Valve: "Everything that we do competes with Half-Life 2"
Lombardi also says per-platform marketing is "old school" and claims no Linux Steam in the works
Half-Life 2 remains Valve's benchmark for success, with even Portal 2's four platform launch "chasing that one."
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz published today, business development director Jason Holtman and VP of marketing Doug Lombardi claimed that the 2003 title had not been bested by the unexpected success of the Left 4 Dead series.
"Everything that we do competes with Half-Life 2," said Lombardi. "That was a huge, huge launch. It was six million or something in the first year, so we're always chasing that one. But yeah, Portal 2's going to be really, really big."
In a first for the company, next year's Portal 2 will launch on four platforms simultaneously – PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Mac.
However, Lombardi disputed the need to market for each of those platforms individually. Calling it "old school and tied to the old print mentality," he argued that "Today, the websites are all multi-platform. If you're doing television ads, which are where a big, big percentage of where the dollars are going, those are all multi-platform.
"Of the $25 million that we spent for Left 4 Dead 2, which came out on only two platforms, at least $23 million of it was spent just promoting the brand and the game. Without any thought of it was PC or Xbox."
Valve also confirmed that, contrary to persistent rumour, "There's no Linux version [of Steam] that we're working on right now."
The full interview with Valve can be read here.