I was being sarcastic, those aren't indie hits, they are genre-making, classic games that define multiple generations of gaming. The guy is a massive part of gaming history.

Also not just a writer. You can go find elsewhere in the thread where I link to him breaking down a number of technical issues in the process of migrating Anacrusis from dedicated central servers to the peer-to-peer community edition. I'm not surprised. Not only did he start the studio, but he's a Valve vet, their whole thing is horizontal working.

I'm also not surprised because most designers, producers or creative directors working in an online game like TF2, Portal 2 or Left 4 Dead would be pretty savvy about networking issues, the same way most screenwriters can understand how a movie is shot.