A new report has revealed that there was a time when Electronic Arts talked with Valve about a proposed buyout of the creator of Steam — one that EA was apparently willing to split with over $1 billion for.
The information comes via “two people with knowledge of the discussion who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were private,” in a New York Times article written over the weekend. The story focused on Valve’s jump into the hardware side of the game industry.
“Valve has been pursued over the years by Electronic Arts, which would very likely have valued Valve at well over $1 billion had the talks progressed that far,” read the piece.
However, the talks died out and it seems they will never pick up again. Gabe Newell, co-founder and head of Valve, added that the company would be more likely to fall apart and “disintegrate” than ever sell out to a larger publisher.
“It’s way more likely we would head in that direction than say, ‘Let’s find some giant company that wants to cash us out and wait two or three years to have our employment agreements terminate,’ ” stated Newell.
Despite the whopping amount of cash that EA was willing to part with, it was actually a cheap offer. Well-known videogame-business analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities has estimated Valve’s total net worth at approximately $2.5 billion.
Are you glad that Valve stayed independent and didn’t go the way of BioWare, Blizzard, and so many other developers? Are you surprised that EA tried to buy them out? Let yourself be heard by comment below!
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