Valve was founded in 1996 by Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington, a couple guys who used to work at Microsoft that decided they wanted to change the video game industry forever. So they created Half-Life, launching an entire franchise that has seen spin-offs of its own such as Portal and Counter-Strike. The sense of player immersion in Half-Life stemming from the contrast of the everyman with the extraordinary events that take place around you was a landmark title that created an entirely new concept in the industry. Half-Life changed the way people thought about games, about how we could play them and about how developers could make them. But Valve isn't just about making games, as they also pioneered digital distribution with the Steam platform, which currently has over 75 million active users and over 3,000 games. It's staggering to look at the numbers and realise that all this started with Valve, a company that was smart enough to look ahead at where the industry was going. Valve has created legendary titles that changed the industry forever and did it again with Steam, proving that they are a company that will continue to innovate in the exciting years to come.
