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This is what Valve looked like in 1998 (nice CRTs)

Valve before Half-Life was a dark place full of thick plastic and Quake.

valve_1998

Reddit user Smar_tass has posted up some photos from a trip his dad took to Valve in 1998, showing a bootstrap, cave-like environment where people bought in pizza and fiddled with CRTs.

It appears "light" was something Valve employees didn't value at the time, with the company taking a dim view on anything other than dimness in general.

This is before the release of Half-Life, apparently, which launched in November 1998.

You can check out the full set on Imgur.

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Patrick Garratt avatar
Patrick Garratt is a games media legend - and not just by reputation. He was named as such in the UK's 'Games Media Awards', the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award. After garnering experience on countless gaming magazines, he joined Eurogamer and later split from that brand to create VG247, putting the site on the map with fast, 24-hour a day coverage, and assembling the site's earliest editorial teams. He retired from VG247, and the games industry, in 2017.
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