Half-Life is a 1998 first-person shooter game developed by Valve Corporation and published by Sierra Studios for Windows. It was Valve's debut product and the first game in the Half-Life series. The player assumes the role of Gordon Freeman, a scientist who must escape from the Black Mesa Research Facility after it is overrun by alien creatures following a disastrous scientific experiment. The gameplay consists of combat, exploration and puzzles.
Valve Corporation, also known as Valve Software, is an American video game developer, publisher, and digital distribution company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. It is the developer of the software distribution platform Steam and the game franchises Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Portal, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead and Dota.
Michael Abrash is an American programmer and technical writer. He is best known for his magazine articles and books on code optimization and graphics for IBM PC compatibles and for working at id Software in the mid-1990s on the rendering technology for Quake. Since 2014, he has been the chief scientist of Oculus VR, a subsidiary of Meta Platforms.
Half-Life 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It was published for Windows on Valve's digital distribution service, Steam. Like the original Half-Life (1998), Half-Life 2 combines shooting, puzzles, and storytelling, and adds features such as vehicles and physics-based gameplay. The player controls Gordon Freeman, who joins a resistance to liberate Earth from the Combine, an interplanetary alien empire.
Source is a 3D game engine developed by Valve. It debuted as the successor to GoldSrc in 2004 with the releases of Half-Life: Source, Counter-Strike: Source, and Half-Life 2. Other notable third-party games using Source include Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, Dear Esther, and The Stanley Parable. Valve released incremental updates to the engine during its lifetime. Source was succeeded in 2015 by the release of Source 2.
Steam is a video game digital distribution service and storefront managed by Valve Corporation. It was launched as a software client in September 2003 to provide game updates automatically for Valve's games and expanded to distributing third-party titles in late 2005. Steam offers various features, like game server matchmaking with Valve Anti-Cheat(VAC) measures, social networking, and game streaming services. Steam client's functionality include game update automation, cloud storage for game progress, and community features such as direct messaging, in-game overlay and a virtual collectable marketplace.
Gabe Logan Newell, also known by his nickname Gaben, is an American businessman who is the president and co-founder of the video game company Valve Corporation.
Level-5 Inc. is a Japanese video game developer and publisher based in Fukuoka. The company was founded in October 1998 by Akihiro Hino after he departed from Riverhillsoft. Early in its history, the company enjoyed a close relationship with Sony Computer Entertainment, with many of its games then funded by and produced in conjunction with them. Level-5 began self-publishing its games in Japan by the late 2000s, with other companies such as Nintendo handling publishing worldwide. The company is best known for their Dark Cloud, Professor Layton, Inazuma Eleven, Ni no Kuni, Yo-kai Watch, and Snack World franchises.
Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) is an anti-cheat tool developed by Valve as a component of the Steam platform, first released with Counter-Strike in 2002.
Turtle Rock Studios is an American video game developer founded in March 2002 by Mike Booth. It was acquired by Valve in 2008, but was re-founded in 2010 as a subsidiary of Slamfire Inc. by Phil Robb and Chris Ashton. Turtle Rock Studios is involved in the creation of original titles as well as the provision of consulting services to the digital entertainment industry.
John Thomas O'Sullivan is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback for nine seasons in the National Football League (NFL), two seasons in NFL Europe and one season in the Canadian Football League (CFL). He played college football for the UC Davis Aggies of the University of California, Davis, where he was a three-year starter and threw for career totals of 10,745 yards and 96 touchdowns. He was named a first-team All-American in 2000 and a second-team All-American in 2001. He was inducted into the Cal Aggie Athletics Hall of Fame in 2008.
Half-Life 2: Episode Three is a canceled first-person shooter game developed by Valve. It was planned as the last in a trilogy of episodic games continuing the story of Half-Life 2 (2004). Valve announced Episode Three in May 2006, with a release planned for 2007. Following the cliffhanger ending of Episode Two (2007), it was widely anticipated. Marc Laidlaw, the writer for the Half-Life series, said he intended Episode Three to end the Half-Life 2 story arc.
The Orange Box is a video game compilation containing five games developed and published by Valve. Two of the games included, Half-Life 2 and its first stand-alone expansion, Episode One; had previously been released as separate products. Three new games were also included in the compilation: the second stand-alone expansion, Half-Life 2: Episode Two; the puzzle game Portal; and Team Fortress 2, the multiplayer game sequel to Team Fortress Classic. Valve also released a soundtrack containing music from the games within the compilation. A separate product entitled The Black Box was planned, which would have included only the new games, but was later canceled.
Kelly Bailey is a Canadian-American composer, musician, programmer and sound designer. He was the senior game designer of sound and music at Valve until he left in 2011 with Mike Dussault to concentrate on their project, Sunspark Labs LLC. Valve composer Mike Morasky mentioned in February 2014 that Bailey had returned to Valve, but in a February 2016 article on Forbes it was reported that Bailey has founded his own company, IndiMo Labs, and that he is no longer with Valve.
Steam Machine is a discontinued series of small form factor gaming computers by Valve, designed to operate SteamOS to provide a home game console-like experience. Several computer vendors were engaged with Valve to develop their own versions of Steam Machines for retail, offering additional options atop Valve's requirements such as dual-booting options with Microsoft Windows and the ability to upgrade the computer. Consumers could digitally purchase video games on their Steam Machine through Valve's namesake Steam storefront.
Paranautical Activity is a first-person shooter video game developed by American indie studio Code Avarice, and later by Digerati. It was released for Microsoft Windows in a beta form in February 2013, and after completing the Early Access program on Steam, was fully released on October 20, 2014.
Source 2 is a video game engine developed by Valve. The engine was announced in 2015 as the successor to the original Source engine, with the first game to use it, Dota 2, being ported from Source that same year. Other Valve games such as Artifact, Dota Underlords, Half-Life: Alyx, Counter-Strike 2, and Deadlock have been produced with the engine.
Star Wars: Pit Droids is an educational puzzle game developed and published by Lucas Learning. It was originally released for Microsoft Windows and Macintosh on September 13, 1999. It was later ported to iOS and released on February 9, 2012. The game develops skills such as hypothesis testing and geometry.
Michael Booth is an American video game designer and executive and the current chief creative officer of Bad Robot Games. He was also creator and lead designer of Left 4 Dead and founder of Turtle Rock Studios, later acquired by Valve Corporation.
