Google poised to buy Valve
p2pnet news view | Advertising:- “Google Content Distribution (Beta) … should make just about every other competitor lose several years of sleep, most of their remaining hair, and large gobs of stock price.”
That’s how Charlie Demerjian sees it in The Inquirer.
He reckons Google will be, “buying Valve any second now” and, “If you have to stop and think about why, you probably are not aware of Steam, Valve’s amazing content distribution platform”. Bar none.
“Steam may have had rough patches here and there, but they are almost all ironed out now, and just about everyone that matters has signed up to use it,” says the story and, “When Google picks them up, it will be a clean kill, no one else will matter.”
Google confirmed it’d, “made its first Korean acquisition, a popular blogging platform called TNC,” and now, “Early last year Google acquired in-game advertising company Adscape Media,” says Search Engine Land, adding:
“In that context a Valve acquisition would make sense; Google would instantly have considerable inventory to roll out. Not so far removed from online gaming, Google also launched virtual world Lively not long ago.
“Like Lively, Valve’s Steam is something of a social network too, with multi-player gaming. And steam is consistent with Google’s ‘cloud computing’ strategy — one can access the games from ‘any PC.’ (Microsoft of course owns the Xbox gaming system and acquired in-game ad platform Massive last year.)”
If Google does acquire the company, “one can see an interesting, more coherent opportunity here,” says the story, “online gaming + virtual worlds + social networking + advertising (targeting selected, desirable demographics)”.
Sung to the tune of When I Rule The World …..
Says Valve:
“Today, Valve is composed of just over 120 of the industry’s best artists, programmers, and writers. In the company’s 10-year history, it has risen from ‘unlikely new entry’ to industry leader, producing a string of best selling and critically acclaimed PC products and technologies.”
The Inquirer - Google to buy Valve, September 17, 2008
blogging platform - Google Googles Korea’s TNC, September 12, 2008
Search Engine Land - PC Games Producer Valve, September 17, 2008
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September 17th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
hmmm….. the inquirer?
September 17th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
I hope Google does buy Valve. Want to know why? Because it would finally shut up the Valve fanboys who think that Valve can do no wrong.
Right now, Valve is regarded as the perfect developer by most gamers. Every game is a good one and they love Steam. But when a game developer is bought out by another company, changes are inevitable. I don’t care how much the larger company promises that they won’t interfere, no CEO can resist tinkering with a new toy. Steam will be re-branded as Google Steam, or probably Google Games. They’ll put pressure on Valve to turn out more games and/or install some of their own execs to oversee things. At least some members of Valve will be unhappy over the changes and will quit to form their own company. Valve will start churning out lackluster games just to have something on the market. Google will cram Steam full of ads and add all sorts of new “features” to it while dumbing it down to match their other “products”.
Then the day will come when some tries to re-install Half-Life II or some other game they’ve “purchased” through Steam and they’ll be greeted with a message that says “Error! Unable to retrieve authentication information!” When they contact Google, they’ll be told that Google no longer supports those outdated games. The gamers will cry “But Valve promised us that they’d remove the DRM if anything like this ever happened!!!” Google will just laugh and say “Valve isn’t running the show any more!”
Maybe then people will learn not to trust in DRM-crippled games.
September 18th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Given that the big G has been making waves with it’s talk of in-game advertising and creating a player-2-player marketplace within Lively, a quick purchase of Valve would kill a few birds with one stone for Google.
Combine that with the Android device, and Mountain View may very well be posed for another full house.