Studio would more likely disintegrate than be sold, says Gabe Newell
Publishing giant EA held discussions with Valve to acquire the company for upwards of $1billion, according to sources close to the matter.
Two people “with knowledge of the discussions” told the New York Times that the Half-Life and Portal developer had been pursued by Electronic Arts for a number of years, although talks never progressed far enough to offer an exact figure.
The sources only spoke on condition of anonymity as discussions over a potential sale took place privately.
Despite the alleged talks of a sale to EA, Valve CEO Gabe Newell said that there was more chance that the 300-strong studio would “disintegrate” than be sold, and was keen to keep its well-documented flat and independent structure.
“It’s way more likely we would head in that direction than say, ‘Let’s find some giant company that wants to cash us out and wait two or three years to have our employment agreements terminate,’” he said.
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Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter has estimated that Valve could currently be worth more than $2.5bn, more than twice as much as the potential acquisition offer.
Whilst EA seemingly failed to buy one of the world’s most popular and most successful studios, the publishing giant has been on an acquisition spree over the past few years, purchasing companies such as Playfish, Firemint and PopCap, the latter of which alone cost $750million.
Thank you Gabe for not selling out. Your exactly right!!! I hope I can work for you one day.
FU EA. What a failed attempt at putting your compitetors out of business.
Take over valve and then the company / program goes to complete garbage
Just when I thought it was impossible to dislike EA more than I already do.
I don't really want to see monthly installments of Half-life "exclusively" on Origin.
Nor do I want to see another company driven into the ground by EA.
This needs to stop.
EA please leave.
Waita stick it to em Valve!
I swear if EA ever purchased Valve I would quit video games all together.
You want it to stop? Everyone stop buying their stuff.
Also if Vavle wasn't a leader they would have jumped on that money, like other companies.
Its all about the money!
NO JUST NO! 1 billion is an insult to valve! I hate EA!!!! VALVE FOREVER!
As we know it, pc gaming would be dead if this happened.
Seriously EA?
Seriously?
All you guys do is buy, destroy, repeat. You need to notice you can't just buy the competition and fuck them over you have to make products people actually want. I mean god forbid you add local multiplayer to any of your new games such as Battlefield 3 or even some of the older games. This would mean some soul out there would be playing one of your games and enjoying it with a friend . . . FOR FREe!?!?!?!
I mean really, you guys are the worst example of game producers these days. Back in the day you used to make the best game around and everyone loved them except now it's just about being the only game producers ever and having all the industry bow to your feet. Valve is not going to sell out to you because THEY DON'T LIKE YOU OR THE WAY YOU WORK.
Ea - Wins by making others forfeit.
Company of the year 2012
(Feel free to spam Ea's emails with this.)
Even if valve can't count to 3 they are still better than EA
After how EA treated Bioware no one should want to sell to them. You go Valve you are too great for EA!
Wow, Really EA is ready to ruin another set of game titles.
Just a warning before you leave a comment, it's fine having an opinion either way on this story, but any comments that contain swearing and aren't particularly constructive will be deleted.
Am I the only one picturing EA getting all flustered and spluttering "it's not like we wanted to buy you anyway, b-baka!"?
GREEDY BASTARDS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BOYCOTT EA !!!!
BOYCOTT EA !!!!
BOYCOTT EA !!!!
BOYCOTT EA !!!!
BOYCOTT EA !!!!
BOYCOTT EA !!!!
BOYCOTT EA !!!!
BOYCOTT EA !!!!
BOYCOTT EA !!!!
BOYCOTT EA !!!!
Well said. BOYCOTT EA!!! And Boycott PopCap too while you're at it. Sell out scumbags. They've just fired most of their staff after selling everyone out to EA. They've also fired the only people capable of making any new games in PopCap. Good luck milking any more money out of those tired old games like Peggle and Bejewelled you dumb EA clowns.
I thought EA was bankrupt? I read in many papers that EA is under hard economic pressure.
EA only buys the competition so that it can get rid of them after a year. look what happened to PopCap. EA is like Oracle in that way - they can't innovate anymore so they buy great companies and dismantle them. Valve has consistently done well, whereas Origin.com cannot fnd its footing in the market. EA is all slash and burn whose "new" direction is not working.
