A protest against Valve for its lack of information on Valve's "lack of information" regarding Half-Life 2: Episode 3 seems to have missed its mark slightly. The protest - which had the support of 30,00 players who pledged that they would play Half-Life 2 on Steam over the weekend - saw only half of those players playing over the weekend. They increased the usual amount of players playing Half-Life 2 by about 10,000.

Valve managing director Gabe Newell said in a recent interview that piracy is a "non-issue" for the company's Steam digital distribution platform. In an interview with the Cambridge Student, Newell said that there is a fundamental misconception that piracy is motivated by high prices. Newell repeated what he has been saying a lot this year: Valve sees the piracy problem as a service problem.

After a day or two of speculation, Valve has officially confirmed to the public that the Steam database suffered a security breach earlier this week. Valve Software co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell issued a statement to members letting them know what happened and if there might some concerns about the security of their Steam accounts. The take-away for Steam account holders is that passwords were "hashed and salted" and credit card information was encrypted. Still Newell cautions Steam users to pay attention to their account activity. The full statement is below:

In an interview that took place at BlizzCon over the weekend, Blizzard President Mike Morhaime reiterated to Eurogamer his company's stance on Valve Software’s attempts to trademark the term "DOTA." Valve has made a move to try and trademark the name of the wildly popular Warcraft 3 modification, much to the chagrin of several companies - including Blizzard Entertainment and League Legends maker Riot Games - as well as the DOTA community at large.

Valve Software claims that more than $2 million has been generated from Team Fortress 2 micro-transactions. The popular free-to-play team online shooter allows players to create, buy and sell virtual items to wear during matches. Apparently fans are fond of the system and are willing to spend real-world cash on luxury in-game items. Valve also said that it plans to update the system with a new interface to make it even easier for customers to create and sell virtual goods.

Portal, Valve’s ultra popular and internet meme-generating first-person puzzle platformer, is available for free on Steam for PC and Mac until September 20th.

Those of you who insist on questioning a good thing may be interested to know that Valve hopes this short promotion will show educators how valuable video games can be in the classroom.

Valve Software announced today that Activision's next Call of Duty game will use Steamworks. On a related note, over the weekend at PAX in Seattle, Gearbox Software's Randy Pitchford revealed that the PC version of its role-playing game shooter, Borderlands, would add Steamworks support with a new update. The PC version of MW3 will be powered with Steamworks for both the digital and retail versions of the game. It will support offline play, auto-updating, achievements, and dedicated servers at launch. Naturally Steamworks adds a DRM layer as well.

While Valve has hinted at it in the past, a recent interview with Gabe Newell on Eurogamer is keen on letting Steam users trade games and other items, saying that he sees games on this platform moving in a direction "where everything is an item of exchange."

Valve co-founder Gabe Newell says that Microsoft needs to relax the terms and conditions of Xbox Live to allow other platforms onto Xbox Live. Newell made his comments related to the upcoming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive release, which features Steamworks integration. Newell said that Microsoft would do well to emulate Sony, whose decision to allow Steamworks support in the PlayStation 3 release of Portal 2 resulted in better experience on that platform.

When EA launched its personal digital distribution service late last month, the company insisted that it was never meant to compete with other digital distribution services like Steam. Now a company representative seems to be singing a different tune.

David DeMartini, head of Origin is talking about a "conflict" between its service and Steam. DeMartini says that recent business decisions by Steam have shown "areas of conflict" between the two services "on a going forward basis." DeMartini is referring to the sudden disappearance of Crysis 2, which, EA says, Valve took down because DLC for the game was being sold exclusively somewhere else.

Yesterday we reported that Square Enix had filed a lawsuit against unnamed Italian citizens who (they allege) stole a preview build of Deus Ex: Human Revolution (see this story). The latest wrinkle in the story is that the company wants Valve Software to help them because the stolen build was a copy that was hosted on Valve's Steam service.

For its part, Valve says that it has plenty of information on those individuals responsible for stealing and leaking the file onto the internet, but it is unable to give that information to Square Enix without them presenting Valve with a court ordered subpoena.

It may seem like an odd position for Valve to take with a publishing partner, but the company is simply protecting itself and following procedure.

We'll let you know how this situation plays out.

According to this Rock, Paper, Shotgun report the Source SDK will soon become free to use in its entirety, for everyone. The news comes from Team fortress 2 masterminds Robin Walker, who credits the upcoming release to the change in Team Fortress 2 to a free-to-play game.

