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Rumor: Google To Buy Valve

  • GigaOm, Thursday, September 18, 2008 9:45 AM
Rumor has it that Google is on the verge of buying Valve, a video game publisher and game delivery network provider. The company is perhaps most famous for publishing the "Half-Life" series of PC and video games. The move would firmly place Google in the category of content provider, and would no doubt make other content delivery firms nervous, says GigaOm writer Om Malik.

However, Valve's distribution network, Steam Publishing, is really what Google is after, Malik says. The software platform works offline, but it also syncs with the Web for updates and patches to its games. "If the acquisition goes through, Google will get a ready-made, commerce-enabled, geographically proven platform for multigigabyte content distribution," Malik says.

What does Google need a content delivery platform for? "Of course, now that Google is in the desktop replacement business, it needs a way to update Chrome," Malik says. Aside from wanting to publish fixes for Chrome, Google might want to add new features to the Web browser like a P2P client. This is where a solution like Steam would come in very handy.

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