Google is allegedly eyeing a buyout of successful game developer Valve Corporation. A report by The Inquirer claims that Google is going to be buying Valve any second now, because the search king wants to grab Valve's professional content distribution platform, Steam.

Valve Corporation was founded by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington in 1996. The company launched their innovative Steam digital distribution and multiplayer platform in 2002. Now the system has nearly 500 games available and almost 15 million active users. It is THE digital distribution system for games. The company added last year The Steam Community website, a social network that allows Steam users to communicate with each other.

Thus it is very clear why Google would end up buying a game developer. It’s the Steam, man! Yet another territory for the Google goliath to expand into. However, there’s no official confirmation yet of the alleged deal other than the above-mentioned report.

Valve Software’s Orange Box, released late last year, topped both BioShock and Halo 3 in terms of favorable reviews. Valve’s offering included Team Fortress 2, Half Life Episode 1 and 2 and Portal, a franchise from the creators of Half Life, and the original Half Life 2, converted specially for the Xbox 360. Orange Box invited players again to take the role of the silent world-savior Gordon Freeman in his quest to… well… save the world from the alien invasion.