The Source Software Development Kit contains all the tools you'd need to create a modification for a Source game including the Valve Hammer Editor, Face Posers, Model Viewers and more. The only way to gain access to the SDK right now is to purchase a Source-based game. The news came from a response Walker made to a Reddit thread about Zombie Panic Source and No More Room In Hell. Readers asked Team Fortress 2 developer Robin Walker if buying an item in the Mann Co. Store would give access to the Source SDK, He said:

Pennsylvania state senator Daylin Leach wants to give the video game industry a substantial tax credit to do business in the state, and he's pushing a bill that will provide the cash. Yesterday he introduced a bill that would give videogame companies in the state a 25 percent tax credit. Pennsylvania Senate Bill 700 calls for $20 million in tax benefits to be dedicated annually to videogame projects where at least 60 percent of the expenses are within the state. While Leach is the sponsor of the bill, the Senator has the support of seven other senators, who are all members of the minority Democratic party.

A North Carolina father has gotten his 5 - 10 minutes of fame by complaining about adoption jokes in Portal 2. Charlotte news channel WBTV indulges the complaining parent in a story that goes out of its way to malign one of the best games of 2011. According to the report, Neal Stapel was playing Portal 2 with his adopted daughter and enjoying it until jokes started to fly about one of the characters being adopted. Stapel found himself utterly offended. None of the other jokes and occasionally crude humor bothered him, apparently.

"It throws the question, the most ultimate question that that child is ever gonna have for you and it just throws it right in your living room," he said. "It says it's rated "E" for everybody and I'm thinking maybe it's rated "E" for everybody except for orphans."

Valve says that it will not be cooperating with various sales tracking firms who want access to internal data from its digital distribution service. Speaking to MCV, Steam’s Jason Holtman said that sharing the data would be counterintuitive if released publicly and that retaining it for developers and publishers only is the best option.

"The idea of a chart is old," said Holtman. "It came from people trying to aggregate disaggregated information. What we provide to partners is much more rapid and perfected information."

Valve provides publishers and developers with hourly updates of download figures. This allows those partners to measure the effectiveness of things like in marketing pushes and special offers. Releasing that data on a monthly basis would be a mistake, according to Holtman.

According to Valve, Portal has sold four million copies on various platforms. This excludes sales numbers from Steam too. Portal was sold as part of The Orange Box on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 which includes Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Team Fortress 2. Portal was also released as a stand-alone retail release for PC, and as a digital download for Xbox Live Arcade - Portal: Still Alive.

Portal 2 was released yesterday on various platforms. Most critics adore the game, but some users take issue with the length of the game. That aside, it looks like Portal 2 will be another big seller for Valve and its distribution partners. Portal 2 is the first Valve game to feature PC-style Steam functionality on a home console as well as a nice bonus: those who purchase the game for PlayStation 3 can unlock a Steam Play copy of the game for free simply by linking their PlayStation Network accounts with Steam.

Valve has thanked the Team Fortress 2 community for its hard work and generosity in raising a whopping $430,543.65 for the Japanese disaster relief fund. That massive number represents the sale of three limited-edition hats and two noisemakers that were added to the Mann Co. Team Fortress 2 game store at the end of March. While those hats and noisemakers disappeared the indelible imprint of the community's generosity remains.

Below is the message that Valve left the community via its official Team Fortress 2 blog on April 8:

"Nice work, everyone! We're excited to share that, thanks to the generosity of the TF community, in two short weeks we managed to collect $430,543.65 for the Japanese disaster relief fund. It's been inspiring to watch gamers around the world come together for such a worthy cause.

Two new Colorado State University studies examines the potential positive effects of video games using world of Warcraft as its testing grounds. The studies explore how video game players can become deeply involved in their games to the point where they may block out the "external environment" and temporarily feel that their play environment is as vivid and important as the real world. Researchers at Colorado State University say that such "absorptive experiences" can be positive ones, providing important mental health benefits.

Two studies recently published by Jeffrey Snodgrass, associate professor of anthropology at Colorado State, examine different types of video gaming experiences and the effects they can have on players’ lives, including their levels of stress, satisfaction and happiness. In both studies, Snodgrass and his research team examined the popular online game, World of Warcraft.

Steam Guard, Valve’s new account security system announced last week at the Game Developers Conference, is in beta beginning today. The new account security system is available to anyone who is willing to take it for a test run. To take part in the beta, you will have to verify your email with steam, which allows you to tie your Steam account to your computer. If you want to use your Steam account on another computer, you'll have to get a verification code, which will be sent to your email address on file.

The sign-up for the Steam Guard beta is available via the beta participation section in your Steam account settings.

