Can’t we be friends? Gabe Newell wants EA back on Steam

If you’re a dedicated PC gamer, it’s likely that you’ve been paying attention to the ongoing kerfuffle between EA and Steam. The publisher giant’s been pulling its biggest games off the digital distribution giant’s catalog and making it all out to be mean ol’ Steam’s fault due to “restrictive” terms of service and whatnot. On the other side, Steam’s masters at Valve have been silent. Until now.

Valve head honcho Gabe Newell has finally spoken out on the matter, saying that the spat is due to “a whole complicated set of issues” and that [Valve cannot] “pick just one thing and think the issue would go away if [Valve] fixed that”.

Continuing, Newell said that [Valve] “have to show EA that it’s a smart decision to have EA games on Steam,” then stating confidently: “I think that at the end of the day we’re going to prove to Electronic Arts that they have happier customers, a higher quality of service, and will make more money if they have their games on Steam. It’s our duty to demonstrate that to them. We don’t have a natural right to publish their games.”

Well said, Mr. Newell, though I’d dare to say that Steam’s quality of service is already well-demonstrated. In fact, it’ll be up to EA to prove to customers that their Origin service can live up to that standard.

Newell: We have to convince EA to come back [Develop]