Valve
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| Type: | Private |
| Founded: | Kirkland, Washington, USA (1996) |
| Founder(s): | Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington |
| Headquarters: | Bellevue, Washington, USA |
| Area served: | Worldwide |
| Key people: | Gabe Newell, co-founder and managing director |
| Industry: | Computer software, Interactive entertainment |
| Products: |
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| Revenue: | $70million USD (2007) |
| Employees: | 190+ |
| Website: | http://www.valvesoftware.com/ |
Valve Corporation is an American video game development company based in Bellevue, Washington, USA that was founded in 1996, and made famous by its first product, Half-Life, which was released in November 1998.
Valve was originally an L.L.C., based in Kirkland, Washington. After the company became a corporation in 2003 it moved away from its original location to Bellevue, Washington. The city of Bellevue, Washington also served as the homebase for their original publisher Sierra On-Line, Inc.
Half-Life's success was followed by developing mods, spin-offs, and sequels including Half-Life 2. Only two fully produced games, Half-Life and Half Life 2, have been released by Valve, along with a number of episodic, multiplayer, expansion, and campaign titles including Portal, Team Fortress Classic, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat.
On January 10, 2008, Valve Corporation announced that they had acquired Turtle Rock Studios, adding the Californian technology company to its portfolio.
Half-Life
Long-time Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington founded Valve on August 24th, 1996. After securing a license to the Quake engine (through the help of friend Michael Abrash of id Software) in late 1996, they commenced working on Half-Life. Originally planned for release in late 1997, Half-Life launched on November 19 1998. Valve acquired TF Software PTY Ltd. in May 1998, the makers of the Team Fortress mod for Quake with the intent to create a standalone Team Fortress 2 game. The Team Fortress Classic mod, essentially a port of the original Team Fortress mod for Quake, was released for Half-Life in 1999. Team Fortress 2 was released October 10 2007, bundled with Half-Life 2: Episode Two along with Portal.
Valve continued work on Half-Life, releasing several more extensions to the game and collaborated with other developers to port it to other platforms. They also took on-board the development of the highly popular Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat Half-Life mods.
Steam Content Delivery Service
See Steam
