Valve Corporation is an American
video game developer,
publisher
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
, and
digital distribution
Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of digital media content such as audio, video, e-books, video games, and othe ...
company headquartered in
Bellevue, Washington. It is the developer of the software distribution platform
Steam
Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporizat ...
and the franchises ''
Half-Life
Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable at ...
'', ''
Counter-Strike'', ''
Portal'', ''
Day of Defeat'', ''
Team Fortress'', ''
Left 4 Dead'' and ''
Dota
''Dota'' is a series of strategy video games by Valve. The series began in 2003 with the release of '' Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a fan-developed multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) mod for the video game '' Warcraft III: Reig ...
''.
Valve was founded in 1996 by former
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...
employees
Gabe Newell and
Mike Harrington. Their debut game, the
first-person shooter (FPS) ''
Half-Life
Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable at ...
'' (1998), was a critical and commercial success; with its realism,
scripted sequences and seamless narrative, it had a lasting influence on the FPS genre. Harrington left in 2000. In 2003, Valve launched Steam, followed by ''
Half-Life 2'' in 2004. With advanced
physics systems and an increased focus on story and characters, ''Half-Life 2'' received critical acclaim and sold 12 million copies by 2011. In 2006, Valve released ''
Half-Life 2: Episode One'', the first of two
episodic
Episodic may refer to:
* The nature of television series that are divided into short programs known as episodes
* Episodic memory, types of memory that result from specific incidents in a lifetime
* In Geology, episodic refers to events that occur ...
sequels; ''
Episode Two ''Episode II'', ''Episode 2'' or ''Episode Two'' may refer to:
* ''Episode II'' (album), an album by Safri Duo
* ''Episode II'' (EP), an EP by Eiffel 65
* "Episode 2" (song), a song by Dragon Ash
* "Episode 2" (''Ashes to Ashes''), an episode of ...
'' followed in 2007, alongside the multiplayer game ''
Team Fortress 2'' and the puzzle game ''
Portal.'' ''
Portal 2'' was released in 2011. In 2013, Valve released the
multiplayer online battle arena
Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) is a subgenre of strategy video games in which two teams of players compete against each other on a predefined battlefield. Each player controls a single character with a set of distinctive abilities that i ...
game ''
Dota 2
''Dota 2'' is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve. The game is a sequel to '' Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.'' ''Dota ...
.''
Valve released fewer games in the 2010s and experimented with hardware and
virtual reality
Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...
(VR). They entered the hardware market in 2015 with the
Steam Machine, a line of
gaming computers, which sold poorly, and released the
HTC Vive
VIVE, sometimes referred to as HTC Vive, is a virtual reality brand of HTC Corporation. It consists of hardware like its titular virtual reality headsets and accessories, virtual reality software and services, and initiatives that promote ...
and
Valve Index VR headsets. They returned to the ''Half-Life'' series in 2020 with ''
Half-Life: Alyx'', their flagship VR game. In 2022, Valve released the
Steam Deck, a portable gaming system.
Valve uses a
flat structure, whereby employees decide what to work on themselves. 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 50 to 70% of the market for downloaded PC games in 2011 and generated an estimated $3.4 billion in 2017.
History
Founding and ''Half-Life'' (1996–2003)
Valve was founded as Valve, LLC, in 1996 by former
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...
employees
Gabe Newell and
Mike Harrington.
Newell had spent the prior 13 years at Microsoft developing
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...
,
including the
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufactu ...
port of ''
Doom''. Wanting to move onto a new venture using their shared wealth, Newell and Harrington founded Valve, L.L.C. in
Kirkland, Washington
Kirkland is a city in King County, Washington, United States. A suburb east of Seattle, its population was 92,175 in the 2020 U.S. census which made it the sixth largest city in the county and the twelfth largest in the state.
The city's downt ...
(about five miles from the Microsoft campus in
Redmond), on August 24, 1996, Newell's wedding day.
Alternative names considered by Newell and Harrington include Fruitfly Ensemble and Rhino Scar.
Valve's first game was ''
Half-Life
Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable at ...
'', a
first-person shooter (FPS) with elements of horror.
The development was aided by access to the
''Quake'' engine by
id Software; Valve modified this engine into their
GoldSrc engine.
