We asked Valve to comment on the rumour, and received a succinct reply:
“Which is all it is… a rumor.”
Can it really be true that Google are about to buy Valve? So goes the rumour that’s currently setting the internet alight. A rumour we look on with dubiously raised eyebrows and possible scorn. Yeah, right. Very happy to be proved wrong. But we’ll see.
The Inquirer cite “well placed sources”, who say the purchase will happen any moment now. All other stories link back to that one. The Inquirer seems pretty confident, but then also pretty vague. But it does sound like a special kind of nonsense. Never mind that it’s a little early in the morning US time for a deal to be happening. It’s currently 4.30am in Seattle, where both companies reside.
Last year we had the following exchange with Valve boss/owner Gabe Newell:
RPS: I have a friend (an idiot) who is determined that in six months Valve will be owned by either Microsoft or EA…
Gabe: Tell him that I’m not interested in buying either one of them.
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Seems unlikely plus Valve are bit pro-Microsoft, founded by ex-MS folk, there (in-house) games are for Microsoft platforms and they have dissed competing platforms publicly (Sony,Apple).
Valve would be useful to Google only for the purpose of the pre-established steam marketplace plus the contacts and more importantly the contracts they have in place.
But does Google really think they can grow steam to be a major/global marketplace, I dunno seems a little too ambitious. Google by no means has a golden touch lots of little side projects of theirs have failed.
Sam – PS3 games don’t use OpenGL (they can but no-one does) they use a custom API so even the PS3 Orange Box isnt OpenGL.
that’s not what he said he said source games use directx except on the ps3, that’s not the same as saying it uses open gl
@The Sombrero Kid: please, please use some punctuation. Your paragraph of dense text above was almost impossible to read.
As others have mentioned, the only Valve property in which Google (currently) would have an interest in is Steam. There are already adverts for the sponsors of the distribution servers. I could see couple more ads there.
However that kind of thing would lend itself more to a “deal” rather that an buyout!
And, indeed, the effort spend on programming to the custom API for PS3 was presumably comparable to the effort you’d need to port to OpenGL, if you wanted to support a wider range of non-Microsoft platforms.
I suspect, though, that they’d just package it with Cyder, like EA seem to be doing nowadays, if they ever wanted to make Apple (Orange) Box, for example.
I have to say, Steam and Google are an interesting fit.
Right now, Google are the world leaders in distributed computing and data storage. Their in-house tech for this kind of stuff is amazing, and their expertise in things like data centres is unparalleled.
On that score, the best bet for growing out Steam in a really major way the fastest way possible is to tie up with Google.
Although, to be honest I can’t see Valve selling out wholesale – something like spinning out Steam as a Valve-Google joint venture is much more likely. IMHO.
@Stuk
sorry I’m at work and my boss sits behind me, lol, so sometimes I don’t get the time to proof read my terrible spelling and punctuation before I post.
ohh and acording to eurogamer google says it’s speculation, but they’d probably say that either way.
Oh, Inquirer. What calamitous mischief will you get up to next! Who knows!
In a way, I’m sad that it’s not true. I think this would be A Great Thing for gaming, if for no other reason than Steam can be guaranteed funding for at least another half century. I don’t want my stockpile of games to disappear. But I doubt it is. Google are quite forward thinking, but heading into entertainment would be a little left field for them, surely?
This doesn’t make any sense, but is expected:
For every popular company there is a rumour that Google will buy it.
But Google peddles ads. That’s their business. It wouldn’t make any sense to buy Valve.
It would make more sense to partner with Valve to bring ads to Steam, or to buy a company that positions ads in games like Massive Inc.
@Mike
well they are doing that, according to the eurogamer article, it sounds more like they’re trying a steam competitor, an ‘online world’ called Lively.
No!!!!!!!!!!!! This now means that Valve would become part of a publicly traded company, which is exactly what F’d up EA, 2K , and all the rest. The great thing about STEAM/Valve is that they don’t have to answer to shareholders or CEO’s(Parent Board Members). I wonder if this is going to affect the EULA’s for our downloads at STEAM, you know, being able to download as many times and wherever we want. That’s the sort of thing that others frown upon. I just hope Google knows why STEAM works, especially over retail. I’m not sure how much of a hands-off approach Google will have on them. Google scares me a bit, but if it had to be someone, and open source friendly company like Google is going to have to suffice…
I find it hard to give much credence to this rumour. How many users are there on Steam that would register as even a blip against their (Google’s) search customers?
