Valve Corporation

Valve Corporation is a developer and publisher.

Valve Corporation Webpage, Facebook

An American video game developer, publisher, and distributor headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. Valve Corporation develops and publishes games for PC and consoles. In addition, the company is behind the digital distribution platform Steam and also develops its own hardware, such as the Steam Deck portable gaming computers and the Valve Index virtual reality headset. Since its inception, it has been headed by Gabe Newell.

The history of Valve

Half-Life, or starting on a high note

The company's history begins in 1996, when, after leaving Microsoft, two of its former employees – Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington – decided to establish their own development studio. Valve, LLC, the studio they created, had its first headquarters in Kirkland, just a few miles from the Microsoft campus in Redmond.

The newly formed studio quickly got to work on their debut work. Half-Life, their first game, is a first-person shooter using Valve's GoldSrc technology, which in turn was based on the Quake engine acquired from id Software. The game, published by Sierra On-Line, was released in November 1998. The title achieved spectacular commercial and artistic success and earned a place in the history of video games, thanks in part to its "cinematic" plot. The game debuted on PC, but later was also released on PlayStation 2.

Encouraged by the first major success, Valve set to work on its next project. Work on the sequel to Half-Life began six months after the release of the original. The title was to be based on the new, proprietary Source engine. Nevertheless, its production lasted so long that in the meantime the described team established cooperation with Gearbox Software, which resulted in three expansions to the first game - Opposing Force, Blue Shift and Decay (developed with the console release of the base game in mind).

In 1998, Valve took over the modding group TF Software, responsible for the popular Team Fortress modification for Quake, which, under the new owner, transformed its work into a separate production – Team Fortress Classic (1999). After the release of the GoldSrc engine development kit, a number of Half-Life modifications saw the light of day, Counter-Strike was the most prominent among them; Valve quickly reacted to its success and acquired its developers to turn it into a standalone title under the company's banner.

In 2000, Mike Harrington left the studio. In 2003, Valve moved to Bellevue and underwent restructuring, becoming the corporation known as Valve Corporation. In 2002, Valve launched Steam - a digital distribution platform through which Valve released updates to its games, and soon also the games themselves.

Half-Life 2, Portal and other hits

Half-Life 2 debuted on PC in 2004. Like the first game in the series, the title was a huge artistic and commercial success, delighting with its plot and characters, as well as the graphics and advanced physics engine. The game also contributed to the popularization of Steam, which was necessary to run it. In the following years, the title appeared on consoles and even made its way to mobile devices.

After the release of Half-Life 2 and Steam's market domination, Valve introduced a flat organizational structure; apart from the management team, all company employees held positions at the same level and could move freely between individual departments.

The debut of Half-Life 2 also marked a turning point in the company's approach to video game development. From then on, Valve Corporation decided to develop smaller projects. The results were the expansions Half-Life 2: Episode One and Half-Life 2: Episode Two, the multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2, and the first-person puzzle game Portal.

In January 2008, Valve acquired the Turtle Rock Studios, which later delivered two hits – the co-op shooters Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 – and then... regained independence in 2010. Shortly thereafter, IceFrog joined Valve Corporation – a developer whose portfolio included the incredibly popular mod for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, titled Defense of the Ancients. Under the guidance of Gabe Newell and company, IceFrog played a key role in the production of its sequel. It was a standalone MOBA game titled Dota 2, which debuted in 2013.

In the meantime, in April 2011, Valve Corporation released Portal 2 on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. In December 2012, Valve acquired the Star Filled Studios, which was closed in August 2013.

Hardware and services

Meanwhile, Valve was looking more and more towards the services and hardware markets. Thanks to the Steam platform, which was a source of huge revenue, the company could afford various experiments and bold ventures. However, not all of them were successful.

It started with an augmented reality technology, which was quickly replaced by virtual reality. In 2015, we learned that Valve had entered into a partnership with HTC, which would result in the HTC Vive headset and the SteamVR service. In addition, in the same year, Valve released a line of gaming computers called the Steam Machine, as well as its own, rather unusual gamepad called the Steam Controller. While Steam Machines faded away fairly quickly, the Steam Controller remained on sale until 2019.

Half-Life: Alyx – new hope for Half-Life fans

In the meantime, Valve canceled a number of its projects, the most prominent of which were Half-Life games (Half Life 2: Episode Three) and Left 4 Dead 3. Fortunately, the company did not completely forget about games development; the first sign of changes and giving Half-Life fans hope for the continuation of Gordon Freeman's adventures was the release of the Source 2 engine in March 2015.

In 2016, Valve released The Lab, a set of minigames for VR. However, this was only a practice run before a much larger project, work on which began at the end of 2016. In January 2017, Valve acquired 3D audio company Impulsonic, and in April 2018 it acquired Campo Santo studio, which had previously delivered the warmly received Firewatch. In June 2019, Valve unveiled its own virtual reality headset, the Valve Index.

In March 2020, Half-Life: Alyx, a game created for virtual reality headsets, was released. Like the previous games from this series, it was a huge success, which, as Gabe Newell himself later revealed, gave Valve employees an energy boost to create more games.

In the meantime, however, Valve also suffered a major failure, which was the Artifact project – a card game set in the Dota 2 universe. Released in November 2018, the production did not meet the expectations of players and failed to keep them entertained for long. The auto battler Dota Underlords did much better and was very warmly received. Its full version was released on PC and mobile devices in 2020.

Counter-Strike 2 and Deadlock

For Valve, 2022 was the year of the Steam Deck, a portable gaming computer that is a kind of alternative to portable consoles. The device was a sales success and praised by gamers, so it quickly gained imitators. Finally, in March 2023, the closed beta of Counter-Strike 2, the second installment of the iconic shooter series, was released. The full version of this production debuted on PC on September 27 of the same year.

In May 2024, the first reports about Valve's new project began to come to light. We are talking about Deadlock, an online TPP action game combining the MOBA and hero shooter genres. In September, we learned that the company's ranks were joined by the founders and selected former employees of Hopoo Games, the studio that delivered the hit Risk of Rain and its sequel.

The most important projects

Steam

A platform initially used primarily to provide updates to games created by Valve, launched in September 2003. Over time, Steam became a full-fledged digital video game distribution platform, and by the end of 2005, it started to feature games created by third-party developers. Over the years, Steam gained popularity and eventually became the largest platform of its kind on the market.

Source Engine

A proprietary graphics engine that replaced the GoldSrc technology, based on the Quake engine. Since 2004, Source has powered all Valve games, and is occasionally used by third-party developers. In 2015, the engine received a successor called Source 2.

Steam Deck

One of Valve's most successful hardware. Announced in July 2021, the portable gaming computers debuted in February 2022 and were a success. Steam Deck quickly gained imitators.

VR

In 2015, Valve and HTC announced a partnership that would result in the HTC Vive virtual reality headset and the SteamVR platform dedicated to VR gaming. In June 2019, Valve released its own virtual reality headset, called Valve Index.

Steam Controller

A unique controller designed and created for the Steam Machine. It is equipped with two large touch panels, one analog stick and a set of buttons. The first Steam Controllers went on sale in 2015, and the last ones rolled off the production line in November 2019.

Steam Machine

A line of gaming computers using the Linux-based SteamOS system, which was a failed venture by Valve. The first Steam Machines, produced by Alienware, ZOTAC and CyberPowerPC, appeared in 2015, but were not a sales success. Due to the latter, the project was quickly abandoned.