Category Archives: Valve

Valve has announced its free, Portal 2 DLC titled Perpetual Testing Initiative will be available for the PC and Mac on May 8. It allows users to “easily create, share, and play,” Portal 2 puzzles and comes with a simplified puzzle maker which allows users to create content without leaving the game. Users can publish maps to the Steam Workshop where users can “browse, vote on, and select to play them.” Selected puzzles will automatically be downloaded and installed inside Portal 2.

In a much quoted interview with Seven Day Cooldown, Valve’s Gabe Newell said the firm is at an “open hardware platforms” to bring to both the mobile gaming space and living rooms. “We’re looking hard at both the living-room space and the mobile space to try to see if we can create open hardware platforms that the industry can use so we can get out of proprietary traps that we’re headed in both of those,” he said, which would involve “barely out-there hardware design.” While the developer has yet to make a final decision on the design of the hardware he feels the firm will “hopefully” have “something to add there.” Thanks, Develop.

Valve boss Gabe Newell has said a mixture of both “positive” and “negative” surprises has held up development on Ricochet 2. Except anyone with half a brain would know he doesn’t actually mean Ricochet.

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Even wondered what it would be like to work at Valve? Any fan of the developer has at one point or another, and if the new employee handbook is any indication of what it’s like clocking in at the Valve offices everyday, you might wish to apply. Today. According to a poster on the Flamehaus forum, ans email from Valve’s Greg Coomer states the handbook was created as a way to make things “as easy as we could for new people to join the company,” noting it was also fun to “capture these thoughts and put them all in one place.” You can read the PDF here, and while you are perusing, feel free to chuckle at the illustrations therein.

Gabe Newell thinks EA has it’s work cut out with Origin in order to catch up with other digital services such as Steam.

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Valve has said the SDK for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will be released within three months of the game’s initial release.

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Gabe Newell has said Valve plans to provide rewards to Dota 2 players for contributing to the community when serving as “coaches.”

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Gabe Newell has put to bed the one about Apple visiting Valve.

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Valve has been keeping track of various player actions during the Counter Strike: Global Offensive beta, and has incorporated some of its gameplay data into a heat map.

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According to a report by a “Kinect-like video game console” was the reason for Apple CEO Tim Cook’s visit to Valve’s headquarters last week, which might integrate Steam Box project.

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A blog post from Valve’s Michael Abrash details one of his R&D concepts in the works which he describes as “wearable computing.”

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According to a report on Apple Insider, Apple CEO Tim Cook paid a visit to Valve headquarters today in Washington, and suggests he and the firm’s Gabe Newell could be cooking something up. These leads many to speculate numerous reasons for such a visit and what the duo could be discussing, such as the “input, output, and platform hardware” Valve is currently hiring for, maybe even the possibility of Steam integration with AppleTV. Then again, it could have just been a friendly visit. Put your speculation hats on and start guessing. Thanks, Kotaku.

A job posting for an electronics engineer has confirmed Valve is making a significant foray into the world of hardware design and manufacture.

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An email sent out by Valve’s Gabe Newell has shown the company is looking for developers specialised in Linux, according to a specialist on the matter who got the mail.

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The big fish that got away. Valve’s Chet Faliszek speaks to VG247 on the bullet-proof longevity of Counter-Strike and why no concessions were made for the console versions of Global Offensive.

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As handily pointed out by VG247 reader DSB, Warp — a recently released EA-published puzzler — is currently available on Steam with a sizable list of Origin-related restrictions. That, of course, is a bit “Bwaaaah?”-worthy, seeing as EA and Valve spent the better part of last year at each other’s throats over Valve’s “restrictive” terms of service. So then, have the two finally kissed, made up, and sworn to forever be BFFs on Gabe Newell’s beard? No such luck, EA has told VG247.

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More evidence regarding the type of microtransactions included in Dota 2 have surfaced, if file dug up by a beta participant are accurate.

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“Artificial channel” on the part of Microsoft means Xbox Live Arcade is becoming “inhospitable” in regards to other titles coming to the service, Braid and Witness creator Jon Blow has said to Penny Arcade.

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Valve still doesn’t have a release date for the next batch of Left 4 Dead 2 DLC, but it has nearly finished it.

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NECA has confirmed it still intends to release a line of replica guns from Portal, despite worries overnight it had canned the release of it in the US. The release is being planned for sometime between May and June.

Thanks, Joystiq.