Any attempts to login for the first time on a computer elsewhere will need a verification code, which will be sent to your email address. To access the beta, select Steam Guard from the beta participation section in your Steam account settings.

According to researchers at Ryerson University (Toronto, Canada), violent video games do not desensitize players to violent imagery. The study was led by Holly Bowen (a PhD candidate in psychology) and co-authored by psychology professor Julia Spaniol. Researchers examined the impact of chronic exposure to violent video games on emotional memory and responses to negative stimuli.

"Emotional long-term memory helps us avoid negative situations," Bowen said. "This has significant implications for public health. For example, if you remember the negative experience of being involved in a bar fight, you will avoid future situations that may lead to an altercation."

The study involved 122 undergraduate students (male and female) who had some experience with video games in the last six months (45 participants) and those who had no prior video game "exposure" (77 students).

Former Harmonix shareholders filed a lawsuit against Viacom last week, accusing the company of trying to find a slick way to get out of paying performance-based bonuses. According to a lengthy Gamasutra report, the group includes Harmonix founders Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, as well as other early funders of the Boston-based developer. The group claims that Viacom is manipulating costs after the initial success of Rock Band to avoid a potentially giant earn-out payment.

The future of corporate training - at least in Ontario - may very well be game-related. From small business owners to college professors, video game-based training is proving to be popular and effective. Several people involved using special business training software in Ontario are profiled in this Vancouver Sun report.

Merle Ballaigues is trying out a new video game-based training system from Burlington, Ontario-based company, E=mz2. Ballaigues is using the software with her sales team to see if it is effective. She is the North American distributor for Thomas International.

"I wanted something new and different. Online game-based training allows you to offer training anywhere at any time," she says.

A roughly translated news story on vietnamnet reports that young players in Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam will be subject to a gaming curfew beginning in January. The crackdown by the city's Department of Information and Communications follows a move earlier this year to curtail primary school students from playing games on weekdays between the hours of 8 am - 5 pm.

Under the new rules, gambling companies are also required to shut down from 10pm to 8am daily and not to provide online gaming to internet shops near any educational institutions.

The crackdown on online games is the result of a public outcry on the “negative effect of video games” on youth. Local reports have blamed an increase in everything from juvenile crime to school truancy on online gaming.

In the latest issue of PC Gamer UK, Valve' s Erik Johnson and founder Gabe Newell explain why the company never went public. The key reasoning for not doing it, the duo said, is because it changes your customers. But the logical reason is that the creative process tends to get hijacked - or at the very least, heavily influenced - by the people that hold the most financial interest in a company.

The other reason, which neither talk about, is that Valve as a company decides where all that money goes; besides funding new projects, the company has the luxury of spending that hard earned cash on creative ideas, long-term support for products and investment into the most important aspect of a high profile development studio: the developers. Here's what both had to say about the subject - first Erik Johnson:

If you were one of the many Modern Warfare 2 players on Steam who received an erroneous message that you were using a cheat and were suddenly banned, then you will be happy to hear that you are now entitled to a free copy of Left 4 Dead 2. The erroneously banned accounts, the result of a glitch related to Valve's Punk Buster anti-cheating software, have been made whole again and company president Gabe Newell has sent an apology letter to all of those affected.

In that apology letter, Newell told the 12,000 some-odd banned account holders that it was Valve's mistake and the he was sorry for the frustration it caused players. He went on to explain what happened on Valve's end to cause this error in the first place:

"The problem was that Steam would fail a signature check between the disk version of a DLL and a latent memory version," he said. "This was caused by a combination of conditions occurring while Steam was updating the disk image of a game."

Newell also clarified that the error wasn't something restricted to Modern Warfare 2, and that Steam is setup in a way that allows Valve to identify and reverse erroneous bans.

Although not necessarily fitting for the pages of Game Politics, everyone enjoys getting something for free, and beginning today Valve is offering a brand new game - along with its course code - with no strings attached. The game is a top down cooperative shooter called Alien Swarm. Valve will also be releasing all the source code for the Steamworks-integrated title as part of a SDK update also to be released today.

The game was originally being developed by Black Cat, but after Valve hired the entire team to work on Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead series, development on the Source Engine based shooter game slowed to a crawl, with Black Cat working on it in its spare time.

You can learn more about the game by visiting www.alienswarm.comSteamPowered.com or by firing up your Steam client.

One analyst’s check into the hiring ads of online retailer Amazon leads him to believe that the company is preparing its own digital delivery service for games.

