By Igor Gajic

May 31, 2008

PC Play talked with one of the most influental figures of interactive entertainment industry, Mr Doug Lombardi. We asked Doug what he thinks about all those "PC gaming is dying" bollocks, his view on recently formed PC Gaming Alliance, but Doug also told us that Valve is preparing some new franchises at the end of this year.

PC Play: One of the most popular topics we could hear around the industry is that PC gaming industry is rapidly dying. Infinity Ward says that they are absolutely astonished with the number of pirated copies of Call of Duty 4; Epic and id bosses say that piracy is completely killing PC gaming; Lionhead, LucasArts and Ensemble Studios, once big PC players, don't even make PC games anymore, etc.How do you estimate the current state of the PC gaming industry? Is it really THAT bad?

Doug Lombardi: No. In fact, we've seen over 150% year-over-year growth of revenue on Steam. Has the PC market changed? Yes, absolutely. Things such as Steamworks, which includes methods for auto-updating, social networking features, and new encryption for fighting Day Zero piracy (piracy that occurs between the product going gold until it is available at the stores) are just a few of the tools we've built to move our PC business forward. And now we're making those tools available to third party publishers and developers.

PC Play: Valve recently released "Steamworks" for free, a bunch of powerful tools for interested developers and publishers, which could help them to get their game(s) on Steam easily. What kind of impact do you expect?

Doug Lombardi: These tools have been developed for year, since before Half-Life 2 launched through today, and tested by the millions of gamers logging into play Steam each week. With such a robust set of tools available for free, why would anyone pay for a lower quality of service? Gamers have told us they want all their games to work through Steam. That’s quite a statement considering how many folks viewed Steam just a few years ago. But it shows the platform is coming into vogue.

PC Play: What are your thoughts regarding just formed PC Gaming Alliance? Is it really needed? Is Valve interested to get in the "team"?

Doug Lombardi: From a very high level, the idea of having someone or some group of folks champion the PC is a great idea. Part of why “the PC is dying” story keeps getting written is because there are armies of PR folk planting that story on behalf of Nintendo, Sony and MGS. If half as many PR folks worked full time on evangelizing the success of WoW, Steam, casual game companies such as PopCap – even the independent successes such as Audiosurf – the perception of the PC as a gaming platform would be very, very different.

PC Play: Episodic content seems like a great idea, but, from a gamer's standpoint, only if you offer a great added value. The Orange Box is probably the most valuable pack in the gaming history, so can you tell us how are you going to surpass its success and its value with Half-Life 2: Episode Three? Left4Dead in the pack maybe? Counter-Strike 2?

Doug Lombardi: Left 4 Dead will be a stand alone release. And, like many Valve games, there will likely be new downloadable content made available post launch. Beyond that, please stay tuned.

PC Play: Valve enriched its gaming library with great new franchises. Team Fortress 2 was obviously a huge success, while Left4Dead seems like a really promising title. Could we expect an announcement about some new franchises anytime soon?

Doug Lombardi: Perhaps not immediately. But we’ve got a lot of new ideas in pre-production and folks can expect to hear more later this year.

PC Play: Doug, thanks for your time.

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