Valve Corporation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Valve Corporation

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	Half-Life series Counter-Strike series Day of Defeat series Team Fortress series Source Steam Valve Anti-Cheat Portal Left 4 Dead
Revenue	▲$70million USD (2007)
Employees	190+[1]
Website	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.

Contents 1 History 2 Half-Life 3 Steam 4 Valve vs Vivendi case 4.1 Activision lawsuit 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit] History

Valve was founded as an L.L.C. based in Kirkland, Washington. After incorporation in 2003, it moved from its original location to Bellevue, Washington, the same city in which their original publisher, Sierra On-Line, Inc., was based.

After the success of Half-Life, the team worked on mods, spin-offs, and sequels, including Half-Life 2. All current Valve games are built on its Source engine, which owes much of its success to mods and sequels. The company has produced six games series: Half-Life, Team Fortress, Portal, Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead, and Day of Defeat. Valve is noted for its support of its games' modding community: most prominently, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, and Day of Defeat each began as a third-party mod that Valve purchased and developed into a full game. They also distribute community mods on Steam.

On January 10, 2008, Valve Corporation announced the acquisition of Turtle Rock Studios.^[2]

On July 03, 2009, in an interview with Joystiq, Doug Lombardi expressed interest on Playstation 3 development by stating: "We have to get people under our roof who are dedicated, talented PS3 guys".^[3]

[edit] Half-Life

Long-time Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington founded Valve on August 24, 1996.^[4][5] 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, the makers of the Team Fortress mod for Quake, in May 1998 with the intent to create a standalone Team Fortress game. The Team Fortress Classic mod, essentially a port of the original Team Fortress mod for Quake, was released for Half-Life in 1999. Gearbox contributed much after the release of Half Life. Gearbox Software is responsible for the Half Life expansion packs, Half-Life: Opposing Force and Half-Life: Blue Shift, along with the home console versions of Half Life for the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2.

[edit] Steam

Valve announced its Steam content delivery system in 2002. At the time, it looked to be a method of streamlining the patch process common in online computer games. Steam was later revealed as a replacement for much of the framework of WON and Half-Life multiplayer and also as a distribution system for entire games.

Through Steam, Valve has shown substantial support for their games through regular updates. Valve's most recent major update for Team Fortress 2 added four new maps, a new game mode, six additional weapons, 35 new achievements, and additional generic bug fixes. This is the fifth such update in the game's two-year history.^[6] A recent update to Valve's newest game, Left 4 Dead, provided seven achievements, sixteen maps, a new game mode, and two new campaigns.^[7] All such updates are provided free of charge.

As of May 30, 2009, 605 games are available on Steam,^[8] and as of February 18, 2009, there are over 20 million user accounts.^[9]

[edit] Valve vs Vivendi case

Between 2002 and 2005, Valve was involved in a complex legal showdown with its publisher, Vivendi Universal (under Vivendi's brand Sierra Entertainment). It officially began on August 14, 2002, when Valve sued Sierra for copyright infringement, alleging that the publisher illegally distributed copies of their games to Internet cafes. They later added claims of breach of contract, accusing their publisher of withholding royalties and delaying the release of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero until after the holiday season.

Vivendi fought back, saying that Gabe Newell and marketing director Doug Lombardi had misrepresented Valve's position in meetings with the publisher. Vivendi later countersued, claiming that Valve's Steam content distribution system attempted to circumvent their publishing agreement. VUG sought intellectual property rights to Half-Life and a ruling preventing Valve from using Steam to distribute Half-Life 2.

On November 29, 2004, Judge Thomas S. Zilly of U.S. Federal District Court in Seattle, WA ruled in favor of Valve Corporation. Specifically, the ruling stated that Vivendi Universal and its affiliates (including Sierra) were not authorized to distribute Valve games, either directly or indirectly, through cyber cafés to end users for pay-to-play activities pursuant to the parties' current publishing agreement. In addition, Judge Zilly ruled that Valve could recover copyright damages for infringements without regard to the publishing agreement's limitation of liability clause.^[10] Valve posted on the Steam website that the two companies had come to a settlement in court on April 29, 2005.^[11] Electronic Arts announced on July 18, 2005 they would be teaming up with Valve in a multi-year deal to distribute their games, replacing Vivendi Universal from then onwards.^[12] As a result of the trial, the arbitrator also awarded Valve $2,391,932.

[edit] Activision lawsuit

In April 2009, Valve sued Activision Blizzard, which acquired Sierra Entertainment after a merger with its parent company, Vivendi Universal Games. Activision had allegedly refused to honor the agreement. Activision had paid Valve $1,967,796, refusing to pay the remaining $424,136, and claiming it had overpaid that sum in the past years.^[13]

[edit] See also

• List of games developed by Valve
• Valve Anti-Cheat
• PowerPlay (technology)
• Source (game engine)
• Steam (content delivery)
• List of Steam games

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official homepage of Valve Corporation
• Official Steam website
• Valve Corporation history

v • d • e Video games developed by Valve Corporation Half-Life series Half-Life (Opposing Force · Blue Shift · Decay) Half-Life 2 (Episode One · Episode Two · Episode Three) Portal (Still Alive) · Portal 2 Counter-Strike series Counter-Strike · Condition Zero · Counter-Strike: Source · Counter-Strike Neo · Counter-Strike Online Day of Defeat series Day of Defeat · Day of Defeat: Source Team Fortress series Team Fortress Classic · Team Fortress 2 Left 4 Dead series Left 4 Dead · Left 4 Dead 2 Other games Deathmatch Classic · Ricochet · The Orange Box