Newell: PC gaming is where innovation is occurring

The open environment of the PC platform is providing a hotbed for innovation, says Valve’s Gabe Newell.

Speaking at LinuxCon, as reported by PCGamesN, the Valve boss said such creativity was not appearing on consoles or any closed systems, and was coming from open platforms such as the PC.

“PC gaming is where innovation is occurring, and you’ll see that in lots of ways,” said Newell.

“It’s not on the consoles, it’s not on any of the closed systems where any of the innovation is happening; it’s happening to the extent to which openness is embraced by the underlying platform.”

Newell also claimed that many of the leading industry trends and shifts and begun on PC, including the likes of digital distribution, free-to-play and MMOs, highlighting the importance of such an open platform.

He added that despite a decline in PC sales, there were huge increases in game sales, with Steam seeing a rise of 76 per cent year-on-year.

 “So in spite of seeing year over year unit declines in PC sales, on the gaming side we’re seeing huge increases,” said Newell.

“So the data I’m most familiar with is ours, but… we’re going up 76 per cent year over year, at the same time PC sales are getting double digit declines, and I think that’s true for all of our partners in the PC space to a varying degree; that the innovation and openness of the PC as a gaming platform have enabled us to be somewhat immunised against some of the broader structural decline of the PC.”