EDIT: about a million according to steam, so like I said.
Valve is privately owned by Gabe Newell, there’s no way Google or anyone in the world can do a hostile takeover on them, if Valve ever gets bought by anyone, it will be a personal decision by Gabe himself, and i doubt he hasn’t rejected hundred million dollar offers several times by now simply because of Steam alone, so unless this “well placed sources” are the voices on Mr. Newell’s head they’re pretty much thin air.
@Shawn
I don’t think we have to worry about Google forcing changes on a purchased company to increase market value, just look at YouTube!
@Nahual
the staff all have share options, him and doug lombardi own the lions share though as far as i can tell.
@JonFitt
It makes sense because Steam is a veritable mine of information. Google would be able to better understand the online habits and psychology of gamers, which will allow them to price and target their advertising accordingly.
@Sam and The Sombrero Kid:
Valve already said they plan on dropping the IE embeds in Steam for a different rendering engine as soon as it is practical. They said the IE hooks are far too limiting.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=723466
@yutt: So we can drop the IE hooks for Chrome scripts? That’s an upgrade in my eyes
lol they don’t hook ie
To Valve: Just because it’s a rumour doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
@ The Sombrero Kid
Lively isn’t really a game, and it’s certainly nothing close to Steam as a digital distribution platform. Lively comes close to Second Life, and that’s as near as it gets to online gaming, but in reality Lively is an attempt to make social interaction like IM more visual.
Interesting that people are quoting Google’s remit as ads-only. Their mission statement is actually about information access and organisation. To me, Steam is all about archiving every game every made in a single, unified platform. Sounds right up Google’s street.
@ Mike
their GDC announcement says it’s also a distro platform
They want video on there as well I believe. At least, I’m sure I’ve heard them mention something to that effect.
So does Valve’s response mean we can all point and laugh at Charlie Demerjian and his “well placed sources”?
:D
It’s never going to be distro on the same level as Steam, though, is it? Because of the divide between utility and game, which the two sides represent. Plus, Google’s market is a subset of Steam’s.
I dunno. It just seems very dissimilar, is what I’m saying. Lively is a much more different venture, more comparable to PlayStation Home. Steam should, if it goes anywhere, become an OS.
Which, the more we think about and joke about it, the more sensible an idea it becomes.
Google is based in Mountain View, California, not Seattle, Washington. Same time zone though. Carry on.
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/09/17/valve-on-rumors-of-google-buy-out/
@Monkfish
That’s probably an overestimation of the usefulness of knowing how much time you spend playing Peggle.
The system specs results could be useful, but only really for game developers or hardware manufacturers.
They know a heck of a lot more about people’s gaming interest from their own Google searches.
Don’t you think that buying a game developer is an expensive way of finding out a small amount of information? They could just buy the information.
Anyone who eventually manages to buy out Gabe and Doug will have to pay huge amount of money based on Valves potential earnings for them, and won’t immediately make a profit.
Anyone who does this would have to be primarily interested in making games and or (depending on if which arm of the company you bought) being an online games publisher.
Google has shown no interest in being either of those.
@The Sombrero Kid
Yes… they do hook IE. Did you even bother looking at the link I provided before making such a blatantly uninformed comment? In it you can read John McCaskey (one of the Steam developers) say the following;
“Steam won’t always use IE, because the IE embedding API is very limiting and prevents us from having a browser that does everything we want it to in-game and in-overlay.
We’ve looked at lots of other options and webkit is one of them. We’ll probably replace IE with a different browser where we have full access to the source and can make more customizations ourselves in the future.”
@Mike
“Interesting that people are quoting Google’s remit as ads-only. Their mission statement is actually about information access and organisation.”
But for the sole business purpose of giving people a useful program/service with content scraped from the web, or provided by someone else, and then making sure that they are advertised to relevantly.
“As a business, Google generates revenue by providing advertisers with the opportunity to deliver measurable, cost-effective online advertising that is relevant to the information displayed on any given page.”
