"It's way more likely we would head in that direction than say, 'Let's find some giant company that wants to cash us out and wait two or three years to have our employment agreements terminate.'"

- Valve boss Gabe Newell explains that it's more likely Valve would "disintegrate," employees departing, before he would sell it to another company.Not that Newell hasn't had opportunities to sell the company, reports the New York Times. According to "two people with knowledge of the discussion," Electronic Arts was previously interested in acquiring Valve, which was valued for over $1 billion.That figure most likely wouldn't cut it nowadays, however -- Wedbush Securities' analyst Michael Pachter believes that Valve is worth around $2.5 billion today.We've updated the headline and the EA acquisition reference to better reflect the original NYT article.]