Nintendo is catching a lot of heat these days for refusing to make games for the iPhone, but one of the other elite video game companies, the forward-thinking makers of Portal, Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2, Valve Software isn't just shunning iPhone.

Valve shows no interest in making portable games at all. Not for iPhone. Not for iPad. Not for Droid, 3DS, Vita, or even your old digital watch. That makes them not just one of the only major video game companies not making games for people on the go.

That also might make them—apologies to World of Warcraft's Blizzard Entertainment—the best game-making outfit on Earth, not making portable games.

"We're about people sitting on their couches or at their desks," Valve writer Chet Faliszek recently told me while we talked about Valve's Counter-Strike GO, the team-based first-person shooter set for release as a downloadable PC, Mac, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game in early 2012. To be about couches and desks, of course, means to be for people playing games on consoles and computers.

I had wanted to know if Valve was considering making GO as a portable game, perhaps for the twin-stick PlayStation Vita, which may launch in America around the same time as the new Counter-Strike. "We haven't forayed into that space," he said, of portable gaming. "It's just not a space our engine has been looked at or optimized for."

If Valve keeps shunning portable games, they're going to be lonely. They're natively a PC gaming company, one that has branched out and established, in recent years, a reputation for also making reliably good games on home consoles. But while they've gone that far, some other long-time PC gaming stalwarts like id Software and Epic Games have aggressively pushed into the world of portable games. From id we've gotten a raft of Doom and Rage-related iOS games. Epic, which makes Gears of War but also the graphics tech Unreal has pushed into the world of iOS too, selling their Unreal engine to developers and pushing their own Infinity Blade as one of the most well-regarded and visually-impressive games on iPhone or iPad. From Valve we've gotten no portable Portal, no handheld Half-Life.

So many other companies have gone portable too. There are DS Call of Duty games, PSP Maddens and, of course, Marios, Zeldas, God of Wars and more released by Nintendo and Sony for their portable gaming machines. Even Microsoft, the one console gaming juggernaut without a handheld system, has started making mobile games for Windows Phone 7.

Several years ago, Valve reinvented how PC gaming works by launching Steam and convincing PC gamers and game-makers that a digital download store filled with user-friendly chat and game-updating services is not just essential to gaming on that platform—it's better, better than what was there before. Lately, they've been nudging console makers to reinvent their business, wrangling Sony to allow the PlayStation 3 version of Portal 2 to connect to those being played on computers (the PS3 CS:GO will do the same). Perhaps they'll punch through some walls there.

But what could Valve do for portable gaming? In that area we have Apple promoting 99-cent games yet holding gaming at arm's length by still only gingerly promoting the iPhone or iPad as a go-to gaming device. We've got Nintendo, once unimpeachable in portable gaming, struggling to justify its new 3DS and the $40 price tags on its portable games. And we've got Sony oscillating between a portable gaming strategy based on downloads or store purchases while once again hoping that creating a handheld device, the Vita, with nearly home-console-level horsepower can thrive globally. What we have, really, is chaos in portable gaming, a lack of clear vision, visionary leadership and sound execution, the very things Valve, under Gabe Newell, has given PC gaming.

Maybe one day Valve will get into handheld gaming. Maybe we'll get a Steam store on iPhone, a Portal on the 3DS and a Counter-Strike on the Vita. That won't happen soon. When I met them at Valve, last month, Chet Faliszek and Counter-Strike: GO Ido Magal didn't have portable gaming on their minds. I had to remind them what the Vita is. "We're slow to move on to new platforms," Magal told me. That may be, but portable gaming sure could use them.

You guys all played Amnesia: The Dark Descent, right? That whole game "happened" before I came onboard at Kotaku, but I hope that everyone here had a chance to play it and talk about it to the extent that it deserved. Because seriously: scary, rad game.

Thomas Grip, the founder of Frictional Games, the studio behind Amnesia, has posted a lengthy blog post in honor of the game's one-year anniversary. "Everybody in the company has gotten raised salaries," reads the post, "and we have more than enough money to complete our next game… Reactions to the game are still pouring in, and it feels extremely good and humbling to be able to have that kind of impact on people."

