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The news includes:
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Yesterday a rumor started which said Google was looking to purchase Valve Software, the makers of Half-Life, Team Fortress and, of course, Portal. While Valve Software boasts a 20-million unit sales on their archive of awesome games, what interest would google have in gaming?
From google’s own corporate mission statement: “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” How would gaming fit into the dynamic of organizing the worlds information?
Some have said they’d be interested in Valve’s Steam system for distributing games and products. That seems far fetched considering all the CDN solutions on the Net, especially those focused towards media related projects like Liberated Syndication (Wizzard Media), which we use to host our gaming podcast, or other video solutions which would fit more into the Google playing field (considering the large purchase of youtube.com)
Today, Doug Lombardi of Valve, pubically said that Valve Software is willing to be purchased but stated the Google rumor was “a bit of fiction.” (kotaku) While Valve Software has shown they can make awesome titles with stability and dedication, knowing their open to being purchased is slightly disturbing.
I’m always happy for those “little guys” that make it in the big world of cut throat game development, there is some satisfaction knowing the smaller developers are making big waves against publishers like EA and Activision. Valve has changed the way we download games electronically and continues to expand their dominion; if Valve Software was purchased by a bigger company, would we still get the same quality and innovation from the developers?
This week, there’s no notes, just talking about the current events, such as Microsoft’s multiplatform strategy and the new games that have come out, especially Foundation, a city-builder in the style of The Settlers.
Let us know what you think.
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This week’s Gaming Podcast is chock full of news and reader feedback. Rather than do a Gaming Flashback, a conversation about the middling sales of the PlayStation Vita is discussed, while Paul is anxiously looking for a black Wii U so he can play Epic Mickey 2. We also hand out the indie game prizes to our two winners.
This week’s news includes:
This week’s Question of the Week: What was the best game you ever played that cost less than $5?
In addition, this is the two days of Kickstarter funding. Help the TD Gaming Podcast with its Kickstarter fundraising.
