It would be hard to believe that many people out there wouldn't know an absolutely legendary developer like Valve, but in case you're a die-hard mobile gamer who hasn't followed the console / PC world at all, here's the gist: They kicked things off as a developer all the way back in 1996, and a couple years later released a first person shooter called Half-Life. Half-Life itself was wildly popular, but the game was rapidly eclipsed by the growing mod community that surrounded it. Early mods like Action Half-Life and Team Fortress made their way to Half-Life, but it was Counter-Strike that really took the game to a whole new level. I couldn't even tell you the number of people I know who exclusively bought Half Life to play the Counter-Strike mod.
Half-Life 2 and the Source engine both launched in 2004, and once again, Valve had another hit on their hands- Both because Half-Life 2 was a massive success but also because the Source engine went on the serve as the foundation for other absolutely classic tiles like Portal, Team Fortress 2, and many others. In 2015 they released Source 2, with Dota 2 as the first game to use it. Dota 2 has since gone on to be one of the most popular games in the world, with a absurdly massive esports following with the grand prize of the year being winning the Aegis of Champions trophy, which they took out of its display case and just let me hold because apparently that's a thing that happens at Valve:

It has been a long time since Valve releas...