THE FUSE

During last week’s GDC gathering in San Francisco, Valve gave a presentation during which the company boasted of the growing numbers of games proving profitable when sold via Steam. This was demonstrated by a bar chart that attempted to give the impression that things are just getting better and better for developers releasing games on its platform. However, just a moment’s scrutiny reveals a thousand holes in these numbers—something that has annoyed members of the games industry not only because it’s deceptive, but because boasting about this suggests, to some at least, that Valve is remaining deaf to the issues affecting those unable to find an audience.