A rather interesting report has surfaced on the web, claiming that well-known independent video games developer Valve might soon be purchased by two major online game publishers from South Korea, Nexon and NCsoft.
Valve is one of the biggest independent developers in the world, owning not just big franchises like Half-Life or Left 4 Dead, but also running the most important digital distribution service in the world –
Steam.
As you can imagine, this makes the company an ideal target for a takeover and, according to the
Joongang News, via
VentureBeat, two major publishers from South Korea, Nexon and NCsoft, are currently in talks with the American studio.
Nexon is one of the global leaders in terms of free-to-play online games, publishing MapleStory, one of the first big titles in the genre and paving the way for the increase in popularity of such a system for MMOs.
It acquired a majority stake in NCsoft, another important company in the MMO segment, which has recently published Guild Wars 2, a new MMORPG from U.S. developer ArenaNet.
Nexon was previously
rumored to be interested in buying another large American gaming company, in the form of Electronic Arts, but that report quickly turned out to be false, as the two big publishers are only collaborating on certain projects.
While both Nexon and NCsoft can certainly buy Valve for an impressive figure, let’s not forget that Valve is a private company owned by Gabe Newell, without any shareholders or directors, so it’s entirely up to him if he wants to sell the studio to another company.
As of yet, Nexon has declined to comment, while Valve hasn’t answered any questions about a takeover, but it seems that an official proposition will be sent to the U.S. studio in the very near future, following some consulting between Nexon and NCsoft.
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