Sajten GamesIndustry.biz har träffat Doug Lombardi och Eric Johnson som svarade på frågor om branschens heta potatisar. Bland annat försvarade de de klassiska spelbutikerna som enligt dem själva kommer ha en fortsatt viktig roll i branschen, trots digital distribution från lösningar som Steam:

The interesting thing for us was our free weekend promotions on Steam, how many sales that would drive at retail as a result. We had this huge spike of players, and we could see which of them purchased the product on Steam. Looking at it, we sold a bunch more, and it turns out 60 per cent of the sales were at retail as a result of the free weekend. People would play the promotion on Steam and then go to the store to buy it. The channels aren't as segmented, they're not fighting each other as much as people think.

De förklarar också varför de valde att starta med episoder:

Five years and over $40 million to make Half-Life 2 just seemed like...

...a total pain in the butt.

As we moved forward, if Half-Life was two and a half years and less than $10m, and Half-Life 2 was over five years and $40m, then Half-Life 3 is eight years and $65m? Hell no, it seemed like the spiral was out of control and change was needed.

Valve har länge varit försvarare av PC-industrin och fortsätter så att vara, men även om de gillar Microsofts initiativ med "Games for Windows" ifrågasätter de företagets motiv och framtida planer:

Right now it seems like it's part of the marketing push to help Vista. To really back a platform is a sustained effort over years and years, so we'll see if in two years Microsoft is still spending money to put Games for Windows sections in retail, and having PR people preach that message that we were just talking about, which is that the PC isn't dying, in fact it's actually bigger than all the consoles put together. You know, if it were to sign up for that, that's great. If it's going to use it to promote sales of Vista, that's really not good for the industry, it's good for Microsoft in the short term.