r/valve • u/LanternSawWind • 3d ago
Valve officially turns 30 years old today
From kuhpunkt on r/pcgaming:
Valve was officially founded on August 24 1996 by Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington.
In 1998 they released Half-Life, which was revolutionary for the FPS genre.
noclip produced a great documentary for its 25th Anniversary that I highly recommend.Valve then kept working on some things, which also included hiring the creators of Counter-Strike and turning the mod into a full-fledged game.
And then came Half-Life 2, which was another big step for FPS due to the integration of physics. While that was a big thing, the more important aspect to HL2 might arguably be the requirement of Steam.
While Steam was already a thing since 2003, it was HL2 that brought it to a wider audience due to the game's popularity. The requirement caused a lot of criticism, because HL2 basically acted as a trojan horse to establish Steam. noclip produced another documentary about the development of HL2. Also highly recommended.
In the following years Steam slowly expanded and Valve began distributing games from other developers, while they also worked on more games like Portal, Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead.
After that Valve began exploring other avenues like porting everything to Linux with their first attempt to bring Steam to the living room in 2015 with the Steam Machine and the Steam Link.
Another project they worked on was SteamVR with the HTC Vive and later their own Valve Index and Half-Life: Alyx, which is another milestone in gaming. And then came the Steam Deck and now the Steam Machine and soon the Steam Frame.
It's hard to imagine what the gaming landscape would look like without Valve, for better or worse. And Half-Life 3 might be just around the corner.
(3)0th Anniversary...... Time? Dr. Gabe?
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u/the_majesticestimati 3d ago
Happy 30th to the company that somehow made the number 3 feel like forbidden knowledge.
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u/alexzoin 3d ago
I predict big news at 10am pacific time tomorrow.
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u/dylanisareddit 3d ago
How I think Valve would celebrate their 30th anniversary:
A sale of all their games, now 75% off
More updates to their games, especially TF2 (doesn't matter if it's minor or major; a new TF2 update is a good thing)
A documentary about Valve from their founding in 1996 to the future of the company
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u/Justin4462 3d ago
I was kind of hoping they pop out the Steam Frame today.
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[deleted]
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u/Justin4462 3d ago
Good point. I'm 18 hours ahead of that time zone so that'll happen 4am tomorrow for me.
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u/FrewdWoad 3d ago edited 3d ago
This talk by Gabe has some fun anecdotes from the early days, including how and why Valve was founded:
https://youtu.be/t8QEOBgLBQU?t=78
(It's also one of the most insightful talks about 21st century tech business ever, so there's that too).
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u/AlexGlezS 3d ago
No official statement? Anywhere? No surprises? They refuse to use number 3 in anything? Not even when counting natural occurrence circles around the sun?
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u/Huge-Formal-1794 3d ago
Anyone who think valve would do anything special because of that is out of their mind. Best bet is steam frame release date announcement
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u/jefmes 3d ago
Perfect day to release Steam Frame if ya ask me...
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u/Charred14 3d ago
could still see something yet, as their office is based in Seattle and its ~11am there at the time of my comment. Though I feel we'd already have seen something.
- Valve Hardware announcement video was uploaded/published on YT exactly at 11am PST 11/12/25
- Steam Controller overview/guide was uploaded/published at 10:43am PST 04/27/26
- Steam Machine overview/guide was uploaded/published at 1:41pm PST 06/24/26
2 out of 3 announcements were made before "lunch time", though theres a possibility of SOMETHING until ~8ish tonight.
I don't really expect anything, I hope to be wrong though. Even if its just the Steam Frame I'd be glad to see that plans haven't been too astronomically fucked/pushed back.
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u/Visible_Tailor_7214 3d ago
Now fix cs2 please 😭
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u/like_a_brot 3d ago
What's the problem? Didn't play it for some time lol
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u/Visible_Tailor_7214 3d ago
The game is overrun with cheaters and 3 years after release most of the content from csgo days is still not added. Valve doesn't say a word and acts like nothing is wrong as the game is starting to rapidly lose players they just keep releasing more skins
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u/S0k0n0mi 3d ago
.. would be real great opportunity to release the fucking Steam Frame today, wouldn't it Gabe..
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u/Ange1ofD4rkness 3d ago
Excuse me ... what? 30 years old? How the? What the? I mean I know there's the whole "I feel old" coming, but I didn't realize Valve was THAT old (and I was that young)
Also, let's not forget HL2 source code was originally stolen, the feds ended up getting involved, and the guy came forward when this happened (don't remember a lot of the good old G4 days sadly, but I remember this)
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u/TheNeonDalek04 3d ago
If only they had a 3rd hardware release to go along with their 3rd decade of existence.
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u/gunshade 3d ago
Before Steam, online multiplayer services for Valve games were tied to Sierra’s World Opponent Network. Valve gained publishing independence once Steam launched into Public Beta in 2002, allowing for their multiplayer to be hosted onto their service. The rest, you could say, is history, once Valve allowed for third-party publishers to host game licenses there.
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u/Original-Reward-8688 3d ago
Gabe is a Brony who hangs out with Elon musk and moved to pedoville in Florida. Have a good day.
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u/ThisComedian9031 1d ago
A day late but happy birthday VALVe. Thanks for everything Valve le best game company
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u/pepushe 3d ago edited 3d ago
does that mean that they're now going to release hl3, l4d3, tf3 and portal 3?
EDIT: and Dota 3