History of Valve Software Essay

Sometimes it seems like the computer game industry is dying, crushed to death by its own bulk. Every year more and more gaming companies get gobbled up into huge conglomerates like Electronic Arts, companies that mostly put out trash that is technically and visually impressive, but devoid of concept and content. However, there are some small gaming companies that buck the trend. While mostly just small groups of programmers and artists, some are huge unions of fans who, irritated with the dropping quality of computer games, have decided to use the power of the internet to get together and to produce games tailor-made to their personal preferences.

The Steam Workshop is a tool within the Steam software platform that allows gamers to edit pre-existing in-game assets to create their own games, models, and video game ideas. This feature alone has helped computer gaming become the huge community in society that it is. Steam has brought together gamers to have them create content of their own and have their own product on Steam (Kowalczyk, 2014). This has created a cycle in video game creation and is allowing more and more content to exist which is allowing the gaming community to grow and thrive much more than before. The gaming community is also getting a huge increase in developers because anyone can make a game without even having to think about the physical production and distribution aspect of business.

In 1975, Allen and Gates started marketing a BASIC programming language translator with their newly founded company Microsoft (“Paul Allen” Famous entrepreneurs). Soon, through deals with other emerging companies such as Apple and Commodore, Allen had arranged for their company to purchase an operating system called Q-DOS for $50,000 (“Paul Allen” Biography). The duo reinvented the operating system and renamed it MS-DOS the gave exclusive rights of MS-DOS to a personal computer company called IBM, who had originally commissioned the OS.

Why the 1964 Operating System by IBM was so important to how computers are made today?

The feverishness and amusement will not stop there that recently Mr. Abrams has reassured impatient fans around the world that one of the most anticipated sci-fi video game adaptation, Half-Life, is still under development and has not been abandoned. Half-Life is based on the critically acclaimed Valve’s video games Half-Life and Portal, which is about the protagonist Chell is forced by a homicidal computer, GLaDOS to run through increasingly absurd and deadly

Video games are an ever-growing franchise that is constantly undergoing change. Ever since the dawn of video games, new consoles, games, developers, and teams have come together, fallen apart, triumphed, and failed. What is it that has allowed some to thrive where others failed? Several different factors have changed and influenced the world of gaming, including the history that is continuously being written, the people who have built the games behind the scenes, and, of course, the actual video games themselves. Numerous video games have been more successful than others, but identifying what components set the successful apart from the unsuccessful is something definitely worth observing.

Throughout the 1980’s, it became the pre-eminent operating systems of personal computers, until another operating system, DR-DOS, was released by a company called Digital Research. Critics claim that this operating system never had a chance at gaining a fair share of the market because Microsoft deliberately slowed DR-DOS’s sales by announcing a better version of MS-DOS was on its way (Newman).

The Linux was originally founded by Linus Torvalds. In 1991, he was a second year computer science student in Finland. He sought after an operating system that was similar to the UNIX system, but both UNIX and the hardware it ran on were excessively expensive. A UNIX version called Minix was available for free, but it did not reasonably meet his needs as it was simply an operating system for students, designed primarily as a teaching tool rather than an industry strength operating system. As a result, Torvalds studied Minix and proceeded to set out to write a new version. After six months of working to produce the new operating system, Torvalds made very little progress toward the utility of the system.

The 1990’s was a decade filled with technological advancements. Now about 100 Million computers were being used. The demand for high quality technology was on a high and companies were making their products affordable. Video Game Consoles and even portable hand held devices where being used, but computers were still the product everybody wanted. Apple and Microsoft were on the rise both during this time reaching a net worth of 1 Billion$. New companies were also being founded such as Asus and Alienware who were marketed towards the gaming crowd, these companies produced and still produce very high level computers that can run just about anything out there. Around this time is when gaming on pc was starting to get big. Half Life a game made

Activision The 1st ever 2nd party developer started making games not for them self, but for other companies consoles Activision still exist today and had some good runs, but never where that popular in the gaming market and it stayed like that for most 2nd party developers in the future

In 1975, Steve Jobs teamed up with Steve Wozniak to create the first Apple Computer, launching a technological revolution creating need for all types of computer technology. However, the most important type of computer tech is software; software allows for the user interface, operating system, applications, and gives the computer the ability to function. In 1998, when Varchasivi Shankar created the company, V2SOFT, he set out to create software for computers everywhere. Surrounded by a family of business, Mr. Shankar grew up in India. Growing up, he watched his grandfather control and grow his business and knew that’s what he wanted to do as well. He decided that it would be smarter to have a business in America and his journey began when he traveled to the United States. Varchasivi Shankar is heroic because he has completed the three steps in the hero’s journey: the departure, the initiation, and the return.

When the first developed was Macintosh, Jobs to visit near Seattle gates office. Microsoft wrote some applications for Apple II , including one called Multiplan spreadsheet program, jobs want to stimulate gates and his company, for the upcoming Macintosh computer do more. Sitting in the Gates meeting rooms, jobs for public computer made a tempting perspective, friendly interface, this show is in a California factory automation has millions of production. He in the California suction silicon components and cultivate complete dream factory lead to Microsoft team Macintosh computer program code "sand". They even put engineering reverse to a acronym, "Steve 's amazing new devices." But in the end they twin and no successful cooperation.

“Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary” by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond is the account of how Linus Torvalds created the computer operating system Linux in 1991 to his (then) current account in 2001. In the book Torvalds outlines from how it all started for his personal need, to the infamous Tanenbaum debates, to gaining commercial popularity in the present. The book is written by mainly by Torvalds with Diamond giving his own experiences with Torvalds throughout. Torvalds is very qualified because he was the one to actually create the operating system and likewise the book is about his own experiences. However Diamond is also qualified in his writing as he had previously written for both The New York Times and the popular

By the late 1970s the computing giant IBM had plans for marketing a personal computer for home use. They approached Microsoft to develop the standard operating system for their home computer models. Gates and Allen then went out and purchased for $50,000 an operating system called Q-Dos,

Valve software is a successful entertainment and software company with over 300 employees. Valve software wanted to create a working environment that empowered their employees and gave them the freedom to be creative. What they have achieved is a very successful company that operates on a ‘flat’ structure where there are no managers or supervisors to report to and all employees are equals. “The company tries to keep its structure flat to remove or reduce barriers between the employees and the customers” (Valve steams ahead n.d).