For the past few years, Valve has had its own exhibit space at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, showing off upcoming games such as the Left 4 Dead titles (in 2008 and 2009) and Portal 2 (in 2010). However even though Valve does have at least one game planned for release in 2011 it has chosen not to participate in E3 2011 on June 7-9 in Los Angeles. In an email sent to the media today Valve said, "Lots of folks have mailed asking about appointment times, etc., with Valve. Well, we are not showing any titles at this year"s show. So no appointment is needed. Thanks."
Valve does have one announced game in the works: DOTA 2, the stand alone sequel-remake to the game that began as a Warcraft III mod, Defense of the Ancients. The fantasy-themed multiplayer action-RTS mod has spawned its own sub genre with games like Demigod, League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth and more. Valve announced its plans to release DOTA 2 last fall for a release on the PC sometime in 2011. However since that first reveal Valve has been silent on the game"s progress.
Valve isn"t the only high profile game developer and publisher to bypass E3 2011. Blizzard will once again not be participating in the show despite having a number of upcoming games in the worlds (Diablo III, StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm and the next MMO project). NCsoft, which has the fantasy MMO Guild Wars 2 and a number of unannounced games in the works, also won"t be at E3 2011.