Not by negotiating publishing deals and selling games. It would make much more sense to maybe partner with Steam to deliver AdSense ads relevant to the games you own or are viewing.
@JonFitt
There’s more than 700 games by 15 publishers currently available through Steam and over 13 million Steam accounts out there. There’s a pretty tasty ready meal of information to be had that Google couldn’t get through their own search services. Besides, Google wouldn’t buy this kind of information – they’d much rather be in a position where they can sell it to others.
Have a quick read of the Guardian article I linked to a bit further up – you’ll see they’ve already shown interest in the habits of gamers and patented ideas about how they could integrate context-sensitive advertising into games. Steam/Steamworks would be the perfect platform to build this kind of stuff into games in the future.
I can’t see an Ouroboros Scenario stemming from this, as much as I’d like to. I’m all for trans-corps sucking each other from the inside out with monetary probosci, slurping each other up like so many fiscal-flavoured milkshakes as they expeditiously thrust themselves towards the ever inevitable presence of industrial entropy (I’m having fun with this!) … but I don’t see that happening here.
I’m more inclined to agree with the theory that they’re throwing together some form of mutual Buddy-Buddy system. Google would benefit by being able to offer Funding & Services to Valve in exchange for Format Support. In other words; “We gives ya fat pipes and monies’n youse makes yer games compatible with our stuff. Capiche?” They’d both have a lot to benefit from this, of course. What would you and I have to benefit from this? Faster Steam downloads for the Everyman, and possibly more games for the Nix-heads amongst us who really dislike having to dual-boot.
All in all, that could work out well. Or it could all go circular. Either way, I’ll either get faster downloads or something entertaining to watch.
(Edit: Thank you editing system for saving me from my typos.)
@JonFitt
I see what you mean – certainly, from a financial perspective that would be good sense from them. But I see, in thirty years say, Google literally being a gigantic archive for Things. I know you say that this archiving leads to advertising, but I sort of see it the other way around – the advertising FUNDS the archiving. Maps, for instance, is really public service first, and revenue generator second.
So yeah, I’d see a Google Steam project as a fresh start, and a real archive-scraping exercise of putting entire platforms, emulated, available online. But this is… ahm… I mean, we may have got a little carried away.
How ’bout that Starcraft 2?
this is some very tasty dialogue from you all. It’s always entertaining hearing from Europeans, always elegant and very intellectual sounding…many good points all around
Sombrero kid wins.
Inquirer make a ludicrous accusation.
Accusation is so out of the blue they are sole source of info.
Accusation is carefully prepared to ensure there’s just enough plausibility for it to get the clicks.
Inquirer gets lots of page hits and generates a good chunk of ad revenue.
Rumour is shown up to be complete bullcrap.
Inquirer refuse to reveal sources but assure its readers they were thought to be genuine.
Inquirer counts dosh and plans its next gimmick for click harvesting.
Lots of people on the Internet are slightly dumbfounded.
A small percentage cotton onto the fact that media news stories aren’t always what they seem to be.
A smaller percentage remember that lesson in History class about first-hand and second-hand sources and their reliability.
A religious cult in sleepy town North America convinces a 100 followers that incest breeds stronger babies, and the balance is restored.
Steam is a very attractive Digital Distribution platform, and certainly a superior model to public favourite Itunes, because it allows you to re download content you’ve paid for. Even with Dougs denial I could understand Google having an interest and given some of the talk Gabe has made recently about extending Steam into application distribution I can understand that Valve might be interested in such a partnership.
Partnership, perhaps. Out-right sale? Why?
Unless Gabe and Co. want more money, I don’t see the benefit of selling to a publicly-traded conglomerate. Privately-held companies have significant competitive advantages and freedom from shareholders who only care about next quarter’s results. Can you imagine how the stock market would react to “Valve time”?
@RichPowers
Google don’t exactly have to chase for profits, a lot of stuff they buy up they just give away for free (Google Earth, Docs, Picasa & sketchup were all acquisitions). However I think their interest in Valve would be purely in acquiring Steam rather than taking over the gaming operation and it’s day to day management.
