Looking back on Valve's record of repeated hits and the fact that most of us are playing our PC games under Steam's monolithic shadow, it's tempting to think that this was the only way history could've gone. But according to Monica Harrington, Valve's chief marketing strategist in its early years and then wife of studio co-founder Mike Harrington, we only barely avoided a world where Half-Life left Valve in ruins, and we've got her work to thank for it.
I spoke to Harrington over email after reading "The Early Days of Valve from a Woman Inside," a memoir she published on Medium in August detailing how she transitioned from managing a Microsoft marketing portfolio to working alongside her ex-husband and Gabe Newell from Valve's founding through Half-Life's release. (We've asked Newell for his perspective on these early Valve days, and will update this story if we hear back.) Harrington's recollections detail Valve's early struggles with publisher Sierra On-Line from the viewpoint of an overlooked figure in the studio's history, revealing how its mythologized successes were anything but guaranteed.
