Valve has been silent as Electronic Arts has blasted alleged changes in policy on Steam, prompting a bunch of EA games to come down from the service. EA has even gone so far as to publicly state Battlefield 3 would likely not be released on Steam at launch.
I've asked Valve to comment multiple times--but nothing.
At Gamescom, Valve founder Gabe Newell has been talking to the press about the newly announced Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Develop asked Newell about EA, and while he didn't explain what's happening in much detail, Valve didn't throw EA under the bus.
"I don’t think Valve can pick just one thing and think the issue would go away if we fixed that," he said. "We have to show EA it’s a smart decision to have EA games on Steam, and we’re going to try to show them that."
There are some clear issues separating EA and Valve at the moment, and Valve appears hopeful to make the case to EA that the benefits of working within its system is worth it.
Crysis 2, Dragon Age II and others have been removed the past few months, as EA voiced concerns about its ability to communicate and sell content to consumers. EA had pointed towards its exclusivity deals over downloadable content with other distributors as one issue, but Newell makes it sound like there are larger philosophical debates about digital at play here.
"It’s our duty to demonstrate [value] to them," he said. "We don’t have a natural right to publish their games."