(I'm guessing that by "that kind of effect" Grip means "Making thousands of people post hilarious videos of themselves pissing their pants in fear.")

After post-morteming a bunch of things regarding the launch and reception of the game, Grip moves to the question "What's next?" He starts with consoles:

Another big change for the future will be consoles. The main reason for choosing consoles is purely financial. Right now our main income comes from very few channels, and we need to spread out the risk somehow. The other reason is that we feel we are missing out on exposure by not being on a console and not reaching as many players as we should be able to.

And while Grip notes that console tech is "really old compared to the PC right now," he assures readers that "Our current thinking is to make the console get a lower end version and make sure console specs influence the PC version as little as possible." If I had to guess, I'd say that the time is right for a downloadable console port of Amnesia, much like Crytek recently announced with the original Crysis.

Lastly, Grip discusses Frictional's next game:

Finally, in regards to what our next project is about, the basic idea is to use lessons learned from Amnesia and then take it to the next level. We have mentioned before that the next game will not be as horror focused as our past ones, but still have a scary atmosphere. Our intention this time is to dig into deeper and more intellectually demanding subjects. Another goal for us is to get past having classical puzzles that break the flow, but without making the game into a spoon-fed type of experience.

It's always cool to see an indie have enough financial success with a first project to really stretch out with a follow-up—kinda like what Jonathan Blow is doing with his phenomenal-looking Braid follow-up The Witness.

Very much looking forward to learning more about Grip and his team's next project which, toned-down horror elements or no, should prove to be a creepy good time.

Amnesia - One Year Later [Frictional Games via Game Informer]

This Philips webcam, from a 2001 Swedish catalogue, should look familiar to fans of Valve's Portal series. What do you think? Awesome coincidence or awesome (given the nature of the "characters") inspiration?

Portal Webcam of the Day [TDW]

Your Team Fortress 2 hat surplus can now be put to better use, thanks to newly out-of-beta Steam Trading features. Valve's new cross-game trading tech is now available in TF2, Portal 2 and Sega's Spiral Knights. [TF2 Blog]

Is this the best summer for video game-themed socks... ever? It's looking that way, now that J!NX has released officially licensed Portal 2 knee socks, footwear based on the Aperture Science Long Fall Boots from Valve's first-person puzzler.

While your sock drawer may already be over-encumbered with excellent Minecraft-inspired socks, I don't know how any discriminating sock aficionado could pass on the Portal 2 Long Fall Socks. Technically, they're in "womens sizes only," according to J!NX, but they're also only ten bucks American.

Go on. Grab some. Even if you're a dude. Consider it an experiment.

Portal 2 Long Fall Socks [JINX]

In nearly every case when a game is released on console and PC, the console versions sell a ton more copies. Like, it's not even close. Unless we're talking about a Valve game.

While the developer, publisher and operator of Steam sadly never releases internal sales figures for its online marketplace, Valve boss Gabe Newell has told Gamasutra that while the Left 4 Dead series has sold much better on console than on PC, "Portal 2 did better on the PC than it did on the consoles".

We'll probably never know just how much better, but the fact it did better at all is a feather in the PC market's cap. And maybe a sign that, hey, when developers release games that work well and look great on PC, instead of being shitty ports or being saddled with crippling DRM, people may actually buy them.

The Valve Way: Gabe Newell And Erik Johnson Speak [Gamasutra]

Saving the Princess looks almost too easy armed with an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. But that doesn't mean we're not overly excited to play Mari0, a side-scrolling that jams Valve's brand of teleportation into Nintendo's NES classic.

Developers at the ominous sounding Stabyourself.net are responsible for Mari0, a mash-up of Super Mario Bros. and Portal, a real game that we'd previously seen as a Dorkly-produced joke video.

Mari0 is in the words of its creators, "an actual game being developed - it is not a mod of any existing one." They say it will be released for free, along with its source code, and will support map packs in the future. Mari0 also promises Portal-infused levels from Super Mario Bros. and its sequel, which many of us know as Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels.

It even has simultaneous multiplayer, just like Portal 2.

