Half-Life (series)Half-Life is a series of first-person shooter (FPS) games developed and published by Valve. The games combine shooting combat, puzzles and storytelling. The original Half-Life, Valve's first product, was released in 1998 for Windows to critical and commercial success. Players control Gordon Freeman, a scientist who must survive an alien invasion. The innovative scripted sequences were influential on the FPS genre, and the game inspired numerous community-developed mods, including the multiplayer games Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat.
Steam (service)Steam is a video game digital distribution service and storefront from Valve. It was launched as a software client in September 2003 to provide game updates automatically for Valve's games, and expanded to distributing third-party titles in late 2005. Steam offers various features, like digital rights management (DRM), game server matchmaking with Valve Anti-Cheat measures, social networking, and game streaming services.
Valve CorporationValve Corporation, also known as Valve Software, is an American video game developer, publisher, and digital distribution company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. It is the developer of the software distribution platform Steam and the franchises Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Portal, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, and Dota. Valve was founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington.
Half-Life 2Half-Life 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed by Valve. It was first published by Valve for Windows through its distribution service Steam. Like the original Half-Life (1998), Half-Life 2 combines shooting, puzzles, and storytelling, and adds features such as vehicles and physics-based gameplay. Players control Gordon Freeman as he joins a resistance movement to liberate the Earth from the control of a multidimensional alien empire, the Combine. Half-Life 2 was created using Valve's Source engine, which was developed at the same time.
Gabe NewellGabe Logan Newell (born November 3, 1962), nicknamed Gaben, is an American businessman and the president of the video game company Valve. Newell was born in Colorado and grew up in Davis, California. He attended Harvard University in the early 1980s but dropped out to join Microsoft, where he helped create the first versions of the Windows operating system. He and another employee, Mike Harrington, left Microsoft in 1996 to found Valve, and funded the development of their first game, Half-Life (1998).
EsportsEsports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Multiplayer competitions were long a part of video game culture, but were largely between amateurs until the late 2000s, when the advent of online streaming media platforms, particularly YouTube and Twitch, enabled a surge in participation by professional gamers and spectators.
GLaDOSGLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System) is a fictional character from the video game series Portal. The character was created by Erik Wolpaw and Kim Swift and voiced by Ellen McLain. GLaDOS is depicted in the series as an artificially superintelligent computer system responsible for testing and maintenance in the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center in all titles. While GLaDOS initially appears in the first game to simply be a voice that guides the player, her words and actions become increasingly malicious as she makes her intentions clear.
HearthstoneHearthstone is a free-to-play online digital collectible card game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. Originally subtitled Heroes of Warcraft, Hearthstone builds upon the existing lore of the Warcraft series by using the same elements, characters, and relics. It was first released for Microsoft Windows and macOS in March 2014, with ports for iOS and Android released later that year. The game features cross-platform play, allowing players on any supported device to compete with one another, restricted only by geographical region account limits.
Battle royale gameA battle royale game is an online multiplayer video game genre that blends last-man-standing gameplay with the survival, exploration and scavenging elements of a survival game. Battle royale games involve dozens to hundreds of players, who start with minimal equipment and then must eliminate all other opponents while avoiding being trapped outside of a shrinking "safe area", with the winner being the last player or team alive.
Warcraft III: Reign of ChaosWarcraft III: Reign of Chaos is a high fantasy real-time strategy computer video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment released in July 2002. It is the second sequel to Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, after Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, the third game set in the Warcraft fictional universe, and the first to be rendered in three dimensions. An expansion pack, The Frozen Throne, was released in July 2003.
