About

Valve Corporation (also known as Valve Software or simply Valve) is an American video game development and digital distribution company based in Bellevue, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington, and made famous by its highly successful and critically acclaimed first product, Half-Life, released in November 1998. It is also well-known for its social-distribution network Steam, and for developing the Source engine, which it has used for every product since its introduction in 2004.

History

After the success of Half-Life, the team worked on mods, spin-offs, and sequels. The company has developed six game series: Half-Life, Team Fortress, Portal, Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead and Day of Defeat. Valve is also the creator of the Steam network.

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Online Presence

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Fandom

Half-Life

Half-Life is a series of video games that share a science fiction alternate history. Nearly all of the games are first-person shooters on the Goldsource or Source engines, and most are linear, narrative, single-player titles. Each of these games feature Gordon Freeman as the main protagonist.

Portal

Portal is a single-player first-person action/puzzle video game developed by Valve Corporation, which was released on the October 9th, 2007. The game consists of beating levels by solving puzzles, with the aid of an “Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device”. The device allows the player to create two portals, of which they can use to solve the puzzles.

Within a matter of time, fans begun quoting the dialogue of the game. In-game items became subjects of real-life remakes by fans of the game.

Team Fortress

Team Fortress 2 is a team-based FPS video game released by Valve in 2007. It came distributed as part of The Orange Box, along with Half Life 2 and Portal. The game's humor and cartoony graphics sets it apart from other shooters.

Garry's Mod

Released in 2004, Garry’s Mod by Garry Newman or GMOD, is a physics sandbox modifaction of the Source engine. Models, characters, and more can be imported into Garry’s mod from most other games developed on the Source engine.

The GMOD has spawned many videos of people using it. But a number of GMOD users have created videos that garner viral activity, and spawn viral derivatives, which mutate from one generation to the next.

Related Memes

Valve Time

Valve time is a term which began in Valve's fan community and has since spread to the development community as a whole. Valve time refers to the company's longstanding tenancy to release games far later than they were originally announced, often being off the mark by a matter of years. Outside the Valve fandom, Valve time refers to any large difference between the announced released date and the actual release date. ^[1]

Valve itself has acknowledged the term, and now uses it when announcing release push-backs. They have even created a post on their development page chronicling the notable incidents: ^[2]

Valve has explained that its long development times result from a "when it's done" approach to game design. Due to its status as a privately owned company (as opposed to a publicly traded one), which it is able to retain due to its enormous sales, it has no shareholders pressuring it to release its games. As the development commentary on its more recent game also indicates, Valve also focus tests its games much more extensively than many other companies. These factors are the most prominent causes of Valve's schedule slippage.^[3]

Valve's Snack Room

On April 24, 2011, the following video was uploaded to Youtube:

In the video Gabe Newell explains one of Valve's ways to appeal to new employees, the snack room. The video also shows an insight look into the snack room of Valve, which is extremely large and well stocked.

Valve Can't Count to 3

This joke started with the above comic, showing that none of Valve's titles have the number 3 in it. For example: When Half-Life 2 was done, they started with the creation of two, shorter, episodic titles (Half-Life 2: Episode One and Half-Life 2: Episode Two). These also stopped after the second episode.^[4] A final episode, Half-Life 2: Episode Three, has been confirmed to be the next installment of the series.

Search Interest

External References