32 Facts About Valve Corporation

1. Valve Corporation is an American video game developer, publisher, and digital distribution company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington.

2. Valve Corporation was founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington.

3. In 2013, Valve Corporation released the multiplayer online battle arena game Dota 2.

4. Valve Corporation released fewer games in the 2010s and experimented with hardware and virtual reality.

5. In 2022, Valve Corporation released the Steam Deck, a portable gaming system.

6. Valve Corporation enlisted Gearbox Software to develop three expansions for Half-Life: Opposing Force, Blue Shift (2001) and Decay (2001).

7. In 1998, Valve Corporation acquired TF Software, a group that had made the popular Team Fortress mod for Quake, and remade it for GoldSrc as Team Fortress Classic in 1999.

8. In 2016, Valve Corporation signed a nine-floor lease in the Lincoln Square complex in downtown Bellevue, doubling the size of their offices.

9. Valve Corporation began developing Half-Life 2 six months after the release of the first Half-Life, using its new in-house engine, Source.

10. In 2002, Valve Corporation launched Steam, a digital storefront and delivery platform.

11. Alongside Dota 2 in 2011, Valve Corporation started The International, an annual eSports tournament for Dota 2 with a prize pool supported by Valve Corporation and funds from microtransactions from battle passes purchased by players.

12. In December 2012, Valve Corporation acquired Star Filled Studios, a two-person studio, to open a San Francisco office.

13. In 2015, Valve Corporation released the Steam Machine, a line of gaming computers, which sold poorly.

14. That year, Valve Corporation collaborated with the electronics company HTC to develop the HTC Vive, a VR headset released in 2016.

15. Valve Corporation experimented with VR games, and in 2016 released The Lab, a collection of VR minigames.

16. Valve Corporation bought Impulsonic, a developer of 3D audio software, in January 2017 and integrated it into its Bellevue offices.

17. In November 2018, Valve Corporation released Artifact, a digital collectible card game based on Dota 2, with design by Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering.

18. In June 2019, Valve Corporation released its second-generation VR hardware, the Valve Corporation Index.

19. In March 2020, Valve Corporation released Half-Life: Alyx, a VR game.

20. Valve Corporation collaborated with Netflix for Dota: Dragon's Blood, an animated television series based on Dota, to premiere in March 2021.

21. In 2020, Valve Corporation acknowledged that its structure had made it difficult to gather momentum, slowing their output during the 2010s.

22. Valve Corporation published the multiplayer game Left 4 Dead and developed and published Left 4 Dead 2.

23. Valve Corporation worked with Arkane Studios on The Crossing, which was canceled in May 2009.

24. Valve Corporation announced Steam, its digital distribution service, at the 2002 Game Developers Conference.

25. In May 2014, Valve Corporation announced that the company's own SteamOS-powered Steam Machine would be delayed until 2015 due to problems with the game controller.

26. Cisco and Valve Corporation intended to deliver a single dial-up service in Q1 2000 in the United States with a 30-day free trial with a bundled copy of Team Fortress modified to support PowerPlay.

27. In July 2013, Valve Corporation announced Pipeline, an intern project consisting of ten high school students working together to learn how to create video game content.

28. Internally, Valve Corporation started work on Steam as a means to digitally distribute these games, and first revealed this project at the March 2002 Game Developers Conference.

29. Valve Corporation posted on the Steam website that the companies had come to a settlement in court on April 29, 2005.

30. In January 2018, Valve Corporation filed for a "special leave" of the court's decision, appealing to the High Court of Australia.

31. On October 17, 2016, Valve Corporation sent a letter to the Washington State Gambling Commission stating that they had "no business relationship with such gambling sites", asserting that they come into existence, operate, and go out of existence without their knowledge and consent, adding that they were not aware of any such law that Steam or any of their games were violating.

32. In 2016, a former employee filed a suit against Valve Corporation alleging poor working conditions and harassment.