Give me a history of Valve

Founding and Half-Life (1996–2003)

Gabe Newell (foreground) and Doug Lombardi (background), 2007
Valve was founded as Valve, LLC, in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington.[5] Newell had spent the prior 13 years at Microsoft developing Windows,[5] including the Windows 95 port of Doom.[6] Wanting to move onto a new venture using their shared wealth, Newell and Harrington founded Valve, L.L.C.[7] in Kirkland, Washington (about five miles from the Microsoft campus in Redmond), on August 24, 1996, Newell's wedding day.[8][9][5][10] Alternative names considered by Newell and Harrington include Fruitfly Ensemble and Rhino Scar.[11]

Valve's first game was Half-Life, a first-person shooter (FPS) with elements of horror.[12] The development was aided by access to the Quake engine by id Software; Valve modified this engine into their GoldSrc engine.[5] After struggling to find a publisher, Valve eventually signed with Sierra On-Line.[5] Half-Life was released in November 1998[13] and was a critical and commercial success.[14][15][16] With its realism, scripted sequences and seamless narrative, it had a lasting influence; according to IGN in 2014, the history of the FPS genre "breaks down pretty cleanly into pre-Half-Life and post-Half-Life eras".[17]

Founding and Half-Life (1996–2003): Valve was founded as Valve, LLC, in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington in Kirkland, Washington. Valve's first game is Half-Life, a first-person shooter (FPS) released in November 1998. It was developed using the modified Quake engine GoldSrc. After struggling to find a publisher, Valve eventually signed with Sierra On-Line.