ShackNews is reporting an interview with Gabe Newell at GameDaily. It doesn’t contain a whole lot of new Half-Life 2 info, but it’s still pretty interesting. Here’s a taste:

GameDaily began by asking Newell how the company managed to keep such a tight lid on the development and unveiling plans of Half-Life 2. Leaks were all but sealed shut until a few weeks before this year's E3Expo, when advance scans of future magazine covers featuring the game made their way on to the Internet.

"The announcement was handled by a small group of people, which made it a lot easier to keep it quiet. The development team itself was pretty highly motivated to keep leaks to a minimum since they wanted to have as much time to perfect the game as possible, " answered Newell, adding, "Doug Lombardi (Valve's director of marketing) was responsible for the overall launch and marketing plan. By concentrating the launch activities in a narrow window, it put a lot of stress on those involved, but both the fans and the development team seemed to respond well to it."