We haven't heard any previous word linking Valve Software to a take-over, but given the success of their content delivery platform on the PC (Steam), and the success of their in-house titles (Half-Life, Portal, Counter-Strike, et al), it stands to reason that big publishers must be sniffing around the still-independent game maker.

Marketing boss Doug Lombardi is happy to admit as much, the big cheese telling Gamasutra.com that "Valve's happy to have that conversation".

He explains: "By the same token, the company’s doing pretty well, and we’re really happy with what we’re doing. So we’ll see. I mean, anything is possible."

Lombardi did however distance his firm from Electronic Arts; the fact that they are an existing publishing partner seemingly pointing to a potential hook-up.

"We had been socialized to doing so many things ourselves, whether it’s box creation, funding our own development, etcetera. That when we came to meet with folks about a distribution deal - and I use that phrase intentionally - we were looking for somebody to do a certain set of services that we didn’t want to do, or weren’t versed in, and nothing more."

Source