Valve: PC Gaming is where all the action is

Gabe Newell

We’ve had all sorts of articles going on lately about how PC gaming is “dying”. Valve doesn’t think so. At a press event in Bellevue, Washington, Valve held steadfastly to their love of the PC and declared it as a robust and relevant gaming system. Gabe Newell went so far as to say that “[the] PC is where all the action is, and there’s a perception problem”.

It seems that Valve is placing emphasis on Steam and other online software distribution methods, and with good reason. Citing figures, Newell said that DFC Intelligence data showing that PC online sales have been on an increase since 2001, while retail sales comparatively flat. Valve also expects online sales to overtake retail very soon.

An interesting statement he makes is,

“We don’t really have a champion of the PC platform. If you write a story about the Xbox 360, there’s just an army of people who are going to descend on you to make that picture look as polished and rosy as possible. Same things for the other consoles – but there’s no equivalent on the PC, and the people who are traditionally driving these messages, like Microsoft or Intel or Apple are, for various reasons, not very effective champions.”

As we say from Valve’s latest announcement of Steam Cloud, Valve has been pretty aggressive on establishing the PC as the best video game platform out there. It’s time they got some support!