The thing with Microsoft aiming to buy Valve for $16B rumor

[KeradSnake]

Summary

There's an ongoing rumor of Microsoft aiming to buy Valve for $16B, and this has basically spreading fast since this was posted by user xDiorCS and KJovian on Twitter. This deal are presumed to also include Steam store. Some also speculates that this buyout attempt was in response to Deadlock/ Neon Prime leak, upcoming then HL universe and now DOTA universe hero shooter game from Valve.

 

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There have been plenty of rumours over the years claiming that major game publishers have put in offers to acquire Valve, the company behind huge IP like Half-Life and Portal. Given that Valve also owns and operates the Steam Store, the company has never exactly been hurting for cash, so the idea that anyone would be able to buy them has often been scoffed at. However, that isn't stopping this from popping up in headlines again this week, as it has been claimed that Microsoft is preparing an offer.

 

Dior, a gaming-focused creator who is known in the Counter-Strike community, has claimed to have heard that Microsoft is preparing a $16 billion offer to acquire Valve Corporation, a deal that would also presumably include the Steam Store, the most popular PC gaming platform.

 

(...) Valve is a privately owned company and has been for the entirety of its existence, so we get very few public details about the company's finances and the true value of something like the Steam Store, or IP like Counter-Strike, Dota and Half-Life, remains a complete mystery. Any PC gamer would likely guess that Valve would be worth far more than $16 billion.

 

The source of this rumour, Dior, also claimed that Gabe Newell owns less than 25 percent of Valve, which would be where a large chunk of his multi-billion dollar networth is coming from. Unless Newell suddenly wants to cash-in and retire, I don't see Valve entertaining any buyout offers, let alone from Microsoft. However, it is known that many Valve employees do hold stock options, so if a massive offer is made, it would be put to a vote.

 

(Kitguru)

 

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My thoughts

 

Yeaaaaahhhhh this just doesn't make any sense and this is just 'I made it the f up' moment. Not only that the post has received many community notes for how incredibly stupid it is, one of the person also has a history of spreading false rumor about Microsoft and Valve in the past, one of which even awakened Geoff Keighley and he had to slap the person to the point where they deleted the post. That now deleted post was about a rumor of Microsoft and Valve partnership to bring Steam on Xbox, which in reality was just Phil and Gaben public AMA during pandemic 

 

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Also even if there's some of the stuff on the leaked FTC document comes into fruition (and if I recall correctly some of those already confirmed?), some of them are also basically old information that doesn't hold up, or... If there's anything we can learn from the Nintendo buyout attempt story, this is probably just another canned idea and they decided not to do or talk about again. Even ignoring that, MS presumably have this situation where they bought so many studios but somehow they don't get the money back from the gaming side, hence why they don't have the money to keep some of the studios hence why they shut down Tango, Arkane Austin and the other two studios (I saw this one discussion from a clip on Twitter btw)

 

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And even if you really don't agree with it because recently they're like, a $2.3 - 2.4 trillion dollar company (yeah I also sorta don't buy that theory because of that fact alone), everyone is pretty much agree on one thing, that Gaben wouldn't accept this offer, because not only that they've holding up for very long as a private company, it would be ironic to go out from MS, only to be acquired by the company that he left for a reason.

 

So... yeah, basically

 

 

Sources

- https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/rumour-claims-microsoft-is-preparing-a-16b-offer-to-acquire-valve/

- https://icon-era.com/threads/rumour-microsoft-is-preparing-an-offer-of-16b-for-valve.12192/

- Mentioned above

 

(also why is this one attachments stuck in there after edit this was supposed to be only in the quote smh)

Edited May 23 by KeradSnake
double attachments for some reason smh

[Skipple]

There's absolutely no way that Valve is only worth $18 billion. Microsoft is willing to play close to $70 billion for Activision/Blizzard. I have to imagine that Valve is worth something around that giving their dominance in the PC gaming ecosystem.

[mariushm]

16 billion would be ridiculously low amount for Valve... 

 

They bought Bethesda for 7.5 billion ... which is just one studio... Valve has Steam, a money printing machine

 

Valve is privately owned, not relying on any bank or any major shareholder as far as I know, so is Gabe and other seniors don't have a reason to sell, there's no point discussing it.

 

 

[ItTakes2ToMango]

10 minutes ago, Skipple said:

 I have to imagine that Valve is worth something around that giving their dominance in the PC gaming ecosystem.

There's a solid 0% chance that Valve is worth less as a company than any of the developers/publishers whose games they service.

[WereCat]

Buying Valve for just $16B that is literally printing money out of their arses by not releasing any of the most popular games people have been asking for? While they are actually delivering on Linux gaming as they have always been trying to achieve and abandon Microsoft abuse? Suuure....

 

 

Edit:

 

 

"Stale but relevant..." Sure, sure... XBOX at least closed more studios than they released games so at least they are not stale. They sure need more games... and what better company to buy than Valve if you want more games? Right?... oh wait...

[ToboRobot]

42 minutes ago, mariushm said:

16 billion would be ridiculously low amount for Valve... 

