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September 5th, 2024

The Early Days of Valve from a Woman Inside

Monica Harrington played a crucial role in Valve's early marketing and business strategies, helping to position Half-Life for success while navigating financial pressures and fostering industry relationships.

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The Early Days of Valve from a Woman Inside

Monica Harrington reflects on her pivotal role in the early days of Valve, the company co-founded by Gabe Newell and her then-husband Mike Harrington. Initially on a leave from Microsoft, she became involved in Valve's marketing and business development as they prepared to launch their first product, Half-Life. Despite her successful career at Microsoft, she chose to support her husband’s ambition to create a game company. The partnership with Sierra Online was crucial, providing a significant advance that helped fund Valve's operations. Harrington emphasizes the competitive nature of the gaming industry, where only a few titles achieve commercial success. She played a key role in shaping Valve's marketing strategy, focusing on building relationships with industry influencers and positioning Half-Life for critical acclaim. As Valve's development team grew, so did the financial pressures, but Harrington's experience and insights helped navigate these challenges. The narrative highlights the collaborative spirit of the gaming industry during the late 90s, contrasting it with the more cutthroat environment of software marketing at Microsoft. Ultimately, Harrington's contributions were instrumental in establishing Valve as a major player in the gaming world.

- Monica Harrington was integral to Valve's early marketing and business strategies.

- Valve's partnership with Sierra Online provided essential funding for their first game.

- The gaming industry in the late 90s was competitive yet collaborative, unlike traditional software markets.

- Harrington's marketing plan aimed to position Half-Life as a critically acclaimed title.

- Financial pressures grew as Valve expanded, but Harrington's experience helped manage these challenges.

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Link Icon 12 comments
By @ryandrake - 7 months
What really struck me was how OK Microsoft seemed to be with her moonlighting for Valve, basically working for a competitor (albeit a small one) directly in a role that was also her role in Microsoft. Pretty much unheard of in FAANGs today. You can't so much as breathe on an external project today without FAANG claiming IP ownership over anything and everything you breathe on. Imagine working for Apple and telling your manager, "Hey, by the way, I'm going to be helping out a little with a small-potatoes competing mobile operating system project... You're cool with that, right?"

> I had another conversation with Microsoft execs about my role and the conflict with Valve, and again I was essentially told, “it’s fine, we’re OK, we like where you’re at, don’t worry.”

WOW!

By @rPlayer6554 - 7 months
The author has the conclusion that she was wiped from the history books because she's a woman. But her husband worked almost the exact same amount (if not more - because he was always a full time employee.) and he got equally erased from the history books. Competitive environments can be cutthroat and she and her husband let Gabe become the face of the company because they left.
By @kranke155 - 7 months
With steel in my voice, I told the Sierra team that they were not pulling marketing dollars from Half-Life. They were going to re-release it in a Game of the Year Box, and they were going to support it with huge marketing spend or we were going to walk away from our agreement and tell the industry that had fallen in love with Valve how screwed up Sierra really was. At the end of the meeting, I was shaking. We were vulnerable, the partners were barely speaking, and life at home and in the office was tense.

I love people like this. I’ve seen in documentaries. James Carville running the Clinton campaign. An absolute political animal. Always doing more, thinking faster, multiple moves ahead of the competition, doing movies the competition doesn’t even know exist, and relentlessly focused and often workaholic.

By @Sakos - 7 months
Oh wow, the (now ex) wife of the co-founder. The guy who sold his stake in Valve before Steam was launched and then went sailing for 6 years with his wife. This paints a whole new picture of why he ended up leaving and it's fascinating. Grateful that she shared her side of the story.

> The structure of the deal meant that we would be vested in Valve’s success over the next five years

Great foresight.

By @dmonitor - 7 months
Fascinating story. It's amazing hearing about how the seed of an idea that eventually became Steam started from preventing piracy of Half-Life, and later materialized as a contingency plan due to their awful publishing deal. Glad the author could share her side of the story and get some credit for her attributions.
By @jerglingu - 7 months
Amazing read, and glad she could write this into history. It's amazing to me that Half-Life's status of immortality has more or less been preserved even today.
By @endgame - 7 months
Fantastic article. I think the title does it a disservice — I expected a disappointing chronicle of sexism, but it's full of details and strategy during one of the most interesting and volatile periods of PC gaming history.

The article mentions that John Cook and Robin Walker made a mod that attracted Valve's attention, and then they shipped TFC. That would surely mean the mod would've been Team Fortress for QuakeWorld, and not for Doom?

By @echelon - 7 months
This is such a good story. Drawing down personal finances to underwrite the company, hiring pizza delivery drivers ... this was a really incredible journey.
By @JBits - 7 months
Fun and well written read. It's ironic though how terrible the 15% cut was considered given that Steam takes 30%.