After struggling to find a publisher, Valve eventually signed with
Sierra On-Line.
''Half-Life'' was released in November 1998
and was a critical and commercial success.
With its realism,
scripted sequences and seamless narrative, it had a lasting influence; according to ''
IGN'' in 2014, the history of the FPS genre "breaks down pretty cleanly into pre-''Half-Life'' and post-''Half-Life'' eras".
Valve enlisted
Gearbox Software to develop three
expansions for ''Half-Life'': ''
Opposing Force'' (1999), ''
Blue Shift'' (2001) and ''
Decay'' (2001).
In 1998, Valve 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. Valve released the
software development kit (SDK) for the GoldSrc engine, facilitating numerous user-created mods. They acquired the developers of one popular mod, ''
Counter-Strike'', to create a standalone ''Counter-Strike'' game.
Happy with Valve's success, Harrington left in 2000.
Source, Steam, and ''Half-Life 2'' (2003–2010)
In 2003, Valve moved to
Bellevue, Washington, and reincorporated as Valve Corporation.
In 2010, the office moved to a larger location in Bellevue. In 2016, Valve signed a nine-floor lease in the
Lincoln Square complex in downtown Bellevue, doubling the size of their offices.
Valve began developing ''
Half-Life 2'' six months after the release of the first ''Half-Life'', using its new in-house engine,
Source.
With advanced
physics systems and an increased focus on story and characters, it received critical acclaim upon its release in 2004; by 2011, it had sold 12 million copies. In 2002, Valve launched
Steam
Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporizat ...
, a digital storefront and delivery platform. Steam initially offered only Valve games, and was mandatory to install ''Half-Life 2'', but became a publisher of third-party games.
As Valve became its own publisher via Steam, it transitioned to a
flat organization; outside of executive management, Valve does not have bosses, and the company uses an
open allocation system, allowing employees to move between departments at will.
After having taken years to develop ''Half-Life 2'', Valve moved to
episodic development, planning to release shorter games more frequently. ''
Half-Life 2: Episode One'', the first in a planned trilogy of episodic ''Half-Life 2'' sequels, was released in 2006.
''
Episode Two ''Episode II'', ''Episode 2'' or ''Episode Two'' may refer to:
* ''Episode II'' (album), an album by Safri Duo
* ''Episode II'' (EP), an EP by Eiffel 65
* "Episode 2" (song), a song by Dragon Ash
* "Episode 2" (''Ashes to Ashes''), an episode of ...
'' followed in 2007, alongside the multiplayer game ''
Team Fortress 2'' and the puzzle game ''
Portal'', developed from the student project
Narbacular Drop.
In January 2008, Valve announced the acquisition of
Turtle Rock Studios,
which was renamed Valve South. Turtle Rock developed ''
Left 4 Dead'' and ''
Left 4 Dead 2'' while associated with Valve. Turtle Rock Studios later spun out of Valve again in March 2010.
''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...
'' estimated that Valve had grossed $70 million in 2005.
Screen Digest
Screen Digest Ltd was a company providing business intelligence, research and analysis on the global media markets based in London, United Kingdom, that has grown out of a monthly journal of that name that was founded in 1971. It was acquired by th ...
analyst Ed Barton estimated Valve's 2010 revenue to be in the "high hundreds of millions of dollars".
As of 2011, Valve had an estimated worth of $2 to 4 billion and employed 250 people; according to Newell, this made it more profitable per employee than
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
or
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ances ...
. Most of Valve's revenue comes from Steam, which controlled 50 to 70% of the market for downloaded PC games in 2011.
Transition to services (2010–2014)
In 2010, Valve hired IceFrog, the developer of ''
Defense of the Ancients'', a ''
Warcraft III'' mod. IceFrog led the development of a sequel not associated with the ''Warcraft'' elements, ''
Dota 2
''Dota 2'' is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve. The game is a sequel to '' Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.'' ''Dota ...
'', released in 2013. Alongside ''Dota 2'' in 2011, Valve started
The International, an annual
eSports tournament for ''Dota 2'' with a prize pool supported by Valve and funds from microtransactions from
battle passes purchased by players.
