Under different circumstances, Gooseman could have already been retired.
The creator of the cult Counter-Strike, Minh "Gooseman" Le, was hired by Valve in the early 2000s, but after a few years, the developer felt stagnant in his work. He wanted to start a new project, but he couldn't find anything suitable for himself in the company and decided to leave.
In a conversation with EDGE, he shared that he slightly regrets leaving Valve — this deprived the developer of the financial opportunities that his colleagues could have once received:
Many of those with whom I still communicate from Valve, it seems to me, are very wealthy people.
Subsequently, Gooseman created the now-closed shooter Tactical Intervention, worked on Rust and at Pearl Abyss (the studio developer of Black Desert Online), and also made an action game about the police, Alpha Response:
If I had stayed at Valve, I probably could have retired by now. But I chose a different path — a much more difficult one.
But I feel that this path has been much more fruitful for my career, my development, and my growth as a developer and as a person. I saw sides of the gaming industry that I would never have known if I had stayed at Valve.
