Needless to say, most folks have been… a bit excited regarding Valve’s E3 showing. They’ve booked a private press room, just as they did for their previous game announcements and reveals, and they’re talking about a possible big unified PC platform press conference, something completely new for E3. So it makes sense that they might be planning something big. However, there’s been some… developments, so to speak. Let’s take a look.

In a forum post on ValveTime, Casper Hansen shared this screencap of an e-mail exchange with Gabe:

In it, Gabe simply says: “We are not announcing anything at E3. Really. We are not announcing Half-Life 3 or Portal 3 or Left 4 Dead 3. We are going to be showing stuff everyone already knows about (CS:Go, Dota 2, 10′ UI, …)”.

It does sound a bit hinky: the odd and almost sarcastic tone, chiefly the strange inclusion of “Really.”; as well as the odd mention of Dota 2, which, as they said last year, is not the kind of game they’d show off at E3; and, simply the way he’s just being so candid and open about this, especially through mentioning HL3 by name, something Gabe has never done before. Casper himself had made a YouTube video demonstrating the legitimacy of the e-mail, but many were still understandably skeptical.

To solve the mystery, community member Surf, who is a close friend of mine, and the leader of the Call for Communication, decided to take matters into his own hands, and ask Gabe if the aforementioned e-mail reply was real. Turns out that, yes, as proven by this screencap of his e-mail reply to Surf, the original e-mail is legitimate – and so, according to Gabe, we will not be seeing any new announcements from Valve at E3 2012.

If you ask me, it still looks and sounds a bit too hinky, but I don’t think Gabe would really lie to us. To be honest, I don’t know what to think at this point, but one thing’s for sure – I’m not getting excited over whatever Valve may have in store for this E3, and I think neither should you.

Source is ValveTime.