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  • Valve's Gabe Newell recognizes the innovation of MMOs

    by 
    Jef Reahard
    Jef Reahard
    01.06.2011

    Think the PC is losing its grip as the dominant platform when it comes to gaming innovation? Not so fast, says Valve's Gabe Newell. In fact, he even cites MMOs as a leading cause of the PC platform's continued innovation. And when Newell speaks, gamers and game makers listen, as his company is an industry heavyweight responsible for the likes of Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, and Counterstrike (not to mention the Steam digital distribution platform). Yesterday, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Newell sung the praises of Intel's new GPU/CPU and also offered a counterpoint to those who feel that consoles like the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 have overtaken the PC as industry catalysts. "We see [the PC] as the center of innovation of everything that's going on, whether it's microtransactions, MMOs, free-to-play, or something like CityVille which -- after its first month -- has 84 million people playing," Newell said. "To us, this is just an indication of why open platforms are where innovations are going to occur."