 

They bought Bethesda for 7.5 billion ... which is just one studio... Valve has Steam, a money printing machine

 

Valve is privately owned, not relying on any bank or any major shareholder as far as I know, so is Gabe and other seniors don't have a reason to sell, there's no point discussing it.

 

 

No, Bethesda wasn't just one studio.  Microsoft bought Zenimax which was the parent company of Bethesda and it included other studios like id software.

[RejZoR]

Why would Valve sell itself as a private company that's literally spraying money out of their rears? Their online store is literally unmatched and has established a near monopoly through pro-consumer business. Sure they aren't flawless, but they sure as hell do a fine job. I wish they'd release more of their own games we all love so much (that aren't online multiplayer only), but hey, at least they give a great platform to everyone else making good games.

[leadeater]

Very much doubt Valve is wanting or looking to sell, probably the most relevant issue

[SpaceGhostC2C]

I fin statements like this very funny:

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Any PC gamer would likely guess that Valve would be worth far more than $16 billion.

 

How would "any PC gamer" tell the difference between a $5 billion and a $50 billion company, regardless of what sector the company operates in? 

 

I imagine an investment firm going around like "hey, you seem to drink a lot of coffee, how much should I buy Starbucks for?" 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

I imagine an investment firm going around like "hey, you seem to drink a lot of coffee, how much should I buy Starbucks for?" 

Depends if the sugar is DLC or not

[Donut417]

If this happened I’d give up on gaming. Because Microsoft would fuck steam up, just like they have been doing to all the other studios they bought and Windows. 

[Faer-Anne]

the cynic in me has to wonder if some individual inside Microsoft actually did "leak" this info, in response to social media being a bit more busy with "maybe I will switch to Linux" comments due to Recall (https://linustechtips.com/topic/1571097-new-windows-ai-feature-records-everything-you’ve-done-on-your-pc-recall-uses-ai-features-to-take-images-of-your-active-screen-every-few-seconds-omg/.  I mean, something like this could weaken the idea that Linux is gaming capable, by suggesting that Proton might not have Valve backing it anymore, which would make the move that much more difficult, since people on the edge of moving need really only one good excuse to stay put.

There's no way anyone would admit to this publicly, and it's a *lot* of assumptions about general knowledge about valve, gaming, and how proton works, so I doubt it would be the case, but the thought in the back of my head remains.

[Quackers101]

old topic and not really news.

[Nimoy007]

I agree. This isn't really news, especially since OP themselves doesn't believe it.

To OP: When you post a tech news topic, try to avoid quoting an entire (or most of an) article. That's not what the point of a quote is. Choose a snippet that summarizes the topic and leave it at that. Additionally, don't place Twitter links in quotes because they aren't quotes.

[Doobeedoo]

Makes no sense, why would they even sell. Also that is way too low since they own cultic Steam though. $100B maybe.

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

$100B maybe.

I don't know, not sure Valve/Steam is worth more than VMware...

[Nimoy007]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

I don't know, not sure Valve/Steam is worth more than VMware...

You don't necessarily sell at current value.

[Doobeedoo]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I don't know, not sure Valve/Steam is worth more than VMware...

I mean Acti Blizz sure was so this is Steam and there many that only view it as a single portal for games, don't want games anywhere else. And I definitely believe Stea/Valve is worth more then Acti Blizz was what MS paid.

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

I mean Acti Blizz sure was so this is Steam and there many that only view it as a single portal for games, don't want games anywhere else. And I definitely believe Stea/Valve is worth more then Acti Blizz was what MS paid.

Lets just say I don't think they were worth as much as they sold for but a sale is a sale. I don't even know if VMware is really worth what it sold for either.

 

5 minutes ago, Nimoy007 said:

You don't necessarily sell at current value.

Unless you are doing badly or force to for some reason you don't sell under what you are worth.

[Nimoy007]

Just now, leadeater said:

Uless you are doing badly or force to for some reason you don't sell under what you are worth.

Wrong direction. I was implying you sell for more. What I was trying to get at was that you don't need Valve to be worth more than company X, you just need to factor in growth.

[leadeater]

Just now, Nimoy007 said:

Wrong direction. I was implying you sell for more. What I was trying to get at was that you don't need Valve to be worth more than company X, you just need to factor in growth.

Yes but that applies to both, VMware has been sold and you think that wouldn't apply to them as well?

[Nimoy007]

9 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Yes but that applies to both

True, I had just forgotten how recent the Broadcom acquisition of VMWare was, so the $69B shouldn't have changed much.

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, Nimoy007 said:

True, I had just forgotten how recent the Broadcom acquisition of VMWare was, so the $69B shouldn't have changed much.

Yes and my point and opinion is Valve is not worth as much as VMware, I'm not saying I am correct but anyone that knows a lot about VMware knows just how influential they are to the entire world.

[Nimoy007]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

I'm not saying I am correct

Actually, I was conceding your point and agreeing with you. Sorry, I didn't make that clear!

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Nimoy007 said:

Actually, I was conceding your point and agreeing with you. Sorry, I didn't make that clear!

 I don't know if you really need to concede, I just think company valuations are bloody weird a lot of the time. Some things I look at and legitimately think WTF! lol