Valve Corporation Engages Consumers With Its Videogames

Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington, former Microsoft employees, founded Valve LLC in August 1996. In April 2003, the company changed its name from Valve LLC to Valve Corporation as well as moved its headquarters from Kirkland, Washington to Bellevue, Washington where Sierra On-Line, Inc., its original publisher, was also based.

Valve Corporation is among the most well-known videogame developers as well as digital distribution companies in the United States. The company has developed several successful videogames including Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Day of Defeat, Portal, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress, and Dota 2, among others; all of these videogames have been both critically acclaimed and commercially successful.

The videogame developer also develops and maintains Source, which supports most of its games, and Steam, a software distribution platform. Steam, in turn, has resulted in the development of Steam Machine, a line of pre-built gaming personal computers with SteamOS at their core.

Valve Corporation also has an office in Luxembourg for its European offices.