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What Is Valve?:

Valve Corporation was founded by Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. Both of whom worked at Microsoft, Gabe producing the Windows OS, and Mike assisting him in doing so.  This led to the utter success of Microsoft, amassing them both millions.  Gabe eventually branched off from Microsoft, founding Valve in Kirkland, Washington.  His Co-worker Michael Abrash, did the same, joining a video game development company named “id Software”.  Abrash helped Gabe and Mike acquire the licensing to use id’s Quake engine (used for development of the DOOM Video Game).

With this, they made “Half-Life”.  They struggled to find a publisher for a while, but when they did, Sierra On-Line came through and took the risk on them.  The game was a huge success, skyrocketing Valve into the position it needed to be in. The next years would be spent making small successors to Half-Life while they worked on their next project, “Team Fortress”.  In the meantime, they openly let people mod their games with an open development kit, people making new games using it, the most notable being “Counter-Strike”.  Valve hired the people who made the Counter-Strike mod, Minh Le and Jess Cliffe.  Both making updates to the game regularly throughout the early 2000’s.

Valve and Steam: Moving Forward.

While Valve was having huge success with Counter-Strike and the multiple Half-Life Titles, they needed to update the games.  Sometimes, shutting players out for days at a time.  They needed something better.  Right now, they had a hand-crank, and they needed a steam engine.  Which is where “Steam” comes in.  Steam was released in 2003, their solution to patching their games while not disconnecting players.  It worked, and players were able to play as much as they wanted.  After a few years, Valve would release a few more titles on Steam, such as the long-awaited “Half-Life 2” and others.  By late 2006-07, Larger publishers started to sell their titles on Steam as well, such as Capcom and id Software.  The growing number of games accessible on Steam, as well as the internet getting faster overall.  It led to over 13 million Steam accounts being made by May of 2007.  The number of players increased even more with the introduction of Portal and The Orange Box.  (Including Half-Life 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2).  This helped push out the game not only for PC players, but console players alike. Releasing on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Why is any of this relevant to me?

“Why is any of this relevant to me?”, you may ask.  While the average reader may not think of this as too interesting, it’s something that isn’t talked about too much.  Steam as a whole has somewhat dominated the PC gaming market.  Almost monopolizing the way people play games.  By the early 2010’s steam held over 70% of the PC gaming industry, holding near this high number even today.  This is because of the massive head start they held by introducing Steam so early on.  Today, they are making the best products they can, ranging from a VR headset that sets new limits for the VR industry as a whole to a handheld console that has the same power as a bulky gaming computer.  Their next move is rumoured to be the Steam PC,  a small yet powerful computer.  Making it affordable for the average gamer to upgrade or get into PC gaming.  Thus making their hold on the market even bigger.

Full Steam Ahead.

 That will be all I have for this introduction to Valve.  Expect more in-depth explanations of everything, including an interview with someone who has either previously worked at, or currently does work at Valve.

Sources:

• “Why Steam Still Dominates PC Gaming, Despite Epic’s Billions”  Medium
• “Full Steam Ahead: The History of Valve” GamesRadar+
• “The History Of Valve & How Their Games Began” Opium Pulses