Via MCVUK we hear from Lazard Capital Analyst Colin Sebastian, who wrote, “Our periodic checks of job postings uncovered a search by Amazon in the video game category to help implement a new digital distribution platform.”

The analyst said that Amazon has about 1,250 open positions, with 511 of those centering on software development.

Sebastion continued:

As in other segments of digital media, we expect Amazon to pursue new opportunities as an aggregator of online games, similar to Steam (PC), BigPoint (browser) and others.

Since the company already has the infrastructure to deliver digital content, we believe that increased selection and a focus on the user experience will be key factors in gaining further market share.

Using Lawrence Lessig’s book Free Culture as quasi- guide, the blog Press Start to Drink takes a look at the current state of copyright law and enforcement within the game community.

Cease and Desist: Games Culture and Copyright Laws begins with Lessig’s assertion that current copyright laws are nothing more than “protectionism to protect certain forms of business.”  This, the author writes, is what has led to, in some cases, “an immense tension between IP holders in the games industry and the IP fans who consider some games part of their personal culture.”

The author details a pair of incidents where game development companies stopped fans from infringing on their copyright: a Gears of War fan that modified a toy to resemble a character from the game and the quashing—by Square Enix—of a community-made Chrono Trigger add-on.

On the other side of the fence, one company (at least) appears to be demonstrating Lessig’s “free culture” ideal: Valve Software. Valve exercised restraint when a group of community members undertook Black Mesa: Source, a project that uses Half Life 2’s source code to reconstruct the original Half Life game.

While Valve did not “openly encouraged the mods development, they have not taken any legal action to stop it.”

Also touched on in the article is the more radical example of when a developer lifts content from a fan-developed project. The author cites the book Play Between Worlds, by T.L. Taylor, who wrote, “several astute MUD developers noticed early on that EQ (EverQuest) appeared strikingly similar to a type of MUD called DIKU.”

The blogger notes that, “…ironically, in the Everquest case, the DIKU developers thought of the situation as a compliment, not a copyright infringement.”

Closing with a quote from Lessig, “The opportunity to create and transform becomes weakened in a world in which creation requires permission and creativity must check with a lawyer,” the blogger adds:

…the more developers and publishers that take up Valve’s position, the more creativity and innovation will emerge out of video game fan communities, already known for their intense fandom and desire to add to, alter, and reimagine their favorite gaming universes.

As part of a plan to bolster its digital distribution offerings, GameStop may look to acquire or invest in an established company or service already involved in the sector.

At a recent analyst meeting, the videogame retailer outlined three ways to accelerate its digital distribution plans reports IndustryGamers: Increase in-store sales of online point cards, expand GameStop’s current digital distribution platform and make a strategic investment in or acquire a current provider of online games.

In an opinion piece in its newsletter, GamesIndustry speculates which companies/services make sense for GameStop to acquire. Metaboli, which purchased GameTap last year, might be one logical answer, as the French-based company would provide double the pay off for GameStop, offering a way into the European market in addition to its digital catalog of games.

The other acquisition possibility? GamesIndustry writes:

Unconfirmed industry scuttlebutt suggests that Zenimax - the parent company of Bethesda, which made headlines back in June when it acquired legendary PC studio id Software - is still on the acquisition trail, and has been making eyes at Half-Life creators Valve across the bar. Whether Bethesda, a hybrid developer / publisher itself, would want to keep Steam on board, or spin it out to a third party, is unclear - as are many other aspects of a potential deal…

In the wake of an Australian Classification Board ruling three weeks ago that Valve's new Left 4 Dead 2 game would receive no classification, Gabe Newell was in Sydney to try to allay the boards concerns.

According to a story on Kotaku, the game was banned because of the amount of violence in the game and deemed "unsuitable for persons under age 18 to play."

Valve has appealed the board's ruling and that a decision should be forthcoming around Oct. 22. As a back-up plan, Newell said that an edited version of the game has been submitted to the board, adding that they don't want to ship a second version, but will if it means getting the game into the hands of Aussie players.

More from Kotaku:

The decision to submit an edited version was made to ensure Left 4 Dead 2 met its planned November release date. Given that the Review Board will not report back on the appeal until October 22, it means there may not be enough time to get the unedited version on sale for the global launch. Newell confirmed that if the edited version is released, then the Australian version would receive an update if the appeal proves successful. This would be free on PC, but he said he did not yet know how it might work on Xbox 360.

It is not out of the realm of possibility that the board could backtrack on it's ban. Warner Bros. Interactive was able to successfully appeal a no classification ruling of F.E.A.R. 2 to an MA15+ rating earlier this year.