Valve: We laugh at PC dying stories

via Computer and Video Games


If you look properly you'll find that PC game sales are even, if not bigger, than all of the next-gen consoles, says Valve's Doug Lombardi, who "laughs" at 'PC is dying' stories.

"We sort of laugh at it," the marketing man told Shack News.

"Because we've been wildly successful--we're very fortunate, you know. Our games have all done really, really well, Steam has taken off and become this whole other business for us, Valve has never been in better shape--and yet everybody is talking about how in the PC world, the sky is falling."

Valve released its first in-house console game last year with The Orange Box, which received rave reviews and no-doubt made the Seattle developers lots and lots of moolah.

"We've been doing this for 10 years now--actually 12 years since the company started, 10 years since the first game came out--and we've never been in better shape, financially or otherwise. The company is over 160 people now--it was 20 people when we shipped Half-Life. We've got multiple projects going--we were always a one-project-at-a-time group."

Alright, so Valve's making some money from PC games then, but what about everybody else? "NPD, god love 'em," continues Lombardi, "they release a US retail sales report, and people take that and say that's the world picture. And it's just not true."