Tripwire Defends Valve

Tripwire Interactive has come to the defence of Valve’s Steam platform, following comments by Gearbox Software’s Randy Pitchford last week. In an opinion piece on GamaSutra, Tripwire’s John Gibson refuted Pitchford’s claims that the industry doesn’t trust Valve and that Steam is “a money grab.”Tripwire is the developer behind excellent WWII shooter Red Orchestra and, more recently, Killing Floor.“As a small independent developer that has released multiple games on Steam, we are exactly the type of studio that Randy believes is being exploited by Valve,” wrote Gibson.“Additionally, as president of Tripwire Interactive, I’ve personally been involved in all of our business deals with Valve and have experienced firsthand how they treat independent developers.

“So, is Valve exploiting independent developers? In short: absolutely not. Without pulling any punches, I can say with certainty that if it weren’t for Steam, there would be no Tripwire Interactive right now.”Gibson also addressed Pitchford’s claims that Valve’s involvement in Steam constitutes a conflict of interest.“Valve has a very unique take on this matter, and one that I think is smart business,” said Gibson.“Rather than say, “I don’t want to sell your game, because it’s a competitor to our game,” Valve says, “Our game is good, and so is yours, so let’s both make some money together.” The attitude is if the game is good, they’ll sell it.”Here’s hoping we hear more from Mr Pitchford on this one*.*We suspect we will. When is Borderlands out again?