Valve’s Gabe Newell Unconcerned About Industry Consolidation

Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve, has recently been speaking with Rock Paper Shotgun for the launch of Valve’s Steam Deck this week. According to it, Newell was ”more on the skeptical side” of what value consolidation brings, stating that these unions need to be creating more value for customers and developers alike.

“If you aren’t doing something like that, then those sorts of acquisitions and consolidations don’t end up positively,” Newell said. “And if you do do it, then you know, good, you’re making the gaming market better.”

He also stated that he doesn’t see any evidence that people are pushing towards more closed platforms, and he also doesn’t believe that ”the PC industry will tolerate it,” he also doesn’t expect consolidation to lead to games not being available on the Steam Deck.

“People like the PC and in spite of lots of people preferring other outcomes, PC gaming continues to improve year after year after year, the relative growth versus other closed and proprietary platforms continues to get better.“

On top of this, Newell was asked about Valve‘s stance on Blockchain technology and NFTs, which Valve does not allow on Steam as of this moment. Blockchain technology, more specifically, the idea of the ownership of digital items, us interesting, Newell says.

“The people in the space, though, tend to be involved in a lot of criminal activity and a lot of sketchy behaviours,” Newell said, adding, “With the actors that are currently in this NFT space, they’re just not people you really are wanting to be doing business with. That doesn’t say anything about the underlying technology, it’s just a reflection of the people right now who are viewing it as an opportunity to rip customers off, or engage in money laundering, or other things like that.”

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