is a
Bellevue, Washington -based
Video Game Developer made famous by its first product, ''
Half-Life '', which was released in November
1998 . The company has continued in the footsteps of ''Half-Life''
's success by developing
Mods ,
Spin-off s, and
Sequel s including ''
Half-Life 2 ''.
Long-time The ''
Team Fortress Classic ''
Mod , essentially a port of the original ''
Team Fortress '' quake mod, was released for ''Half-Life'' in
1999 ; ''TF2'' is still in development.
Valve continued work on ''Half-Life'', releasing several more extensions to the game and collaborated with other developers to
Port it to other platforms. They also took on-board the development of the highly popular ''
Counter-Strike '' and ''
Day Of Defeat '' ''Half-Life'' mods.
Valve announced its
Steam content delivery system in
2002 . At the time, it looked to be a method of streamlining the
Patch process common in online
Computer Game s. Steam was later revealed as a replacement for much of the dated framework of
WON and ''Half-Life'' multiplayer and also as a distribution system for entire games.
Between '' until after the holiday season.
Vivendi fought back, saying that Gabe Newell and marketing director Doug Lombardi had misrepresented Valve's position in meetings with the publisher. Vivendi later countersued, claiming that Valve's Steam content distribution system attempted to circumvent their publishing agreement. VUG sought
Intellectual Property rights to ''Half-Life'' and a ruling preventing Valve from using Steam to distribute ''Half-Life 2''.
On
November 29 2004 , Judge Thomas S. Zilly of U.S. Federal District Court in
Seattle, WA ruled in favor of Valve Corporation. Specifically, the ruling stated that Vivendi Universal Games and its affiliates (including Sierra) were not authorized to distribute Valve games, either directly or indirectly, through cyber cafés to end users for pay-to-play activities pursuant to the parties' current publishing agreement. In addition, Judge Zilly ruled that Valve could recover copyright damages for infringements without regard to the publishing agreement's limitation of liability clause.
On
April 29 2005 , Valve posted on the Steam website that the two companies had come to a settlement in court.
{Link without Title}
The company created a stir at
E³ in May
2003 by debuting what appeared to be a surprisingly complete ''Half-Life 2'' and its
Source Engine . Originally scheduled to be released in September
2003 , the game's first delay was announced just weeks before its scheduled release. (Valve later admitted that the game was far from completion.) Just before the delay was announced, a leak of ''Half-Life 2'''s
Source Code made worldwide news. At first, Valve called on the FBI, but without results. Then they turned to the internet community, and soon tips came in. A
German citizen who went by the name of Axel G. was tried and convicted in
United States for the theft. ''Half-Life 2'' was released on
November 16 ,
2004 .
In April 2005, Valve announced an ,
2006 . The original name for this expansion pack was ''Aftermath'', however Valve marketing director Doug Lombardi announced that the new name be ''Episode One.''
On and its expansion pack, ''Episode One''.
