Valve is somewhat unique in that it has retained the flat organizational model of the early computing industry. A fair bit of it seems to go into flying fans out to visit their headquarters. And, because Valve is such a small company, they have developed something of a reputation for having literally more money than they know what to do with. In 2004, they launched one of the first digital distribution platforms, along with the sequel to Half-Life which used it exclusively - and thus was born Steam, which went on to become the biggest digital distribution platform for Windows and a license to print money for Valve. Half-Life 1 was released in 1998 and ever since, Valve has been known for their revolutionary and amazing First-Person action games. Once they secured a license to use the Quake engine, Valve set about to create their first game. Valve Corporation, formerly called Valve Software, was founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington, inspired by learning that the only piece of software more commonly installed on DOS computers than Windows was Doom.