Mari0 [Stabyourself.net via Kottke]

Computer games have long lived online, but nowadays video game consoles are joining them, becoming a form of entertainment that can be not just enjoyed online, but increasingly, purchased online.

While computer publisher Valve is mostly about computer gaming, their Steam service has started to make in roads to console gaming as well. A bulk of what they currently do is provide an online service and store for computer gaming, but Gabe Newell, the head of the company knows that's changing.

He's also keeping a close eye on how other publishers are starting to create their own, competitive services. I sat down with Newell in Germany earlier this month to chat with him about the problems online gaming faces, including the fight to stop piracy, challenges to Steam and the future of gaming.

The first thing I wanted to know, though, was what he thought of publishers who require a gamer to remain online at all times to play their games. Or the slew of publishers who are starting to require people who buy their games used to purchase a second code to unlock the game's online elements.

"We're a broken record on this," Newell told me,. "This belief that you increase your monetization by making your game worth less through aggressive digital rights management is totally backwards . It's a service issue, not a technology issue. Piracy is just not an issue for us."

And it's not because Steam avoids regions of the world known for their software piracy, they actually embrace them.

"When we entered Russia everyone said, ‘You can't make money in there. Everyone pirates,'" Newell said.

But when Valve looked into what was going on there they saw that the pirates were doing a better job of localizing games than the publishers were.

"When people decide where to buy their games they look and they say, ‘Jesus, the pirates provide a better service for us,'" he said.

So Valve invested in getting the games they sold there localized in Russian. Now Russia is their largest European market outside of the UK and Germany.

"The best way to fight piracy is to create a service that people need," he said. "I think (publishers with strict DRM) will sell less of their products and create more problems.

"Customers want to know everything is going to be there for them no matter what: Their saved games and configurations will be there. They don't want any uncertainty."

And it's uncertainty among gamers that some of this more egregious digital rights management is creating.

Newell says he's not really bothered by the idea of other publishers, even mammoth ones like Electronic Arts, starting to compete with them head-on by creating their own store.

"They look at Steam as it is today and say, ‘Aha, we can do something like that too.'," he said. "What they are missing is that this is just the beginning. The rate at which stuff is changing is dramatic. Things we've done in Steam are going to seem very primitive simply a few years down the road."

Steam, he said, can't stand still for even half a year and in a way, that terrified Newell.

"We're terrified by the future," he said. "You need to be looking at what's happening with Apple, Google Android and thinking that could impact the living room in a big way. You need to be looking at Onlive and how it is integrated with the television.

"Where we are today is trivial to where we will be down the line. We need to be focusing on where we are headed."

Newell says he is excited not just for Valve and Steam but for game makers and game players.

"All of this is going to be awesome for game developers," he said. "It's going to be awesome for gamers. If it's Steam that pulls this all together, great, if we don't we'll be the answer to a trivia question."

Well Played is an internationally syndicated weekly news and opinion column about the big stories of the week in the gaming industry and its bigger impact on things to come. Feel free to join in the discussion.

Image: Shutterstock

One of the guys behind Super Meat Boy has a new game. This is it! I enjoyed their last title (review here), and am looking forward to this, Binding of Isaac.

Heading to Steam (PC and Mac) this September, the game is a randomly generated, action role-playing game shooter. It'll cost $5.

When I finish playing one first-person shooter, there's always another one for me to choose from. The same is true when I finish racing games or when the alternate-universe version of me finishes playing games that include the words Shin, Megami and Tensei in the title.

But what's a man to play when he's finished his Portal stack of two first-person, patiently-played puzzle games? The pickings are slimmer than nosehairs. That's where, to extend this unfortunate metaphor, Q.U.B.E. may come in. It's a first-person puzzle game that's getting its latest showing at the indie area of the Penny Arcade Expo.

I shot a short video of the game in action, narration by Peter from Toxic Games. I like what I see, though I can't tell how far this gameplay idea can go. We'll find out within the next few months. The Toxic team is targeting late 2011 for a Steam release and next year for a console release, console makers wiling.

Enjoy the video. And look for more coverage of another PAX-showcased Portaly game, Quantum Conundrum on Kotaku soon.

(An aside: Should this game support the NES Power Glove? I think it should!)