Valve released ''
Portal 2'' in April 2011.
As with the original ''Portal'', Valve employed a Digipen student team to help develop it; the team behind ''
Tag: The Power of Paint'' implemented the new gel gameplay.
In December 2012, Valve acquired Star Filled Studios, a two-person studio, to open a San Francisco office. Valve ended the operation in August 2013 when they decided it had little benefit. At the 2013
D.I.C.E. Summit, Newell announced that he and film director
J. J. Abrams were collaborating to produce a ''Half-Life'' or ''Portal'' film, as well as a possible game.
Valve released fewer games in the 2010s. Instead, it explored hardware. Newell intended to make Valve more like
Nintendo, which develops games in tandem with hardware, allowing them to create innovative games such as ''
Super Mario 64''.
Valve initially focused on
augmented reality
Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory Modality (human–computer interaction), modalities, including visual, Hearing, auditory, hap ...
, but in 2013 Newell laid off many staff to focus on
virtual reality
Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...
(VR).
In 2015, Valve released the
Steam Machine, a line of
gaming computers, which sold poorly.
Media commentators speculated that Valve's transition to service provider with Steam, which generated an estimated $3.4 billion in 2017, had driven it away from game development. Valve cancelled games including
numerous ''Half-Life'' projects (including ''
Episode Three)'', ''Left 4 Dead 3'', a
Soulslike
A Soulslike (also spelled Souls-like) is a subgenre of action role-playing and action-adventure games known for high levels of difficulty and emphasis on environmental storytelling, typically in a dark fantasy setting. It had its origin in '' ...
game, and a
voxel-based game, ''A.R.T.I''. Additional VR projects included ''SimTrek'', developed by members of ''
Kerbal Space Program'', as well as a new VR device, Vader, that was determined to be too costly for consumers. According to designer
Robin Walker, the abundance of projects that failed to gain traction, with no shared vision, damaged morale.
Many players grew frustrated in anticipation of a new ''Half-Life'' game.
Source 2, virtual reality and ''Half-Life: Alyx'' (2015–present)
Valve announced the
Source 2 engine in March 2015 and ported ''Dota 2'' to it that September. That year, Valve collaborated with the electronics company
HTC to develop the
HTC Vive
VIVE, sometimes referred to as HTC Vive, is a virtual reality brand of HTC Corporation. It consists of hardware like its titular virtual reality headsets and accessories, virtual reality software and services, and initiatives that promote ...
, a
VR headset released in 2016.
Valve experimented with VR games, and in 2016 released ''
The Lab'', a collection of VR minigames.
Valve recognized that many players wanted a more ambitious VR
AAA game, and began exploring the development of a major VR game.
They developed several prototypes, with three further VR projects under development by 2017. Finding that the portal systems of their puzzle series ''
Portal'' were disorienting in VR, they settled on ''Half-Life''.
Walker said that ''Half-Life 3'' had been a "terrifyingly daunting prospect", and the team saw VR as a way to return to the series.
Full development of a VR ''Half-Life'' game started around late 2016, with the largest team in Valve's history.
Valve bought Impulsonic, a developer of 3D audio software, in January 2017 and integrated it into its Bellevue offices. In April 2018, Valve acquired the independent developer
Campo Santo, known for the 2016 adventure game ''
Firewatch''. Campo Santo planned to develop its own games under Valve, though they initially helped develop ''Half-Life: Alyx''.
In November 2018, Valve released ''
Artifact Artifact, or artefact, may refer to:
Science and technology
* Artifact (error), misleading or confusing alteration in data or observation, commonly in experimental science, resulting from flaws in technique or equipment
** Compression artifact, a ...
'', a
digital collectible card game based on ''Dota 2'', with design by
Richard Garfield, the creator of ''
Magic: The Gathering''. ''Artifact'' had unusual pay-for mechanics to acquire new cards, and did not draw a large playerbase, losing 95% of players months after release.
In April 2021, Valve abandoned efforts to reboot the project, saying they had not found enough interested players to justify development. In June 2019, Valve released its second-generation VR hardware, the
Valve Index. In the same month, Valve released ''
Dota Underlords'' into early access, an
auto battler based on a ''Dota 2'' community-created mode ''
Dota Auto Chess''.
