Ray Ueno of Valve Corporation recently shared a nice anecdote with a Reddit user about the game developer's trademark splash screen. Anyone who's played one of Valve's many excellent titles knows what I'm talking about. Under the western drone of the opening notes of the Half Life 2 soundtrack, a photomanipulated image of the back of a bald man's head with a red valve embedded in it flashes up. It's weird, great and by now iconic.

Ueno claims that Valve had to search pretty hard for the model used in the image. Most casting agencies will only send along traditionally attractive models. Valve's requests for "normal" looking people were repeatedly ignored as they were instead fed a steady line of absurdly hot dudes. They finally insisted that the agency to go out into the streets of Seattle and just pull people off the street. That's how they came to find the big, bald Valve-head whose skull is now synonymous with some of the finest games ever created. 

I thought the anecdote made for a nice metaphor as to why Valve is one of my favorite gaming distributors. Their investment in interesting people, people outside of the mainstream, permeates their games. Many heroes fighting aliens en masse have the physique of steroid-inflated bodybuilders, but Gordan Freeman relies on his science smarts--as well as a mean aim, thanks to the player--to defend the earth. He's a bearded, bespectacled physicist, very much unlike the muscled soldiers you steer in most other shooters. He also has the most character out of any silent protagonist I've played. Now it just feels cheap when games attempt to "flesh out" their main characters by having them speak for you. 
Valve's games also seem to feature a higher rate of characters outside of the "typical" demographic. Granted, their most iconic protagonists are still white dudes, but in a medium that's predominantly whitewashed, they seem to have tried to include characters of color in their games. We've got Alyx and Eli Vance, as well as half the character options in the second Left 4 Dead, making up an awesome roster. They're all great, developed characters; Alyx and Eli in particular are some of my favorites out of everything I've played. 

Valve also avoids the typical reductionist portrayal of women as little more than vehicles for breasts. Alyx is an utter badass; without her, Mr. Freeman would never have survived as long as he did. She also looks like a real woman; her body type is not exaggerated, and while she's attractive, she's not presented as a sex object. I'm also a big fan of Zoe and Rochelle from the Left 4 Dead series. Both ladies hold their own in the man-dominated games, spouting intelligent and humorous dialogue while they kill all of the zombies in the world. And Portal, one of Valve's most popular releases and among the highest rated games ever, actually features no male characters at all. Fantastic game and not a single dude. Look, industry, it can be done! One could argue that it also features no human characters, but still: at least they're lady robots. 

Again, it's not as though Valve is releasing tons of games with distinct minority protagonists. My praise is of a relative nature with regard to the social weight of their company. But they have made some of the best games of the past decade, and there my praise is unqualified. I still consider The Orange Box to be one of the most worthwhile purchases you can make for the Xbox 360. And I greatly admire the company's commitment to character development as the core of their games. The Valve universe is full of eccentrics and weirdos with genuine depth.