A message from Gabe Newell

If you read the news section of Steam or follow Valve on Facebook, you may have already come across this. It's an update from Gabe about the database hack a few months back and this is what he said:

"Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users:

We continue our investigation of last year's intrusion with the help of outside security experts. In my last note about this, I described how intruders had accessed our Steam database but we found no evidence that the intruders took information from that database. That is still the case.

Recently we learned that it is probable that the intruders obtained a copy of a backup file with information about Steam transactions between 2004 and 2008. This backup file contained user names, email addresses, encrypted billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. It did not include Steam passwords.

We do not have any evidence that the encrypted credit card numbers or billing addresses have been compromised. However as I said in November it's a good idea to watch your credit card activity and statements. And of course keeping Steam Guard on is a good idea as well.

We are still investigating and working with law enforcement authorities. Some state laws require a more formal notice of this incident so some of you will get that notice, but we wanted to update everyone with this new information now.

Gabe"

Steam Mobile App

Valve are branching out to mobile phones and have a Steam app for iOS and Android. You will be able to connect with friends and see what they are up to and even chat to them. You will also be able to shop and browse the Steam store. There is no word if any games will be available through this at the moment, but being Steam I'm guessing it's just a matter of time. There are plenty of little indie games on Steam that would be suitable as phone games. The app is currently in closed beta form. But Valve will be sending out more invites as the it's popularity grows.

Gabe Newell has commented on the app saying:
“Seeing which of your friends are online and playing a game, sending quick messages, looking at screenshots for an upcoming game, or catching a sale – these are all features customers have requested. Mobile is changing way people interact, play games and consume media, and the Steam app is part of our commitment to meet customer demands and expand the service functionality of Steam to make it richer and more accessible for everyone.”

By that he really means is "We can now rape you wallets on the go. Where ever you are, you can not hide. We will find you and we will take you money. Here at Valve have come up with the most genius evil scheme which is to bankrupt the world little by little and slowly but surely we are doing it."

Gabe Newell Trolling

It's simple as the title suggests really. A certain Mr Newell is playing with knives in the office. You know every day work stuff. But wait what is that lurking in the background. It's a monitor with the words Half-Life 3 scrawled on it. Is it real? Is it fake? Is it photo shopped? (which I guess would fall under the fake category but nevermind.) They always are working on their arsonal. After Dota and the new Counter Strike I don't think they have anything else on the table. My guess is Half-Life 2 Episode 3, a few hours in to wet your whistle followed shortly by Half-Life 3 a month or two later, with what I'm guessing will be a majorly updated Source engine. Whether they choose to rename it as they did between Half-Life 1 and 2, who knows. As for time line, I'm going to guess next year at the earliest. They have DotA and CS:GO to tweak and play with throughout this year.

Gabe Newell on video game economics.

The mighty Gaben has sat down recently and spoke about 'how Valve experiments with the economics of video games'. There is a full article about it on geekwire here it is quite an interesting read. He talks about about piracy stating;

"The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates. For example, Russia. You say, oh, we’re going to enter Russia, people say, you’re doomed, they’ll pirate everything in Russia. Russia now outside of Germany is our largest continental European market."

At the end of the day piracy isn't going anywhere and excessive DRM doesn't really stop it, if pirates want to crack a game they will getting round the likes of Ubisofts always online DRM for example, leaving pirates with a nice offline version of whatever game they happened to cracked, while genuine punters that may happen to have an unreliable internet connection can't play the game they paid for, which is generally why people dislike Ubisofts DRM. Anyway I don't want to get in to a full blown rant about that so I'll stop before I do. I must admit because of Valve and Steam I have bought a hell of a lot more games than I normally would have purely due to constant deals on games, games that I may or may not would have pirated if it wasn't for that, I mean I don't pirate games that's illegal. Shhh... Nothing to see here, move along people.

Anyway go read the article linked above.

The Gaben Speaks

So Valve make an appearence at Gamescon with there million dollar DOTA2 tournament. While there still seems no news about the where abouts of Mr Freeman. They still have alot going on, with a new Counter Strike on the way Dota 2 pretty much ready for release and there battle with EA, and the whole Origin matter.  Anyway this post is more just to put up the video of Gabe Newell's interview with the guys at CVG.