Valve Questions Microsoft's PC Gaming Commitment

GamesIndustry.biz is reporting on comments from an interview they conducted with Doug Lombardi, marketing manager at Valve Studios. Lombardi criticized Microsoft's recent commitment to PC gaming in the form of the 'Games for Windows' initiative, which we've previously discussed here on the site. In Lombardi's view, this new push for games on the PC platform is nothing more than an extended advertising scheme to sell the Vista OS. "'Sony and Microsoft both have armies of PR people whose job it is to cram that information down the throats of press and analysts every day ... All those people do is say the PC's dying, the console's winning, and nobody on the PC side is championing that platform. And sales data tracks retail, and there's no doubt about it, PC sales at retail are declining ... World of Warcraft is making a whole lot of money outside of the retail channel, we're making a decent bit of cash off Steam, all the casual guys are not tracked - the PopCap games, Bejewelled, all that stuff doesn't show up.'"

Comments

Tell someone who cares, Valve

[petrus4]

HL2 blows compared to the first game; graphics alone don't cut it...you need to put some effort into a few other aspects of game design as well. Before you sold your souls, you apparently understood that. Then you did the usual thing these days and allowed yourselves to be assimilated by corporate middlemen in the form of Vivendi.

I therefore am not interested in hearing your opinions about much of anything...and I consider it hypocrisy that you criticise Microsoft. You've done well enough on the corporate sellout scorecard yourselves in recent years.