EA buying Valve would be a crazy deal. They'd basically get the game IP's, game tech, some staff and the Steam technology.

The game IP's aren't exactly fresh, I can't imagine there's much room for growth even with EA annualised versions. The game tech may offer some real value since they could take it to other EA titles, but it's not like they are leaps and bounds ahead.

The leading men would leg it pronto, their only reason to sell is to retire or get capital to go it alone again (can't see that).

All the other publishers would walk away from Steam if EA controlled it. They'd be left with the smaller guys who have done really well from it, and independent devs (who would walk soon as EA started upping their cut). EA already has EA Link and could anyway use Steam if it wanted.

It's easy to imagine EA salivating over Valve and Steam but it'd be beyond kidding themselves to consider it anything other than an asset-stripping exercise - and one that they'd be paying quite the premium for.

Though I suppose it's plausable for EA to buy Valve without or to spin off Steam. I doubt venture capitalists would be into the shrinking PC gaming market but someone with balls might be thinking use the tech for movies. Maybe existing people at Valve would continue Steam. That's plausable business, especially if as part of the deal EA dumps EA link and uses Steam.
This comment was edited on Aug 5, 13:30.