In March 2020, Valve released ''
Half-Life: Alyx'', a VR game.
It received acclaim
and was described as VR's first
killer app. Newell said in January 2021 that the success of ''Alyx'' created desire within the company to develop more games, and that several were under development. Valve collaborated with
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...
for ''
Dota: Dragon's Blood'', an animated television series based on ''
Dota
''Dota'' is a series of strategy video games by Valve. The series began in 2003 with the release of '' Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a fan-developed multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) mod for the video game '' Warcraft III: Reig ...
'', to premiere in March 2021. In February 2022, Valve released the
Steam Deck, a portable game system that runs on SteamOS.
Structure
Initially, Valve used a hierarchical structure more typical of other development firms, driven by the nature of physical game releases through publishers that required tasks to be completed by deadlines.
However, as Valve became its own publisher via Steam, it found the hierarchal structure was hindering progress.
After completing ''Half-Life 2'', Valve transitioned to a
flat organization; outside of executive management, Valve does not have bosses, and uses an
open allocation system. Valve's marketing manager, Doug Lombardi, said: "Nobody writes a design doc and hands it to somebody and says, 'you go build this'. It's the teams that are coming up with the ideas and pushing in the directions that they want to take the product." This approach allows employees to work on whatever interests them but requires them to take ownership of their product and mistakes they may make, according to Newell. Newell recognized that this structure works well for some but that "there are plenty of great developers for whom this is a terrible place to work".
Although Valve has no bosses, some employees hold more influence due to seniority or relationships. De facto project leads became "centralized conduits" for organization and sharing information, and decisions are made collectively. Valve uses an "Overwatch" process to gather feedback from senior members, which teams may use or ignore.
The lack of organization structure has led to project cancellations, as it can be difficult to convince other employees to work on them.
In 2020, Valve acknowledged that its structure had made it difficult to gather momentum, slowing their output during the 2010s. Their VR projects and ''Half-Life: Alyx'' became a turning point, setting short-term studio-wide goals to focus the company. According to Walker, "We sort of had to collectively admit we were wrong on the premise that you will be happiest if you work on something you personally want to work on the most."
Valve time
Valve time is an industry term used jokingly with game releases from Valve, used to acknowledge the difference between the "promised" date for released content stated by Valve and to the "actual" release date; "Valve Time" includes delays but also includes some content that was released earlier than expected. Valve itself has fully acknowledged the term, including tracking known discrepancies between ideal and actual releases on their public development wiki and using it in announcements about such delays. Valve ascribes delays to their mentality of team-driven initiatives over corporate deadlines.
Playtesting
Valve
playtests its games extensively, starting from the beginning of development,
and iterates based on the results.
Its website states: "We believe that all game designers are, in a sense,
experimental psychologists."
The Valve writer
Chet Faliszek said he initially blamed testers when they failed to engage with designs as expected, but changed his mind when multiple testers had the same problem: "By the third or fourth time, all of a sudden you're realizing, 'I'm an idiot. This is pretty obvious this doesn't work. It's not their fault, it's our fault.'"
He gave an example from the development of ''Left 4 Dead'', wherein a
texture change caused every tester to miss a ladder and become stuck.
Products
Games
Valve is the main developer and publisher of the single-player ''
Half-Life
Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable at ...
'' and ''
Portal'' games and the multiplayer games ''
Counter-Strike'', ''
Team Fortress 2'', ''
Dota 2
''Dota 2'' is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve. The game is a sequel to '' Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.'' ''Dota ...
'', ''
Day of Defeat'', and ''
Artifact Artifact, or artefact, may refer to:
Science and technology
* Artifact (error), misleading or confusing alteration in data or observation, commonly in experimental science, resulting from flaws in technique or equipment
** Compression artifact, a ...
''. Valve also published the multiplayer game ''
Left 4 Dead'' and developed and published ''
Left 4 Dead 2''. Unreleased and canceled Valve games include the fantasy
role-playing game
A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...
''Prospero'' and
numerous ''Half-Life'' projects, including ''
Episode Three''.
