Gabe Newell is widely regarded as the big name (and the big brain) behind Valve, and thus Half-Life and all that has sprung forth from it. But Valve, Half-Life, and the gamers who love it owe something of an unspoken debt to another man, a foundational games industry titan himself, who despite having no despite having no history or experience in the FPS field immediately saw the potential of Half-Life—at a time when numerous others did not—and moved aggressively to help make it happen.
In a lot of ways, Ken Williams was the Gabe before Gabe: He co-founded On-Line Systems with his wife Roberta and together they turned it into one of the early powerhouses of the industry, known more widely as Sierra Online—home of King's Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Gabriel Knight, and, for the real heads, Softporn Adventure. In 1991, it launched The Sierra Network, the first online service dedicated exclusively to videogames. And in 1996, as recorded by Geoffrey Keighley's The Final Hour of Half-Life report for GameSpot (yes, he went by Geoffrey back then), Williams met with Newell.
