With all of the trash talk going on in the video game business lately, you’d expect the folks at Steam to be pretty pissed that EA won’t be offering their hugely anticipated shooter Battlefield 3 to the service in favor of their own client, Origin. You’ve apparently never met Gabe Newell.

Newell, head of Valve and Steam recently spoke to Develop Magazine regarding getting the publisher’s titles back on the service. “We have to show EA it’s a smart decision to have EA games on Steam, and we’re going to try to show them that,” he said.

Though Newell wasn’t clear on just how he was going to show EA, he was pretty confident that the two parties would be able to come to some kind of agreement. “I think at the end of the day we’re going to prove to Electronic Arts they have happier customers, a higher quality service, and will make more money if they have their titles on Steam. It’s our duty to demonstrate that to them. We don’t have a natural right to publish their games.”

Battlefield 3 launches October 25 on PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Origin.

Prepare to believe the hype, as Valve’s chief Gabe Newell, speaking at GDC 2010, has said Portal 2 is Valve’s “best game ever.”

According to CVG, Newell said “pretty clear, just internally,” that Portal 2 is the best game the studio has ever made. That would put it above the Half-Life, Team Fortress and Left 4 Dead franchises.

It was also revealed earlier this week that the original Portal was merely a “test bed.”  And that the sequel is the full game and the real deal.

I thought the original was very unique and actually quite fun. Can’t wait for sequel.

Source: Computer and Video Games

Gabe Newell, head of Left 4 Dead, and Team Fortress 2 development team Valve, answered questions from Australian industry journalists today and among other things Newell said “[Valve] has lots of money.”

Newell also chatted it up about how he Valve sees “entertainment as a service” and that “Team Fortress is the benchmark and that’s the level we intend to bring all products to.”

He also spoke to just why he made the trek to Australia to see a modder’s Left 4 Dead campaign:

“We recognize that we really are part of this community. We talk about it a lot, that we’re not up here and the community’s down here, and the games snowflake in. We really are part of it. We look to that community to see what we should do. … It was pretty clear that this was one of those things that the community fell in love with the idea. They wanted us to come down here and meet with Joe and give him feedback. And in our experience, it’s been very bad idea when we get such a clear signal from pc gaming community, if we ignore it.”

Take a look at the full interview in this Youtube video and let us know what you think in the comments.

If you haven’t been following the Internet soap opera of Gabe Newell and the Australian Left 4 Dead modders, let’s get you caught up!

Weeks ago Valve, maker of Left 4 Dead, flew two founding members of a Left 4 Dead 2 boycott community group to Valve headquarters in Seattle for some up close and personal time with the zombie shooter in hopes of changing their minds.

That’s all great, but here’s where the fun starts. An Australian Left 4 Dead modder, Joe W-A-e also wanted to be flown to Seattle to show the development team his mod, and Newell jokingly responded saying he’d be boycotting the‚  mod and Joe was not flown to Valve HQ.

It gets better! Joe then decided to ask community members, through his website, to donate cash to fly Newell to Australia to try out his mod in the flesh. 48 hours later, the website, Fly Gabe Newell, generated over $3,000, which was more than enough to fly Newell and project manager Erik Johnson to the land down under. The two are currently packing for their trip to the land of the kangaroos next week.

Here’s the last twist, I swear. Newell and Johnson will be flying to Australia on their own dimes and will give the money to the Child’s Play charity. How nice!

Newell had this to say about the entire zany situation:

“The power of the gaming community and their ability to rally around a cause “" be it serious or fun in nature “" is amazing. In 2003, the community helped the FBI and European law enforcement officials find the people who stole the Half-Life 2 source code. This year, the community is putting me on a plane to the other side of the world to meet Joe W-A and see his MOD. It’s going to be a fun trip.”

We should be hearing more of this story next week, but for now, take comfort in the fact that the gaming community is capable of great deeds.

Ever wonder by a company founded in 1996, and run by over 190 employees, takes so damn long to make their games?

Could it be that Gabe Newell, head of Valve is committed to bringing users an absolute perfect product each and every time?‚  Nah, can’t be that, it’s gotta be because of this..

Yupp, that’s Gabe Newell of Valve cracking skulls in Azeroth on a 42 inch TV.‚  The man loves him some Warcraft, and we all know the prone to seclusion side effects of that game, don’t we?

News Flash- welcome to Sarcastic Friday- a look at the world of video games’ less serious, more hilarious moments.‚  If you’ve been reading our heavy hitting onslaught of news this week and every other, you need a break, so enjoy this weekly section and have a laugh.

photo via Flickr