Dave Kircher

Valve corporation

Valve is an entertainment software and technology company founded in 1996 and based in Bellevue, Washington. The company's debut title, Half-Life, has won over 50 Game of the Year Awards and was named "Best PC Game Ever"​ in the November 1999, October 2001, and April 2005 issues of PC Gamer, the world's best-selling PC games magazine. Valve's portfolio also includes titles in the award-winning Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, Portal and Dota franchises. This portfolio of titles accounts for over 100 million units sold worldwide, and include some of the most played online games in the world. In addition to producing best-selling entertainment titles, Valve is a developer of leading-edge technologies including the Source® game engine and Steam®, a leading platform for digital content offering thousands of games to millions of users around the world. In 2015, Valve introduced the Steam Hardware devices, a collection of hardware devices designed to extend Steam beyond the desktop. In 2016, launched SteamVR, a platform for the creation and distribution of leading edge VR products. Today, Valve is composed of over 300 of the industry's best artists, programmers, and writers. In the company's history, it has risen from "unlikely new entry"​ to industry leader, producing a string of best-selling and critically-acclaimed PC products and technologies.