Valve considered making a 'B title' before Half-Life, until an exec told Gabe Newell 'that's just not gonna work… the company will fail'
Life, one of the most important games in PC history and a spectacular debut for Valve. But in another timeline, it could've ...
How a Microsoft exec managed to pitch Microsoft Word through the genius tactic of being able to actually use it in a 'type-off' demanded by clients: 'I was the only one …
And like many of Valve's earliest employees, Harrington came there from Microsoft, where one of her major responsibilities ...
Steam's DRM was inspired by an exec's nephew and his trusty CD burner
Harrington has a somewhat contentious relationship with Valve's origin story. In 2024, she said that her name had been erased ...
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Valve's DRM Origins Include An Exec's 19-Year-Old Pirate Nephew
A fun myth to hear about relates to a friend's uncle working at Nintendo to get the scoop on secrets. But what if your ...
How a nephew’s CD burner inspired early Valve to embrace DRM
PC Gamer pulled that interesting tidbit from a talk Harrington gave at last week's Game Developers Conference. In her ...
Valve literally gives Half-Life away now, but 27 years ago it was carefully crushing its angry pirates: "None of them had actually bought the game"
Takes you closer to the games, movies and TV you love Issues delivered straight to your door or device Half-Life is $2 on ...
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Valve Used ‘Game of the Year’ Sticker to Turn Half-Life into a Success
Monica Harrington from Valve shared some interesting facts about the company during her talk at the GDC 2025. One of the most surprising stories was about how Valve struggled to sell Half-Life due ...
Former Valve exec recounts the meeting where Half-Life's publisher almost killed the iconic FPS: "Half-Life would quietly die. I was stunned"
Ex-Valve CMO Monica Harrington, in a recent panel from the Game Developer's Conference, once again remembered an era where ...
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Valve invented the 'Game of the Year Edition' marketing strategy, former exec reveals
At GDC 2025, former Valve chief Monica Harrington explored the challenges of marketing a game, and how the Game of the Year ...
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OG Half-Life publisher Sierra planned to “abandon” the game before Valve threatened them
The original Half-Life was almost abandoned by publisher Sierra On-Line before Valve threatened to reveal their unsavoury ...
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The Dramatic Half-Life Deal That Altered The Fate Of Valve Forever
The terms of the deal, Harrington said, was that Valve would fund all but $1 million of the development costs of Half-Life's ...
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Steam's Digital Rights Management (DRM) was introduced after the nephew of a Valve executive copied a game without permission.
The bottom line is that the authentication system worked really well.' After Monica Harrington's speech, Mike Harrington commented, 'When I heard my nephew's story, I thought at first ...