Valve’s Steam digital purchase and gaming platform has been having a great year so far. The company has announced in a press release that during the last 12 months Steam has received over 30 million new accounts, which translates into a staggering 178% new user growth.

When Left 4 Dead 2 was announced at E3 2009, many gamers were flabbergasted. This was a sequel that was scheduled to be released a year after the original Left 4 Dead. Valve hadn’t delivered on the downloadable content it promised for L4D, and it appeared as though the company was merely cashing in on the franchise. The outrage over the sudden release of L4D2 has since subsided, but Valve has learned an important lesson from all this.

My friends I bring you sad news. The beloved franchise known as Half-Life has not seen a new game in almost six long years. Rumors were pointing to a possible Half-Life 2: Episode 3 reveal at E3 2010. Well we’re here to tell you that isn’t going to happen.

Valve is so proud of its work on Portal 2 it has hailed it as some of its best work.Valve’s co-founder Gabe Newell gave a short interview with 1UP in which he stated Valve internally feels that Portal 2 is,”the best game we’ve ever done.”

A recent online survey by Valve points out that, only one in 50 gamers have Windows Vista and DirectX 10 compatible graphics cards to play DirectX 10-based games. It also has found that only 8% PC gamers run Windows Vista. The results of this Valve survey hold significance because Microsoft has announced Vista exclusivity for DirectX 10 prompting panic among PC gamers who don’t have the OS (a majority).

Gabe Newell, president Valve Software, in an interview to a German gaming website, termed the Vista exclusivity of DirectX 10 a “terrible mistake” on part of Microsoft.