RUMOR MILL: Google NOT Looking to Buy Valve
- Scribbled on September 18th, 2008 by Derrick Schommer
- Filed in Industry News, Rumor Mill
Yesterday, a rumor started which said Google was looking to purchase Valve Software, the makers of Half-Life, Team Fortress and, of course, Portal. While Valve Software boasts a 20-million unit sales on their archive of awesome games, what interest would Google have in gaming?
Google’s own corporate mission statement intones, “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” How would gaming fit into the dynamic of organizing the worlds information?
Some have said they’d be interested in Valve’s Steam system for distributing games and products. That seems far fetched considering all the CDN solutions on the Net, especially those focused towards media related projects like Liberated Syndication (Wizard Media), which we use to host our Gaming Podcast, or other video solutions which would fit more into the Google playing field (considering the large purchase of YouTube.)
Today, Doug Lombardi of Valve, publicly announced that Valve Software is willing to be purchased, but stated the Google rumor was “a bit of fiction.” (Kotaku) While Valve Software has shown they can make awesome titles with stability and dedication, knowing they’re open to being purchased is slightly disturbing.
I’m always happy for those “little guys” that make it in the big world of cut-throat game development; there is some satisfaction knowing the smaller developers are making big waves against publishers like EA and Activision. (Doesn’t Electronic Arts publish Valve’s games? - Jonah Falcon) Valve has changed the way we download games electronically and continues to expand their dominion; if Valve Software was purchased by a bigger company, would we still get the same quality and innovation from the developers?
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