The official Valve logo
About[]
Valve Corporation, often referred to as simply Valve and stylized as VALVE, is an American video game and digital distribution company. They are best known for creating and developing the Half-Life, Left 4 Dead , The Counter Strike Series and the Team Fortress series amongst others as well as the Steam digital distribution service, and the well known movie-making and animation software, Source Filmmaker.
Valve was founded by Gabe (GabeN) Newell and Mike Harrington(Both of which are former Microsoft employees) on the 24th August of 1996, in Kirkland, Washington. The company is headed by co-founder and current managing director, Gabe Newell. Valve first debuted with it's successful FPS-franchise, Half-Life on 1998, after which fellow computer programmer Mike Harrington left Valve. In 2004, Valve had successfully launched the online-game store Steam and the also successful Half-Life 2. By 2011, majority of digital PC games were sold on Steam, eventually leading Valve to a huge commercial success, becoming the most profitable company per employee in the United States. In the 2013 DICE Summit, Gabe Newell has discussed with famed director, J.J. Abrams, about an upcoming film about a Valve game (Mostly Half-Life), and possibly a new game.
Games[]
- Doom (With id Software, 1993)
- Quake (With id Software, 1996)
- Final Doom (With id Software, 1996)
- Quake II (With id Software and Activision, 1997)
- Half-Life (1998)
- Half-Life: Opposing Force (1999)
- Team Fortress Classic (1999)
- Half-Life: Uplink (1999)
- Quake III Arena (With id Software, 1999)
- Counter-Strike (2000)
- Deathmatch Classic (2000)
- Ricochet (2000)
- Half-Life: Blue Shift (2001)
- Half-Life: Decay (2001)
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (With Bethesda Studios, 2002)
- Day of Defeat (2003)
- Half-Life 2 (2004)
- Counter-Strike: Source (2004)
- Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (2004)
- Garry's Mod (With Facepunch Studios, 2004)
- Half-Life 2: Deathmatch (2004)
- Half-Life Source (2004)
- Codename: Gordon (2004)
- Day of Defeat: Source (2005)
- Half-Life 2: Lost Coast (2005)
- Rag Doll Kung Fu (With Lionhead Studios, 2005)
- Counter-Strike Neo (2005)
- Half-Life 2: Episode One (2006)
- DEFCON (With Introversion Software, 2006)
- SiN Episodes (With Ritual Entertainment, 2006)
- Half-Life 2: Survivor (2006)
- Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 (With Tripwire Interactive, 2006)
- Team Fortress 2 (2007)
- Portal (2007)
- Half-Life 2: Episode Two (2007)
- The Orange Box (2007)
- Age of Chivalry (2007)
- Left 4 Dead (2008)
- Counter-Strike: Online (2008)
- Audiosurf (With Invisible Handlebar, 2008)
- Left 4 Dead 2 (2009)
- Zeno Clash (With ACE Team, 2009)
- Alien Swarm (2010)
- Portal 2 (2011)
- Dino D-Day (2011)
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (2012)
- Dota 2 (2013)
- The Lab (2013)
- Counter-Strike Online 2 (TBA)
- The Crossing (Cancelled)
- Half-Life 2: Episode Three (TBA)
- Artifact (sometime in 2018)
Trivia[]
- The guy in the first startup logo was a former Valve employee. The second guy, on the other hand, his identity is still unknown, but it is said that Valve had picked a random guy from the street to complete it respectively.
- EA (Electronic Arts) once sought to purchase Valve for a billion dollars,Gaben discarded the offer and said, "..Valve would prefer to disintegrate than ever sell out."
- A German Hacker once succesfully hacked Valve on 2004, while doing so, he downloaded the whole source code of Half-Life 2, after while, Half-Life 2 was leaked to random sites on the Internet. Valve soon noticed, and took action. They were able to identify the hacker, and tricked him into thinking they were looking forward to hire him; in reality, when he arrived, he was arrested by the FBI. Before all that, the FBI had alerted the police in Germany, remotely arresting him while he was in his home.