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Inquirer: Google to buy Valve, Valve denies [update]

by Justin McElroy on Sep 17th 2008 8:15AM

There's nothing in the way of official confirmation at the moment, but tech website The Inquirer reports that "well-placed sources" are telling it that Google will be purchasing Valve "any second now." As the site points out, Google is likely less motivated by Valve's game development than its nigh-ubiquitous content distribution platform, Steam.

We, again, have no idea if this is on the money, but there have been a couple of indicators that lend a sort of credence. You may remember early last month when Valve said it was happy to talk about acquisitions, and just a little over a week ago Forbes' Chris Morris posited that Google could be going into game publishing.

We'll keep you posted.

Update: Valve tells MTV that the story is a "complete fabrication."

[Thanks, Stephen]

Source

Tags: breakingnews, google, PC, steam, valve

Reader Comments (83)

Uh oh, this could be a sign of the apocalypse. Google is buying it all. I just hope that if they take it over that Valve's game quality will now suffer. At the moment their record is oustanding.

I hope Valve's game quality suffers later, but to each his own.

Well if google took over valve, there wouldn't be any major change. Look at youtube, you can barely tell that it's owned by google... nothing has changed.

If anything this is just more money for valve to make even better, bigger games.

It has only gotten better. I love that auto-complete thing.

I for one, welcome our new Google overlords.

Did I say overlords? I mean protectors!

The only thing that comes to mind is confusion.

Now Steam powered by Google!

Steam is the only execution of DRM which I am really (barely though) willing to accept. It allows unlimited installs off my games and they can easily be ported to other computers even without the disc. It allows me to make legal backups and even let my friends play using my account. I hope Google doesn't want to ruin Steam.

expect a steam BETA to happen for yearssss

I was in the original Steam beta for years, from when it just updated HL1 and did nothing else at all.

Google being a rich company... I think there's a good possibility this deal will benefit us. There are some games that Valve still continues to sell but does not provide bug support.

Maybe with Google's acquisition, they'll fix the bugs. I'm sick of dealing with Valve's bug/tech support. They ignore my inquiries altogether hoping I'll give up and leave them alone. :(

Google are awesome. I think they'd let Valve carry on as they are and use Steam for their own reasons... I dunno how or why exactly.

I'm sure they won't stop Valve from being Valve though.

Google's first step inot the world of gaming :) Impressive ^^

However, mewonders, will this be a good or bad thing? Time will only tell. They seem to have no interest in gaming, so at least we know that side will be handled by the people that know best, but steam....

Hopefuly we will get easier access to DLC and Google will ensure more multiplatform titles rather then the silly 'I don't want to make games for PS3' attitude.

I dunno about anybody else, but I smell bullshit.

Half-Life 1 reissued in web-browser format? (As per iD Software new Quake-Live)

If Google had any reason to buy Valve is to get the rights to the Combine uniforms for their future world domination Army. Pardon, GoogleGov.

Well, there goes my Steam account. I already have way too much of my life controlled by Google.

Sweet Jesus I hope Google puts those shysters out of business once and for all.

Did Gabe Newell piss on your chips?

Google is the Skynet!!! Take care with Terminators!!!

I don't really see how this could be a bad thing, but it just sounds kind of weird.

God lawd noooo please do no sell to GOOGLE! I would rather see someone in the gaming industry buy it...

I am getting real a afraid off GOOGLE!

This makes sense. They'll probably use it to build a digital distribution store for Android apps to compete with the app store in iTunes.

bingo, not only that, Google wants to own the DD channels. I just really hope they don't place further restrictive DRM polices on STEAM games. That's my biggest fear.

While I would hate to see an amazing dev like Valve bought out - the possibilities with Google are huge. Rival to EA anyone?

I wonder if something like this would have an impact on Valve's bias toward the 360. I mean, if Google would try to steer them toward the PS3, or at least to treat the two equally.

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet

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 don't trust Google....

This can only end in tears. T_T

Calm down, people. This is The Inquirer. They're only right something like 25% of the time. This would be a completely unreasonable buy.

I still trust Google. Certainly they've escaped the "Corporate innocence" phase, and are well into their aggressive era, but they haven't entered the "Corporate Evil" phase yet

Please god no.

ok i might be alittle late and this might not have alot 2 do with this but youtube sucks since bein takin over

Previous 50 Comments

Breaking News

Inquirer: Google to buy Valve, Valve denies [update]

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Posted: Sep 17th 2008 9:02AM (Unverified) said

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