Valve worked with
Arkane Studios
Arkane Studios SASU is a French video game developer based in Lyon. It was founded in 1999, and released its first game, ''Arx Fatalis'', in 2002. Besides the Lyon studio, Arkane Lyon, Arkane Studios operates Arkane Studios LLC ( trading as Ar ...
on ''
The Crossing'', which was canceled in May 2009.
Steam
Valve announced Steam, its
digital distribution
Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of digital media content such as audio, video, e-books, video games, and othe ...
service, at the 2002
Game Developers Conference. It was launched in September 2003 and was first used to deliver
patches and other updates to Valve's online games.
On August 1, 2012, Valve announced revisions to the Steam Subscriber Agreement (SSA) to prohibit
class action
A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action ...
lawsuit
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...
s by users against the service provider.
By July 2014, there were over 3,400 games available on Steam, with over 150 million registered accounts by January 2018.
Alongside these changes to the SSA, the company also declared publicly the incorporation of Valve
S.a.r.l., a subsidiary based in
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small land ...
.
Valve set up a physical office in Luxembourg Kirchberg. According to Valve's project manager Mike Dunkle, the location was chosen for eCommerce capabilities and infrastructure, talent acquisition, tax advantages and central geographic location – most major partners are accessible, 50% within driving distance.
Valve S.a.r.l. was used to sell games to UK users to avoid paying the full 20%
value-added tax
A value-added tax (VAT), known in some countries as a goods and services tax (GST), is a type of tax that is assessed incrementally. It is levied on the price of a product or service at each stage of production, distribution, or sale to the en ...
(VAT). The
tax loophole was expected to close on January 1, 2015. In December 2015, the French consumer group
UFC Que Choisir initiated a lawsuit against Valve for several of their Steam policies that conflict or run afoul of French law. One of the reasons was for using the tax loophole. Valve S.a.r.l. ceased business on January 1, 2017, with the main company taking over EU sales again. In August 2017, Valve announced that Steam had reached over 67 million monthly and 33 million
daily active users on the platform.
Steam Machine
Newell has been critical of the direction that Microsoft has taken with making Windows a
closed architecture similar to Apple's products, and has stated that he believes that the changes made in Windows 8 are "a catastrophe for everyone in the
ersonal computerspace".
Newell identified the open-source Linux platform as an ideal platform for Steam and said the only thing holding back its adoption is the lack of games.
In 2012, Valve announced that they were working on a console/PC hybrid for the living room, dubbed by media as the "Steam Box". A precursor to such a unit is SteamOS, a freely available Linux-based operating system that builds upon the Steam client functionality that includes media services, live streaming across home networks, game sharing within families, and parental controls. SteamOS was officially announced in September 2013 as the first of several announcements related to the Steam Machine platform as well as their unique game controller.
In May 2014, Valve announced that the company's own SteamOS-powered Steam Machine would be delayed until 2015 due to problems with the game controller. In 2015,
Alienware,
ZOTAC, and
CyberPowerPC
CyberPowerPC, also known as CyberPower, is an American personal computer retailer. It specializes in building and selling a wide range of (custom-built) gaming computers.
Business
CyberPowerPC was founded and incorporated on February 17, 1998 ...
launched their versions of the Steam Machine. By June 2016, fewer than half a million had been sold. While the Steam Machine line has been effectively canceled, Valve continued to manufacture and sell
Steam Controllers until late November 2019, and publishes both mobile apps and software for the
Steam Link, allowing in-home streaming.
Steam Deck
Announced in July 2021, the Steam Deck is a
hybrid game console similar to the
Nintendo Switch
The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a tablet that can either be docked for use as a home console or used as a portable device, making it a ...
. It is primarily a handheld device that supports playing of Steam games, but through a separate dock unit, the console can output to an external monitor and use external power, networking, and USB accessories connected to the dock. The hardware is based on customized AMD Zen 2 and RDNA 2 chipsets. The unit started shipping in February 2022.
Virtual reality
At the
Game Developers Conference in March 2015, Valve and Taiwanese electronics company
HTC unveiled
SteamVR and the
HTC Vive
VIVE, sometimes referred to as HTC Vive, is a virtual reality brand of HTC Corporation. It consists of hardware like its titular virtual reality headsets and accessories, virtual reality software and services, and initiatives that promote ...
