Newell: “Go ask Blizzard if PC gaming is dead”

Valve’s message is clear: the PC isn’t dying as a games platform.

Speaking in our report on a recent media summit held by Valve at it’s Seattle headquarters, posted to the website today, Valve honcho Gabe Newell has spoken out on how the PC games market isn’t dying, it’s simply shifting from a ship-it-and-be-done model to an ongoing ‘entertainment service’ business.

"Go ask [Blizzard president] Rob Pardo if PC gaming is dead," said Newell. "If he can take the time out from making money hats, I’m sure he’ll give you a really eloquent explanation of why probably the most valuable entertainment franchise of the moment is PC-specific.”

Newell also touches on how he thinks game development will change, predicting the move to developers providing an ‘entertainment service’ as opposed to just a one-shot game in a box or download.

“It’s really about having an entertainment service with the community – all of our decisions are geared towards how can we do something that’s interesting and exciting. Iteration and managing risk are the keys to being able to innovate – we really believe that taking smaller, riskier steps will end up taking your game designs further faster.”

For more from Newell, including which developers he admires and how analysts are working from completely inaccurate data when it comes to PC gaming, check out our full interview here.