Zenimax looking to buyout Valve?

Surely you drink to much sir?

I was making the morning rounds of websites, catching up on news and developments when an article I was reading on dear old Eurogamer, about the battle for domination in digital distribution, when a paragraph shook me to my core.  Nestled near the end was the following statement by article writer Rob Fahey :-

“However, it’s also worth watching closely what happens to Steam in the coming months. Unconfirmed industry scuttlebutt suggests that Zenimax – the parent company of Bethesda, which made headlines back in June when it acquired legendary PC studio id Software – is still on the acquisition trail, and has been making eyes at Half-Life creators Valve across the bar.

Whether Bethesda, a hybrid developer/publisher itself, would want to keep Steam on board, or spin it out to a third party, is unclear – as are many other aspects of a potential deal which would once again raise the awkward question of who, exactly, owns which parts of the Half-Life and Counter-Strike IPs.”

All together now – ‘WTF’!  Now Zenimax (Bethesda’s parent company) is a pretty damn large concern but buy Valve?  That’s about as likely as Microsoft buying Lionhead, someone else buying Bizarre Creations, Rare not being bought by Nintendo or someone snapping up ID – oh wait…  So as crazy as that initial statement sounds there is precedence for this – who honestly could of predicted earlier a few month s ago that ID would be purchased by anyone – let alone a (relatively) smaller publisher like Zenimax?  So as crazy as that statement seems it might be worth keeping an eye on those fine folks at Zenimax, they seem to be celebrity stalkers of the gaming world.

Would a Valve “owned” by anyone be the same company?  Would they still be so user focused and would it’s “It’s ready when it’s ready” development ethos be retained.  I think it would be a bumpy ride to start but at the end of the day Valve do what they do very well and produce great results – so why mess with then right?   Valve are the biggest attraction right now to anyone looking to get in to the digital distribution market for the home computer.  So for now file this under rumor; just don’t be surprised if Valve suddenly become corporate in the forthcoming months.

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