A user on the Steam Powered forums who calls himself Political Gamer recently had a chance to check out Valve's headquarters as part of an interview. He took notes; here are his main points (although we'd like to point out that the whole story is definitely worth reading):
- They use very high end computers when a game is in development (i7, 6GB DDR3 Ram, 128GB SSD, Nvidia 580) but they still test on lower end comps
- Steam will get video recording "soon"
- Steam might come to iOS/Android
- Source Film Maker will be made public "soon"
- Meet the Medic is badass
- Portal 2: GOTY hands down
Here's a quote from the most interesting part of the story:
After waiting in the lobby for a few minutes it turned out Gabe was in the office and wanted to say hi. To my great delight he was playing DOTA 2 when we walked in and from what I can see the game already looks very promising. After a little "sneak peek" we sat down to talk about Steam and other goings on in Valve. During this chat he confirmed that Steam will get a video recorder very soon, also he said they were looking into the iOS/Android platform for possible expansions with Steam. He also said that the Source film maker is in the pipeline for a public release. After the chat was over he happily signed my copy of the Orange box and sent me on my way to Robin Walker.
We're particularly excited about the fourth point. Valve is the only company that appears to understand what gamers want, and the next frontier for the gaming industry is undoubtedly mobile.
Android looks much more likely than iOS, mainly because of Apple's many App Store restrictions. Regardless of what mobile platform Steam arrives on though, one dedicated app for all our mobile games would simply be awesome.