GameRanker | Valve

Description

Valve is an American company, developer and publisher of video games, as well as the creator of the digital distribution platform Steam. Valve was founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. Valve has become famous for its innovative and quality games such as Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead and Dota 2. Valve is also a leader in the field of virtual reality, having developed VR technologies that are used in the HTC Vive and Valve Index.

Steam is the most popular and successful platform for purchasing, downloading and playing video games on PC. Steam was launched in 2003 as a way to update Valve games, but over time it has grown to support thousands of games from other developers and publishers. As of 2021, Steam had over 120 million monthly active users and over 25 million concurrent players. Steam also offers various services and features for players such as Steam Workshop, Steam Cloud, Steam Community, Steam Trading Cards and much more.

Valve differs from most companies in the video game industry because of its unusual and flexible corporate culture. Valve has no formal hierarchy, job titles, or departments. Valve employees have complete freedom to choose the projects they want to work on and how they organize their work. Valve also encourages experimentation, creativity and collaboration among its employees.

Valve is one of the most unique and influential companies in the video game industry, and continues to create new games, technologies and experiences for its fans