Valve

Valve was founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. Their debut game, the first-person shooter (FPS) Half-Life (1998), was a critical and commercial success that had a lasting influence on the genre. Harrington left in 2000. In 2003, Valve launched Steam, followed by Half-Life 2 (2004), the episodic sequels Half-Life 2: Episode One (2006) and Episode Two (2007), the puzzle games Portal (2007) and Portal 2 (2011), and the multiplayer games Team Fortress 2 (2007), Left 4 Dead (2008), and Dota 2 (2013).
During the 2010s, Valve released fewer games and focused on hardware and virtual reality (VR). They released the first Steam Machine console in 2015, the Valve Index VR headset in 2019, their flagship VR game, Half-Life: Alyx, in 2020, and the handheld system Steam Deck in 2022. In 2026, Valve released a redesigned Steam Machine and a standalone VR headset, the Steam Frame.
Valve uses a flat organizational structure, allowing employees to choose their own projects. Valve is noted for its technical and artistic innovation, with many of its games receiving mention among the greatest games of all time. They develop games through playtesting and iteration, describing game design as a kind of experimental psychology. By 2012, Valve employed around 250 people and was reportedly worth over US$3 billion. Most of Valve's revenue comes from Steam, which controlled over half of the digital PC games market in 2011 and generated an estimated $3.4 billion in 2017.