Here is your Forbes Daily Briefing for Wednesday, October 23rd.

Today on Forbes, how Valve founder, Gabe Newell, turned Half Life into a nearly $10 billion fortune.

Last October, around 20 employees and alumni of video gaming giant Valve gathered at

the Lake House, a trendy restaurant in Bellevue, Washington, just outside of Seattle.

The artists and coders trickled into the private event to celebrate a big milestone.

The 25th anniversary of Half Life, Valve's best-selling video game,

which was released two years after Gabe Newell and his business partner Michael Harrington

started the company in 1996.

An overnight hit, Half Life sold 2.5 million copies within 12 months,

putting Valve firmly on the map.

Even today, with multiple hit games like Portal and Dota 2,

a fast-growing hardware division,

and its digital sales platform Steam,

making Valve one of the most consequential gaming companies in the world,

Half Life is still core to the company's identity.

Harrington, who is now 60 years old, left Valve in 2000,

a couple years after Half Life was released.

But he returned on this autumn evening,

along with most of the original Half Life team

to sip cocktails, taste farm-to-table starters, and swap war stories.

However, there was one notable big no-show that night.

Valve's 61-year-old co-founder and president, Gabe Newell.

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