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Valve Corporation

Moby ID: 126

AKA +
  • Valve L.L.C. (from 1996 to 2003)

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Valve Corporation is an entertainment software company founded in 1996 by Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington in Kirkland, Washington. They were both previously with Microsoft. Valve's debut product, Half-Life, released in November 1998, has won more than 50 Game of the Year honors worldwide.

On 12 September 2003, the company launched the digital distribution platform Steam. Steam's launch and the question of licenses for cyber cafes resulted in a dispute with Valve's publisher at the time, Vivendi Universal (as owner of Sierra), which was resolved in April 2005 in Valve's favor, with all their future titles being self-published from that moment on. Steam would gradually gain traction as the most popular digital distribution service for PC games by the late 2000s, for both Valve's and third-party titles.

All of the company's titles from 1998 to mid-2004 ran on the in-house GoldSrc engine until it was succeeded by the Source engine with the release of Counter-Strike: Source in 2004. Valve then used the Source engine for all of their titles until the engine was succeeded by Source 2 in 2015.

Aside games and engines, Valve has developed a Linux distribution named SteamOS (as of 2013), Steam Machine and Steam Controller hardware (2015-2019), virtual reality set family Valve Index (as of 2019), and the Steam Deck handheld device (as of 2022).

From January 2008 to June 2009, Valve owned the studio Turtle Rock Studios (then renamed to Valve South) to develop Left 4 Dead, after which the studio was closed, then re-established independently from Valve in February 2010. In November 2012, Valve acquired Star Filled Studios. In January 2017, Valve acquired Impulsonic. In April 2018, Valve acquired Campo Santo Productions.

Credited on 40,975 Games from 1998 to 2024

Displaying most recent · View all

Busty Milf and Summer Country Sex Life (2024 on Windows)
Cats Hidden in China (2024 on Windows)
Class of Heroes 2G: Remaster Edition (2024 on Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5)
Femdom Game World: Stepmother (2024 on Windows)
Heavy Storm Shadow (2024 on Windows)
I'm Isekai Hero (2024 on Windows)
Jack Holmes: Master of Puppets (2024 on Windows)
Knightly Passions (2024 on Macintosh, Linux, Windows)
Lazy Climbers (2024 on Windows)
Love Sucks: Night Two (2024 on Linux, Windows, Macintosh)
Manor Lords (2024 on Windows, Windows Apps)
Miko in Maguma (2024 on Windows)
Moonlight Pulse (2024 on Windows, Macintosh)
My Boyfriend is a Martian (2024 on Windows)
Paradise (2024 on Windows, Macintosh)
Phantasm (2024 on Windows)
Rusty's Retirement (2024 on Macintosh, Windows)
SCP: Event Classified (2024 on Windows)
Staffer Reborn (2024 on Windows, Macintosh)
Story of Eve 2 (2024 on Windows)

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History +

December 17, 2022

Valve's Linux-based handheld gaming device, the Steam Deck, ships in Asia.

February 25, 2022

Valve's Linux-based handheld gaming device, the Steam Deck, ships in North America and Europe.

November 26, 2019

The Steam Controller production is discontinued.

June 28, 2019

The first units of Valve Index, a family of virtual reality hardware, are released.

January 12, 2017

Impulsonic Inc. announces that they have been acquired by Valve.

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Trivia +

The German online magazine 4Players named Valve as #2 Best Developer of 2007 and Best Developer of 2011.

The company was named "Developer of 2008" by the online gaming magazine GameSpy.

Address in 2003:

Valve, LLC

520 Kirkland Way, Ste 201

Kirkland, WA 98033

Postal address:

P. O. Box 1688

Bellevue WA 98009

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