such as this◊. Or this.ExplanationSteam's periodic sales can feature games discounted to a ridiculous degree, encouraging people to buy them even if they're only mildly interested. The vast number of games on Steam means that this translates to a lot of purchases, and the Summer Sale event takes it all up to eleven, resulting in people spending large amounts of money with the intent of "saving".
- When Steam Controller was announced, people starts to compare it with owl's face. Along with numerous comical controller faced-people images.
- Valve doesn't make games. Explanation Since Valve hasn't released a full game since Dota 2 (2013), many fans have both joked and accused Valve of not making games while they focus on making hats and skins for other games.
- With the release of Artifact in late 2018, Dota Underlords, and Half-Life: Alyx, the meme has since been discredited somewhat, but those disappointed by Artifact and Alyx still like to tote that Valve doesn't make games anymore.
- Valve Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing ExplanationObviously this isn't entirely true since two games Valve made after Dota 2 are mentioned above, and they've been plenty busy with hardware like the Steam Deck, but despite Valve allegedly not making games anymore, Steam still remains the #1 store for PC games, and not only have companies who've attempted to make competitors like Electronic Arts and Ubisoft eventually brought all their games back to Steam, but also even Blizzard Entertainment has published Overwatch 2 on Steam despite being able to hold their own with Battle.net.
- Valve Live StreamExplanationOn the 20th of February 2022, Valve started a YouTube live stream out of the blue. However, instead of any actual content, they streamed 58 seconds worth of a 19 and a half hour countdown for Steam's Next Fest, an event showcasing upcoming games on the platform. The countdown was not resumed, nor was the video deleted, resulting in the stream's comments being flooded with praise for nonexistent announcements.
- The Steam Deck is the Nintendo Switch ProExplanationSome fans of Nintendo's console-handheld hybrid hope for it to get a Product Facelift in line with the Nintendo DSi or New Nintendo 3DS, which five years into the system's life still hasn't happened, only the Switch Lite and Switch OLED which only has minor upgrades to the Switch's hardware. The Steam Deck resembles the Nintendo Switch while having stronger hardware, and it's even possible to emulate Switch games on it, causing jokes about it being the long-awaited Switch Pro.
- What if you wanted *update to your favorite Valve game* but Valve said: "Dota Dota CS:GO."ExplanationA joke used among disgruntled fans about the lion share of support Dota gets in comparison to their other games these days. The only other game that gets as much support from Valve anymore is CS:GO, and even that can get brushed to the wayside at times.
