Valve to acquire Turtle Rock Studios

[e-freak]

Just got the mail from Doug Lombardi:

VALVE ACQUIRES TURTLE ROCK STUDIOS

Leading Content and Technology Company Adds California Studio

January 10, 2008 - Fresh off the success of The Orange Box, the 2007 game of the year award-winning collection of new games heralded as "the best value in gaming history," Valve Corporation announces the acquisition of Turtle Rock Studios, the Orange County-based development house behind one of 2008's most anticipated games, Left 4 Dead.

Valve was founded in 1996 and has grown to become one of the game industry's leading technology and content creators, with a portfolio of over 20 million games sold worldwide. The merger of the two companies extends Valve's development team and provides the company with a new studio in southern California.

Turtle Rock Studios' Left 4 Dead joins a growing list of Valve's game properties which includes the Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress and Day of Defeat series of games as well as Portal, introduced as part of The Orange Box.

"We have been seeing very strong growth with Steam and Source, our content distribution and development platforms, up over 150% over the last 12 months. Given our expectations for Left 4 Dead and our long-standing relationships with members of the Turtle Rock team, this was an easy decision. It also gives us a base from which to expand our development activities in the Los Angeles area," said Gabe Newell, president of Valve.

"Left 4 Dead fills a long-standing demand gamers have had for a coop first-person action experience, and it will also help Valve's expansion into the console market," added Doug Lombardi, Valve's VP of marketing.

"Valve has had great success bringing in projects and teams such as Team Fortress and Portal. As I spent time working and talking with the creators of those products over the past several years, it became clear that this was the right next step for myself, my colleagues at Turtle Rock, our customers, and our products," said Michael Booth, founder and CEO of Turtle Rock Studios. "We are excited to be a part of such a visionary and forward-thinking company."

Founded in 2002 by Michael Booth, Turtle Rock Studios is the creator of Left 4 Dead, named one 2008's most wanted titles by many of today's leading game-enthusiast publications and Web sites.

For more information on Valve, its games, or the Steam platform, please visit http://www.steamgames.com

About Valve

Valve is an entertainment software and technology company founded in 1996 and based in Bellevue, Washington with offices in Irvine, CA. The company's portfolio of entertainment properties includes Half-Life®, Counter-Strike®, Day of Defeat®, Team Fortress®, PortalTM and Left 4 DeadTM. Valve's catalog of products accounts for over 20 million retail units sold worldwide, and over 80% of PC online action gameplay. In addition, Valve is a developer of leading-edge technologies, such as the SourceTM game engine and Steam®, a broadband platform for the delivery and management of digital content. For more information, please visit http://www.valvesoftware.com.

[Minos]

About fucking time

[Mazy]

I actually kinda thought they already owned em

But yeah, obvious move

[e-freak]

-snip-

Edited August 8, 2021 by e-freak

[FrieChamp]

Looks like somebody's getting a little too excited about this

[e-freak]

[Zacker]

Seems like an obvious choice...

[D3ads]

I thought they were already owned by Valve anyway, since they only produce stuff using Valve's technology...

[Bluestrike]

Earlier Teams (or at least theyr leads) came to Seattle, Washington and worked at Valve's HQ but with Left 4 Dead's Developers they made a step which other Companies did a long time ago: They start a studio in another place ...

Earlyer teams were modders and students who didn't have a office/company as far as I know.

So maybe the Turtle Rock guys (ex westwood right?) just didn't want to move.

I find it a bit weird for a big studio like Valve (100-150 people last numbers I saw) and their loose policy of "work on what you want when you want" to start a satelite team of what, 10 people?

[Sentura]

petroglyph have some ex westwood people in it, i doubt that turtle rock has any of those.

[Bluestrike]

I looked it up because I remember it since I found it weird for them to switch from rts to shooters getting a deal with Valve right away

Turtle Rock Studios is an independent game developer in the business of creating original

entertainment titles and providing consulting services to the digital entertainment industry.

Turtle Rock Studios was founded in March of 2002 by Michael Booth.

Mr. Booth has over 16 years of professional software engineering experience, including 9 years of experience in the video game industry, and 7 years experience in the real-time simulation industry.

Mr. Booth's gaming credentials include the creation of the award-winning game titles "Nox" and

"Nox Quest", published in 2000 by Westwood Studios/Electronic Arts, as well as Technical Direction

for Red Alert II: Yuri's Revenge (2001), and Command & Conquer: Generals (2003), also from Westwood/EA.

[Sentura]

neither of that is what i consider westwood though -- westwood for me everything from dune 2 to red alert 1 (you people know what i mean).

[e-freak]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=1227

[dux]

Man I love jim Rossignol. His writing in PC Gamer UK was great to read.

[Phopojijo]

*a bit late* but:

Should mention that while Valve has a history of snatching up small-time developers who do work for them...

Yea... Gearbox Software...

Sometimes the company just STAYS independent