—a
virtual reality
Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...
platform and a
virtual reality headset. The platform would be distinguished by its "Lighthouse" motion tracking system, where sensors on the headset and its included
motion controllers read the position of two base station devices mounted in the play area. This would allow for "room-scale" VR experiences, where the player would not be required to remain in a stationary position in front of a camera and would be able to freely walk around the space.
In November 2017, Microsoft added beta support for the
SteamVR service for Windows Mixed Reality headsets. In June 2019, Valve released their own VR headset, known as the
Index
Index (or its plural form indices) may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities
* Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index''
* The Index, an item on a Halo megastru ...
, positioned as a higher-end device with wider
field of view and higher refresh rate. They were accompanied by updated motion controllers, which are strapped against the user's palms and have sensors for detecting input pressure and individual fingers.
Other projects
PowerPlay
PowerPlay was a technological initiative headed by Valve and
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...
to decrease the latency for online games, announced in January 2000. It was described as a set of protocols and deployment standards at the
router level to improve performance. It was claimed that a player with 1000 ms
ping was able to play against another player on a
LAN
Lan or LAN may also refer to:
Science and technology
* Local asymptotic normality, a fundamental property of regular models in statistics
* Longitude of the ascending node, one of the orbital elements used to specify the orbit of an object in sp ...
connection with no noticeable disadvantage.
Initially the protocol was to be released with PowerPlay 1.0 focusing on
quality of service (QoS) and later a revision, PowerPlay 2.0 that would focus on functionality. Cisco and Valve 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.
The standard was to involve purchasing PowerPlay approved Cisco hardware and infrastructure that had adequate bandwidth and QoS standards that prioritize PowerPlay gaming packets at all others' expense. Newell conceded that
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privatel ...
s (ISPs) would bear the brunt of this expense: "The ISPs are going to need to spend a fair amount of money to be compliant with PowerPlay. But how they get that back is up to them. Some will have a tiered service, and some will just try to recoup their investment through reduced customer churn and customer acquisition."
Despite never deploying the dial-up plan featuring PowerPlay 1.0, Valve announced in January 2001 that the standard had indeed been finalized.
12 months after its announcement, PowerPlay was abandoned.
Pipeline
In July 2013, Valve announced Pipeline, an
intern project consisting of ten high school students working together to learn how to create video game content. Pipeline serves to discuss and answer questions that teenagers often ask about the video game industry,
and see if it is possible to train a group of teenagers with minimal work experience to work for a company like Valve.
The latter purpose breaks Valve's tradition of employing experienced developers, as the company is not good at "teaching people straight out of school".
Legal disputes
''Valve Corporation v. Vivendi Universal Games''
Between 2002 and 2005, Valve was involved in a complex legal dispute with its publisher,
Vivendi Universal Games
Vivendi Games was an American video game publisher and holding company based in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1996 as CUC Software, the publishing subsidiary of CUC International, after the latter acquired video game companies Davidson & Associ ...
(under Vivendi's brand
Sierra Entertainment). Valve had entered into a publishing agreement with Sierra to release ''Half-Life'' and subsequent games in 1997, with the contract giving Sierra some
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
(IP) rights to Valve's games. After Valve began development of ''Half-Life 2'', it agreed a new contract with Sierra in 2001, removing these rights from Sierra and giving Valve some rights for digital distribution.
Internally, Valve started work on Steam as a means to digitally distribute these games, and first revealed this project at the March 2002
Game Developers Conference.
By August 2002, Valve had found that Sierra was distributing copies of their games to
Internet cafe
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...
s against the terms of their contracts and filed a lawsuit against Sierra and Vivendi. In addition to claims of
copyright infringement
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, ...
, Valve asserted that Sierra
breached contract by withholding royalties and delaying the release of ''
Counter-Strike: Condition Zero'' until after the holiday season. Vivendi and Sierra countersued, stating that Valve had misrepresented their position in the revised 2001 contract since they had been working on Steam at that point as a means to circumvent the publishing agreement. Vivendi sought
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
rights to ''Half-Life'' and a ruling preventing Valve from using Steam to distribute ''Half-Life 2''.
