Last month Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford grabbed headlines by saying that Valve has been exploiting developers with its Steam digital delivery platform. Several studios then came to Valve's defense and Pitchford further elaborated on his stance. Just when you thought the "feud" had gone away, Pitchford has now been quoted in the U.K.’s Official PlayStation Magazine [thanks GameInformer] with some rather harsh words for Valve.
So what set Pitchford off? Apparently, it was Valve's not so secret dislike of the PS3 platform. "I noticed something on the net not too long ago. Doug Lombardi (Valve's VP Marketing) had to take a swipe at the PS3 again, and I thought it was foolish. I read it the same way I read fanboys. Like there's a guy who bought the Sony platform and he's a Sony guy, so he decides he's going to spend a certain percentage of his time bashing Microsoft. And there's a guy on Microsoft doing the same thing. Those guys are childish and narrow minded, it's the same kind of thing," Pitchford commented.
He continued by basically accusing Valve of being insular and very self-centered: “Valve think their own stuff is the only stuff that matters, to the point where they have their own distribution platform. It's like, I don't care about retail, about Marketplace, or PSN, I'm going to have Steam. It's cool, it's good, and they're doing a good job but at the same time they're reliant on the rest of the world. They had to do that [Left 4 Dead] deal with EA. When I see the L4D ad on the television I don't see a Valve logo, I see an EA logo, and when I bought it, I bought it at a store."
We're honestly not sure why Pitchford continues to throw barbs in Valve's direction. Even if you agree with his comments, the way in which he's conducting himself quite frankly seems childish and unprofessional.
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