Valve

Valve Corporation is a US game developer and digital games distribution platform founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington.

Valve revolutionized the first person shooter (FPS) genre of video games with the release of popular PC titles such as Half-Life (1998), Counter-Strike (2000) and Left 4 Dead (2008). Today, Valve’s Dota 2 (2013) and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (2012) are two of the most popular esports titles. They rank high among peak viewership on Twitch, with 1 million and 0.8 million viewers, respectively, in 2019.

In 2011, Valve launched its first esports competition for Dota, The International (TI), with a prize pool of USD 1 million. The competition held in 2019, TI 19, boasted a prize pool of USD 34 million—the single highest for an esports event ever. In addition, Valve is pursuing a regional league structure covering six regions (the Americas, Europe, Southeast Asia, China and the Commonwealth of Independent States) for its Dota 2 Pro Circuit. This differs considerably from the new franchising structure Riot Games and Activision Blizzard has introduced.

In October 2021, Valve announced that it will refund ticket sales to The International 2021, as the event was set to go ahead without a live audience in October 2021. The company cited rising COVID-19 cases and extended lockdowns in Bucharest, Romania, where the tournament was expected to be held, as reasons for the decision. The development followed Valve’s decision to resume the event in May 2021, following a one-year hiatus due to the pandemic. Subsequently, the event had to be relocated to Romania (July 2021) after plans to hold the event in Sweden fell through in June 2021.