Valve is an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1996 by Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. The company is based in Bellevue, Washington. Valve's first game was Half-Life, a first-person shooter released in 1998. It sold over nine million retail copies. Alongside Half-Life's launch, Valve released development tools to enable the player community to create content and mods. The company then proceeded to hire the creators of popular mods such as Counter-Strike.