If you consider a version of Steam as a system that manages ‘applications’ rather than ‘games’ it does become an attractive proposition. Firstly you can keep a handle on user Hardware, secondly it keeps users applications up to date, thirdly it can be used as a central conduit for a user to push/pull personal data/documentation too and from the cloud. Offline google docs that are automatically distributed to all collaborators as well as real time notice of changes, coupled with easy to use voice com. Bung in a couple of interactive screen apps and you’ve something to worry Mr Jobs as well as Mr Gates.
All speculation, but speculation can be fun.
Haha – who thinks of this crap!?
Google’s mission and business model are completely orthogonal to Steam’s at this point.
Steam is a method of selling software from the cloud and installing it on PCs. Google’s whole deal is moving away from that and running everything in the cloud driven by ad sales.
Also, unless Google is intending on creating some 3D application through the browser or enhancing the Google Earth interface somehow (buying one of the best game development shops in the world would be a little overkill) they have no reason to do this.
Malarkey of the first order.
Well if Google did buy Valve that would pretty much assure EA would never ever touch em. I wonder if any of the new generation of gamers even knows why we older gamers hate EA….
@scopie
We are a long long way away from being able to work purely in the cloud. Maybe if all you do is write text, but if your doing anything else forget it. Upload/download speeds are mare and very few businesses are ever going to jump into the cloud with both feet because of practicalities. The Cloud is a consumer space, not a commercial space. The opportunity and ability to generate advertising money is still there. A steam acquisition would allow them to complement their online activities with centralised offline models, which would be no bad thing esp when it comes to expanding markets.
Right now when I start up my computer I’ve probably maybe 20 separate applications that are capable of looking for updates of one kind or another, some try automatically, some require me to authorise them. All of them want to use up my machines memory. Personally if I had one central background application that manages all of that garbage and used less memory doing so, I’d be a much happier man. An apps based version of Steam could easily fulfill that role.
@Crispy
You forgot two crucial steps:
???
Profit!!!
(seriously though, awesome post)
Scopie said:
Steam’s much more than just a digital distribution platform. Games are played through Steam. Achievements and stats are recorded by Steam. Multiplayer games servers are talking to Steam. People chat with each other through Steam. Steam is now very much a community and that’s something that’s of great interest to advertisers. Just ask Facebook.
The idea of a Steam OS is the one thing that gives me hope for PC gaming; since neither Apple nor Microsoft seem to be interested in games, the space is there for Valve to step in.
Valve, wielding Steam, have the necessary clout to make ASUS, Gigabyte, nVidia, ATi and the rest write proper drivers for Linux, and then they just have to port Steamworks and the Source engine over and I would already be dual-booting. Your OS would be able to tell you whether or not your rig could run any game, no messing around; with only a stripped-down ultrafast Linux kernel running, you could use lower system specs; and with matchmaking, netcode, voice chat, friends, and clan support at the OS level, PC gamers could finally have the uniformity of quality that systems like Xbox Live have offered for years.
Valve could do this by themselves. Google could do this by themselves, but they’d make it ad-supported and suitable for home leisure use and all the rest. A buyout, or a partnership, would only spread out the focus and risk making it less perfect.
@Dr_demento
Valve have a staff of about 160 people most of whom are games orientated, not OS developers (save the Gabus himself). The idea that they alone could write an entire OS that challenged MS, and one that every software developer would readily write applications for is a tad optimistic, esp given ‘Valve Time’ on delivery issues. Google with thousands of websavvy software engineers and innumerable billions in the bank writing an OS is more likely.
About half of Valve’s employees are dedicated to working on Steam.
http://steamreview.org/posts/75staff/
@Alex
All the more reason to offload it onto someone else with a ready supply of engineers and a blue sky budget (though that figure seems based on conjecture rather than actual stated fact from reading the article).
The Inquirer sucks as a source of information, and should be largely ignored.
Dr_Demento, I shudder at that vision of an OS that is unable to run if it was downloading an update when you went offline.
I really think they should just start coding for multiple platforms, not just DirectX based systems.
@yutt they use an API to embed IE, they use a hook to force the game exe to run their version of direct x functions which add overlay functionality, these are VERY different things, they don’t hook IE.