“None of Them Bought the Game”: Former Valve Marketing Director Reveals How the Studio Fought Half-Life Piracy

In recent years, Valve has been giving away the original Half-Life for literally pennies (and even for free on holidays), but when the game was just coming out and the studio was just starting out in the industry, everything was completely different.

Image Source: Valve

Former Valve marketing director Monica Harrington, the former wife of studio co-founder Mike Harrington, spoke at GDC 2025 about how the company began fighting piracy.

According to Harrigton’s Medium post last year, in 1998 Valve viewed piracy, which was just beginning to become a real problem, as one of the biggest threats to its business.

Harrigton’s own nephew used the gift money to buy a CD-ROM replicator so he could copy games and share them with friends. It wasn’t stealing for him, but Valve couldn’t just leave Half-Life to its fate.

Image source: Rock Paper Shotgun

Because of gamers like Harrington’s nephew, the studio developed an authentication system. Buyers had to verify and register their copy of the game directly with Valve.

When Half-Life’s release was followed by complaints that the game wasn’t working, Mike Harrington personally called everyone affected, but: “It turned out that none of them had bought the game. The authentication system worked fine.”

Half-Life debuted on November 19, 1998. Valve’s cult shooter is considered one of the most important games in history. The Metacritic rating is 96%. Until this evening (20:00 Moscow time), you can join the classics of the genre for 51 rubles.