Valve economist speaks of secretive hardware

Back in June, Valve hired its very own economist and economics theory professor, Yanis Varoufakis and now he’s returned to the real world with tales of his adventures in Gabeland. Most significantly, he’s confirmed that Valve is already working on some sort of high-tech proprietary hardware.

“I got the chance to ‘see the future’. You see, in addition to their game software, Valve has started developing hardware. Worried by Microsoft’s and Apple’s tendency to claim a bigger and bigger cut of its profits (in order to allow users access to Valve games through the computers that run their software), Valve has started experimenting with its own machines that give you the ability to run these games without a (Microsoft or Apple-controlled) computer,” Varoufakis revealed in a blog post translated over on NeoGAF.

“I’ve signed an NDA so I can’t reveal much more. I’ll just say that I really saw the future. (It’s not a small deal to see a virtual but highly realistic alien stand beside a real human in the same room with you, walk around the room and wink at you. And all that without a screen, a projector or even a computer near you…)”

Is the Steam Box still a thing, or is this something else entirely? My money’s on “something else entirely”, but more importantly – what about Half-Life 3? Sorry, I didn’t want to bring it up, but it’s the rules.