On November 29, 2004, Judge
Thomas Samuel Zilly
Thomas Samuel Zilly (born January 1, 1935) is a United States federal judge, Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington.
Education and ...
of the
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington ruled in favor of Valve. 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' 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. Valve posted on the Steam website that the companies had come to a settlement in court on April 29, 2005.
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted th ...
announced on July 18, 2005, that they would partner with Valve in a multi-year deal to distribute their games, replacing Vivendi Universal. As a result of the trial, the arbitrator also awarded Valve $2,391,932.
''Valve Corporation v. Activision Blizzard''
In April 2009, Valve sued
Activision Blizzard, which acquired
Sierra Entertainment after a merger with its parent company,
Vivendi Universal Games
Vivendi Games was an American video game publisher and holding company based in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1996 as CUC Software, the publishing subsidiary of CUC International, after the latter acquired video game companies Davidson & Associ ...
. Activision had allegedly refused to honor the ''Valve v. Vivendi'' arbitration agreement. Activision had only paid Valve $1,967,796 of the $2,391,932 award, refusing to pay the remaining $424,136, claiming it had overpaid that sum in the past years.
''Dota'' intellectual property ownership
''
Defense of the Ancients'' (DotA) was a landmark
mod first released in 2003 that created the basis of the genre of
multiplayer online battle arena
Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) is a subgenre of strategy video games in which two teams of players compete against each other on a predefined battlefield. Each player controls a single character with a set of distinctive abilities that i ...
(MOBA). It was originally developed by Kyle Sommer (who goes by the alias ''Eul'') within
Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and video game publisher, publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, ...
's ''
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos'' via its
world editor, and spawned several similar efforts, notably ''DotA-Allstars''. While there had been several that contributed to ''DotA-Allstars'', the project was managed primarily by
Steve "Guinsoo" Feak, and later by "
IceFrog". IceFrog was eventually hired by Valve in 2009, with the rights to the ''DotA''
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
being sold to Valve the following year. Eul was also hired into Valve by 2010.
Valve then subsequently filed
trademark
A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from oth ...
s towards a sequel to ''DotA'', titled ''
Dota 2
''Dota 2'' is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve. The game is a sequel to '' Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.'' ''Dota ...
''. DotA-Allstars, LLC, a group of former contributors to the ''DotA-Allstars'' project, filed an opposing trademark in August 2010 to contest Valve's claim it owned the property rights.
DotA-Allstars, LLC was eventually acquired by Blizzard to start development of ''Blizzard All-Stars''. Blizzard took over the trademark challenge. The
United States Patent & Trademark Office initially ruled in Valve's favor. By this point,
Riot Games had hired Guinsoo to help develop their own MOBA, ''
League of Legends
''League of Legends'' (''LoL''), commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a custom map for ''Warcraft III'', Ri ...
''. As with IceFrog, Feak transferred his rights to the ''Dota'' property to Riot, who in turn sold those to Blizzard. Blizzard filed a lawsuit against Valve to challenge Valve's ownership, pitting the rights assigned through IceFrog to Guinsoo at odds. The case ''Blizzard Entertainment v. Valve Corporation'' was settled out of court in May 2012; Valve retained the right to use ''Dota'' commercially, while Blizzard reserved the right for fans to use ''Dota'' non-commercially. Blizzard changed the names of its own projects to remove the ''Dota'' term, and renamed ''Blizzard All-Stars'' as ''
Heroes of the Storm
''Heroes of the Storm'' is a Crossover (fiction), crossover multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. It was released for Microsoft Windows and macOS on June 2, 2015. The game features various ...
''. Valve's ''Dota 2'' was released in 2013.
In 2014, mobile developers Lilith and released their games ''Dota Legends'' and ''Heroes Charge'', respectively. Both were influenced by ''Dota'' and the sequels. In 2017, Valve and Blizzard took joint action against these companies, citing copyright issues related to the ''Dota'' names. argued that the ''Dota'' games were a
collective work
A collective work is a work that contains the works of several authors assembled and published under the direction of one natural or legal person who owns the copyright in the work as a whole.
