Valve
Valve is a software company best known for their digital distribution platform Steam and their multiple hit video game franchises. The company was founded by ex-microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington in 1996.
Steam
Steam is a video game distribution platform for computers running windows or mac operating systems. Steam offers its users a way to download old and new games from multiple publishers. Community features have been added to the platform that allow users to create a profile, add friends, join groups, schedule events, and see and join games that their friends are playing. In addition to these features, Steam also has a cloud feature that lets users save their game preferences and save files on the Steam servers so that they can access them across multiple computers.
Valve Anti-Cheat
Also known as VAC, this is the anti-cheat system employed through Steam. It works by scanning a user's computer memory looking for the signatures of blacklisted hacks. Valve uses a deliberate delay between when they detect hacks and when they ban a user. The reason for this is because Valve does not publicly release a list of which hacks are detected. By keeping this information confidential, hackers will not know which hacks triggered the ban and thus be lured into a false sense of security with regard to certain hacks. Valve is then able to catch more of the hackers because the hackers won't know if the hacks they are using have been blacklisted.
Once a user is banned, they are permanently prohibited from playing on VAC-protected servers; they are still allowed to play on unprotected servers.
Additionally, Valve will never reverse a ban. This becomes a problem when a users account is hacked, and someone other than the owner uses the account to hack in games. Even if the rightful owner gets their account back, the ban will not be overturned.
Games
Valve has had many hit games since the company was founded. Their earliest and arguably most popular game series is the Half-Life franchise. In more recent years they have had success with games such as Portal 1 & 2 as well as Left 4 Dead 1 & 2.
Year | Title |
---|---|
1998 | Half-Life |
1999 | Team Fortress Classic |
1999 | Half-Life: Opposing Force |
2000 | Deathmatch Classic |
2000 | Ricochet |
2000 | Counter-Strike |
2001 | Half-Life: Blue Shift |
2003 | Day of Defeat |
2004 | Counter-Strike: Condition Zero |
2004 | Half-Life: Source |
2004 | Counter-Strike: Source |
2004 | Half-Life 2 |
2005 | Day of Defeat: Source |
2005 | Half-Life 2: Lost Coast |
2006 | Half-Life 2: Episode One |
2007 | Half-Life 2: Episode Two |
2007 | Portal |
2007 | Team Fortress 2 |
2008 | Left 4 Dead |
2009 | Left 4 Dead 2 |
2010 | Alien Swarm |
2011 | Portal 2 |