Valve's business has grown 'about 50 percent' in the last year, Gabe Newell says

Gabe Newell says that Valve's business has grown about 50 percent in the last year, in part thanks to community-created contributions to games like Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2 and "an insatiable demand for gaming right now."

In an interview after receiving his BAFTA Academy Fellowship at this year's British Academy Games Awards, the Valve co-founder responded to a question about the viability of "cloud-based development."

"There's sort of an insatiable demand for gaming right now," Newell said. "In the last year, our business has grown about 50 percent on the back of the opportunities that have been created by having these open platforms." Valve allows community members to create and sell content for games like Team Fortress 2 through its online store, with profits going back to the content's creators.

To illustrate that "insatiable demand," Newell dropped an impressive piece of data related to Valve's Dota 2, currently the most played game on Steam.

"The last Dota 2 update, we were generating 3.5 terabits per second, that's about two percent of all the mobile and LAN based internet activity, just for a single game update," he said. "That gives you an idea of the scale of what's happening.

"I think we are going to continue to see tremendous innovation coming out of that potential, out of the unusual, crazy, weird, disgusting but ultimately wonderful experiences that people will create for each other."