Valve Software boss Gabe Newell has said kind things before about mega-publisher EA's upstart rival to Valve's popular PC gaming service Steam. That may have seemed charitable, given that EA's new Origin service competes with Steam and even by EA's own standards may not be as good as Steam for years.


So, how's Gabe liking Origin these days?

Seven Day Cooldown's Jack Inacker asked Newell that during their fantastic hour-long interview with the Valve honcho. It starts well, and ends amazingly. Give it a listen in the clip up top, which was provided to us by 7DCD.


Short version: he says EA's team of smart people on Origin has a lot of catching up to do. Newell does say he still would love to have EA games on Steam again. The big ones are Origin-exclusive these days. But it's the moments when Newell isn't speaking or is struggling to say something nice that say so much more.

This Origin bit is just a small piece of the podcast. There's much more in it. We've also told you about Newell shooting down Valve-Apple rumors and about something called "Ricochet 2". But, come on! Listen to the whole thing. This podcast episode was a stellar debut by the Seven Day Cooldown folks.

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Episode 001 – The Tangy Zip of Gaben (April-16-2012) [Seven Day Cooldown]