Where console platforms have merciless and well-funded PR armies poised to combat any criticism, negative stories about the PC - mostly publishers, or developers like Crytek, complaining of rampant piracy and flat sales - run unimpeded. Sales data that focuses solely on boxed copies sold at retail appear to back them up. Valve has had enough. "There's a perception problem," says Newell. "The stories that are getting written are not reflecting what is really going on."

You want figures? There are 260 million online PC gamers, a market that dwarfs the install base of any console platform, online or offline. Each year, 255 million new PCs are made; not all of them for gaming, it's true, but Newell argues that the enormous capital investment and economies of scale involved in this huge market ensure that PCs remain at the cutting edge of hardware development, and consoles their "stepchildren", in connectivity and graphics technology especially. Meanwhile, Valve's business development guru, Jason Holtman, notes that without the pressure of cyclical hardware cycles, PC gaming projects - he points to Steam as an example - can grow organically, over long periods of time, and with no ceiling whatsoever to their potential audiences.

And then there is the game that many claim has been the death of PC gaming, but that Valve sees as its greatest success story, and its future. "Until recently, the fact that World of Warcraft was generating 120 million dollars in gross revenue on a monthly basis was completely off the books," Newell says. "Essentially, [Blizzard is] creating a new Iron Man every month, in terms of the gross revenue they're generating as a studio. Any movie studio would be shouting about that from the rooftops. But it was essentially invisible."

There is another reason for the gulf between the perception and the reality of the games market, Valve thinks, and it's a geographical and linguistic one. The dominance of the English language gives the US and UK games markets, where the PC is weakest, undue prominence. In several major Western markets - notably Germany and the Nordic countries - the PC performs much better. What's more, in the emerging markets of China, Korea and Russia, where gaming is seeing unprecedented, explosive growth, console install bases are negligible, and the PC is king. Valve thinks that there's a silent majority of global gamers who are skipping the console era entirely, the way these developing nations already skipped dial-up internet.

Steam is available in 21 languages for this reason, and Valve reckons that its speedy localisation and lack of physical distribution is an effective counter to the piracy common in these markets. It's also allowing Valve to get games to players in regions traditional channels don't support. "PC's are everywhere in the world," says Holtman simply. "PC's are the same all over the world. All of sudden, if you can open up emerging markets and go somewhere like Russia or South East Asia, you've gone way further than you can go with a closed console. There are 17 million PC gaming customers in Russia alone.

How will digital distribution change the games business?

One of the biggest problems we face as an industry is the notion that we really only have one channel to deliver product. A game comes out and it has three weeks where it either hits or it fails. When you look at movies, they have the theatrical release, they have pay per view, and it is on airplanes, in hotels and DVDs. We don't have that. We need to provide different levels of investment.

We support the downstream segments--the bargain bins--but for people who love a certain type of product they can't get more of it without buying a whole sequel. With [downloadable content], "Rock Band" being the best example, DLC makes it so you can be invested in a way you've never been invested before.

What will define this era of game design?

This past six-month period is the era of finally figuring out how to do [cooperative multiplayer]--not just co-op capable. Multiplayer isn't just about beating the crap out of each other or playing the single player mode with another person, it's about a whole new game experience.

As the main writer on "Bioshock," what will be the next trend in game narrative?

I've been thinking a lot about how to bring narrative into cooperative gaming--something beyond just playing through the story mode with someone else. There are narrative things that are unique to cooperative experiences that are untouched upon. I've got a lot of big thoughts about that and am really excited about that space.

If you weren't making videogames, what would you be doing?

I'd be swinging from a noose. I can't imagine. I'd probably be writing comics or working on movies, but games are so exciting because they're the convergence of everything. They are my passion and my hobby, and I like to think about them intellectually, and they're a challenge. We still have our "Crisis on Infinite Earth" and our "Citizen Kane" ahead of us. It's so exciting to be a part of that world.

Is there a game you wish you had thought of first?

No, because then I would not get to play it as a gamer. My team and I make things that excite me, but the downside is that I don't get to play them with fresh eyes. When you make games you want to make, they always end up being games that you want to play--but you already know everything about them. So no, I don't wish I had made ["Fallout 3"] because then I wouldn't get to play it.