Valve Says It Will Never Make SteamOS Exclusive Games

Speaking with the Verge Valve’s veteran public relations manager Doug Lombardi said that Valve would never seek to make any of their games exclusive to the SteamOS. Of course what The Verge were trying to get from Doug was an answer as to whether Half Life 3 would be a SteamOS exclusive but unsurprisingly he wasn’t willing to comment about any upcoming and unreleased game titles just yet.

“It’s against our philosophy to put a game in jail and say it only works on Steam Machines.. It works best on Steam Machines, perhaps … but to get to exclusives or anything else just wouldn’t be our style,” said Doug Lombardi.

Despite Half Life 2 originally being locked to the Steam digital distribution platform, which contradicts Lombardi’s previous statements about exclusives not being Valve’s style, Lombardi acknowledged the precedent set by Half Life 2 but with a typical “dodge the bullet” style answer of:

“That may or may not have been a good idea given the condition that Steam was in at the moment,” he stated.

If Valve wants to promote its open source Linux platform it has been speculated that bringing out Half Life 3 and making it a SteamOS exclusive would be a great way of doing it. SteamOS is going to need some momentum to get going and Half Life 3 would be an ideal catalyst. Valve has been working extensively with gaming companies for the past three years, trying to encourage them to take steps towards Linux gaming and Valve hopes SteamOS will be the initiative that brings Linux gaming to life.

Image courtesy of Steam