Dan Pearson Friday 28th September 2012 Share this article Share

Companies in this article Nexon Valve Corporation

Valve's Chet Faliszek has rubbished the rumours of Valve discussing a deal which would see the company bought out by Korean publisher Nexon, telling GamesIndustry International that there's nothing of the sort planned.

The story, originating from Korean newspaper JoongAng, originally posited that Nexon was looking to buy Valve and had met in Hawaii to discuss a price of $893 million - incredibly low for a company as successful as Valve.

Speaking in an interview conducted at the Eurogamer Expo today, which will be published early next week, Faliszek explained that the rumour, much like the rumours of deals with EA and Apple before it, were completely fabricated - as well as being bewildering.

"It's the same as when Tim Cook came by and visited us," Faliszek explained, referring to the previous story that a deal was in the works to sell Valve to Apple.

"It's weird, because Gabe just gave that interview to the NYT which everyone was quoting - it's weirdly twisted how they took it. They were asking if we were going to sell out to someone and Gabe was like, we're not going to do that. The guy made the question to be about, 'how's this going to end'.

"There's no thoughts about that - everyone likes working there, we like working together we like the culture we have and the way it works because of all the parts of it. We're not changing any of that, we're pretty happy. We're doing OK."

Asked directly if he could categorically deny that a sale was on the cards, Faliszek offered an uncompromising clarification, as well as a possible explanation for the source of some of the other rumours.

"Yeah!" he replied when asked if he'd explicitly deny the rumour. "It's funny because now all the internal emails will start - 'what's going on, this makes no sense!' Where can these rumours possibly come from? The Apple rumour I think was from someone next door - there's a steakhouse next to us and whenever anyone eats there who has some security they therefore must be meeting with us or something! I don't know, it's bizarre."

The full interview with Chet, including discussion of Steam's rivals and the utmost importance of the service's community, will be published early next week.