I don't think Valve needs any sort of major introduction. They're quite literally the largest and most influential PC gaming company, not only because of their beloved franchises (and inability to count to 3 when it comes to sequels), but because of their digital video game distribution platform, Steam. Steam is by far the most common way of acquiring and playing PC games, with its share only just now being encroached upon by competitors such as Epic Games and GOG. Regardless, Steam consistently pulls in massive numbers of users.
In August 2017 Valve reported that Steam saw 67 million monthly active players and 33 million daily active players, as well as 27 million first-time purchasers since January 2016–all of which are significant indicators of size and growth. In January 2018 they set a new concurrent user record
with 18.5 million concurrent users, a record which has been
beaten twice and now sits at 24.7 million concurrent users as of December 2020. Valve can reasonably be credited for the rise of PC Gaming itself through the development and promotion of their Steam platform, which shows in their ubiquity in the field and their massive userbase.
Also of note is Steam's prominence in Eastern markets. While not as prominent as in American or European markets, in 2017 Asian markets made up 17% of total Steam sales–not an insignificant number. Indeed, PC gaming is on the rise in Japan.
A 2018 Famitsu report estimated that there were 15 million PC gamers compared 23 million console players in 2017, and
a BCN Retail report from around the same time found an 80% increase in gaming PC sales at one store location compared to the previous year. Another indicator of the growth of PC gaming in Japan would be the adoption of Steam as a platform with which to release major Japanese titles.
Companies such as Sega, Square Enix, Capcom, and Bandai-Namco among others, smelling the large amounts of money, have made it a habit to release their major titles on Steam. While primarily intended for abroad markets, this acknowledgement lends validity to PC gaming domestically as well. While not as significant as other means of gaming, PC gaming is becoming increasingly prevalent in Japan–not counting the fact that many prominent game developers, such as Sakurai, acknowledged PC gaming before its growth. But I shouldn't get ahead of myself—I'll come back to this point.
"
but tehponycorn!!1!" you say, "
Nintendo and Valve are sworn enemies and have a blood rivalry going back decades! No way would they work together on Smash!!"
to which I say,
View attachment 296727
While it
is true that
Gabe Newell is on the record discussing Valve's jealousy of Nintendo, taking a look at the full quote provides a different picture:
Valve doesn't resent Nintendo or anything like that. Instead, they respect Nintendo's capability to model new hardware and software simultaneously among other abilities. Looking closer into the relationship between Nintendo and Valve, it's clear that the two share a mutual respect for one another, and it's less that they hate each other and more that things have never lined up right for them to work together.
For one,
there's a Portal game on the eShop right now. While not developed by Valve, they're clearly okay releasing games on Nintendo hardware—I'd also argue that this is the technicality Gordon needs to meet the "must appear on a Nintendo console to be in Smash" rule, but the lineup of DLC we've gotten has broken fanrule after fanrule, and the criteria for this rule continues to be stretched further and further that I doubt it even matters at this point, but I digress. We also know that
Gabe Newell met with Nintendo executives around 2011-2012 to discuss a joint business venture that, unfortunately, did not work out. You'd think the trail ends there, but it doesn't. Thanks to a
confirmed source code leak that included internal company communications, we know that Nintendo reached out to Valve themselves in early 2016, offering
6 figures for an exclusive Half-Life game on the Switch, which would've supposedly
been named Half-Life Tactics. While the pastebin of the leak has, unfortunately, been taken down,
Wunderwaft
managed to post the most important parts in the
Gordon Freeman thread. I'll only be quoting the most important parts below, so please head over there if you'd like to read more:
Unfortunately, said project was canceled for an unknown reason, though it is commonly speculated that Valve was afraid of the negative reception of the first Half-Life release in years being a Nintendo exclusive.
I think the most important thing to take away from the above leak is that
Nintendo knows the value of the Half Life series. Just as we know
Nintendo paid money for Monster Hunter Rise to be a timed exclusive, they would've paid money for an exclusive Half-Life game. This is especially important when we consider negotiations for Smash Bros. are known to have occurred over the span of years, such as in the case of Steve, whose negotiations go back to
at least 2017. If we further revisit the
Dropped Deals leak (which
SharkLord
posted a very nice summary of) posted shortly after Ultimate's release date, it becomes feasible to think that Nintendo, knowing the value of the Half-Life series, negotiated for Gordon as Smash DLC but ended up putting it on the backburner as the result of the exclusive deal falling through. If they're revisiting previous negotiations, it's further feasible that they would return to their negotiations for Gordon regardless of any deal given the notoriety of the Half-Life series and its recent resurgence (which is, again, a point I'll talk about later). Of course, negotiations could have also taken place at a later time unrelated to the exclusive deal entirely.
Tying into this, Gabe Newell is also on the record saying that
Valve would collaborate with Nintendo on anything Smash related. Similar to how Phil Spencer championed Banjo & Kazooie (and probably Steve behind the scenes), Gabe Newell would presumably champion any Valve content in Smash Bros., including Gordon Freeman as a playable character.
So, Nintendo and Valve clearly recognize each other's value and have no problems working together. Rather than any sort of animosity, it is merely the result of unfortunate luck that the two have never worked together in any major way. A pathway for Gordon to be a playable character in Smash Bros. exists thanks to Nintendo's recognition of the significant value of the Half-Life series and Gabe Newell's openness to include Valve content in Smash Bros.
), Koei and Nintendo are in the same chummy spot Nintendo was with Platinum before Bayo got added, and he's an NES icon that would fit right in with the cast. There's not too much to say about him other than he just looks really likely right now given company relations and potential marketing prospects with the rumored rereleases of Ninja Gaiden games coming assumedly next year on Switch. Could all of this amount to nothing? Yes, but honestly, I'd be kind of surprised if it did.