Definitions vary considerably from one country to an ...
and could not be copyrighted by anyone in particular, but the presiding judge,
Charles R. Breyer, felt that, due to the trio's actions as maintainers of the ''Dota'' mods, they had a rightful copyright claim to this. Separately, Lilith and argued that Eul had, in a forum post from September 2004, assigned an
open-source copyright license to ''Dota'', which would make Valve and Blizzard's copyright claims void. The case was later heard by a jury.
''ACCC v. Valve Corporation''
The
Australian Competition & Consumer Commission
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is the chief competition regulator of the Government of Australia, located within the Department of the Treasury. It was established in 1995 with the amalgamation of the Australian Tr ...
(ACCC) announced it was taking action against Valve in 2014. On March 29, 2016, Valve was found guilty of breaching Australian consumer law because:
* Valve claimed consumers were not entitled to a refund for digitally downloaded games purchased from Valve via the Steam website or Steam Client (in any circumstances);
* Valve had excluded statutory guarantees and/or warranties that goods would be of acceptable quality; and
* Valve had restricted or modified statutory guarantees and/or warranties of acceptable quality.
During the prosecution of this case, Valve implemented a refund policy for Steam purchases, but the case still reviewed Valve's actions prior to the onset of the lawsuit. The court overseeing the case sided with the ACCC in assigning a (about ) fine against Valve in December 2016, as well as requiring Valve to inform Australian consumers of their rights when purchasing games from Steam. Valve appealed the court's determination that it "engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct and made false or misleading representations about consumer guarantees", as well as seeking to appeal the fine, but the Australian higher courts rejected the appeals in December 2017. In January 2018, Valve filed for a "special leave" of the court's decision, appealing to the
High Court of Australia
The High Court of Australia is Australia's apex court. It exercises original and appellate jurisdiction on matters specified within Australia's Constitution.
The High Court was established following passage of the ''Judiciary Act 1903''. It ...
. The High Court dismissed this claim in April 2018, asserting that Valve still was liable under Australian law since it sold products directly to its citizens.
''UFC Que Choisir v. Valve Corporation''
Consumer rights group
UFC Que Choisir, based in France, filed a lawsuit against Valve in December 2015, claiming users should be able to resell their software. The
High Court of Paris ruled in favor of UFC Que Choisir in September 2019, stating that Valve must allow the resale of Steam games. Valve stated it will appeal the decision.
Skins gambling
Valve was named as a defendant in two lawsuits in June and July 2016 related to third-party gambling sites that use the Steamworks API to allow betting with the virtual currency of cosmetic weapon replacement textures, better known as "skins", from ''
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'', which through these sites can be converted from or to real-world money. Both suits assert Valve aiding in underaged
gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of Value (economics), value ("the stakes") on a Event (probability theory), random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy (ga ...
.
Valve subsequently stated it has no commercial ties with these sites, and that it would demand these sites cease their use of the Steamworks API as they violate the authorized use policies. In October 2016, the Washington State Gambling Commission required Valve to stop the use of virtual skins for gambling on Steam, stating they would face legal repercussions if they failed to co-operate. On October 17, 2016, Valve 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.
Anti-competitive practices
In February 2017, the
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
began investigating Valve and five other publishers—
Bandai Namco Entertainment,
Capcom
is a Japanese video game developer and publisher. It has created a number of multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being '' Resident Evil'', '' Monster Hunter'', '' Street Fighter'', '' Mega Man'', '' ...
,
Focus Home Interactive,
Koch Media and
ZeniMax Media—for anti-competitive practices, specifically the use of geo-blocking through the Steam storefront and Steam product keys to prevent access to software to citizens of certain countries. Such practices would be against the
Digital Single Market initiative by the European Union. While the other five companies named are in stages of settling with the EU as of August 2019, Valve has stated it plans to fight the charges, asserting that geo-blocking affects less than 3% of its games, and that it had turned off such geo-blocking within the EU in 2015.
Discrimination lawsuit
In 2016, a former employee filed a suit against Valve alleging poor working conditions and harassment. The jury ruled in favor of Valve in 2017.
Notes
References
External links
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{{Authority control
1996 establishments in Washington (state)
Companies based in Bellevue, Washington
Linux game porters
Video game companies established in 1996
Video game companies of the United States
Video game development companies
Video game publishers