SIERRA STUDIOS AND VALVE ANNOUNCE HALF-LIFE®: COUNTER-STRIKE

New Team-Based PC Game Featuring Several Top Half-Life MODs

BELLEVUE, WA (August 31, 2000) - Sierra Studios™ and Valve L.L.C. today announced Half-Life: Counter-Strike, the largest multiplayer game offering in one commercial product, combining all the elements of the Half-Life online universe with new single- and multiplayer content. Half-Life: Counter-Strike is a stand-alone PC game due to ship this fall with all of Valve's multiplayer content, three of the top MODs for Half-Life, and the #1 played online action game*, Counter-Strike.

"Half-Life's online community is growing at a rate of over 500% per year -Counter-Strike is a key part of our strategy to sustain that growth moving forward," said Gabe Newell, managing director of Valve L.L.C. "In addition to offering the number one online action game as a stand-alone product, Half-Life: Counter-Strike delivers all our online games in one package to gamers who have not tried any of these leading online action games."

In development by the Counter-Strike Team in conjunction with Valve, Half-Life: Counter-Strike casts players as a member of either a terrorist or counter-terrorist team. Each team has unique weapons and capabilities. The game is played in a variety of scenarios with varying objectives, including rescue missions, assassination, bomb diffusion, and more. More information on Counter-Strike can be found through the official Web site at http://www.counter-strike.net/.

In addition to Counter-Strike, the entire Half-Life online experience is available within this package including, Half-Life multiplayer, Team Fortress Classic, and Half-Life: Opposing Force multiplayer. And finally, three new MODs, created by some of the top-level designers within the Half-Life community, are also featured. More information on Half-Life and its MODs can be found at www.gameoftheyear.com.

Founded in 1996, Valve develops entertainment software. Half-Life is Valve's debut title. Since its release in November 1998, Half-Life has won over 50 Game of the Year Awards from publications that include PC Gamer, Computer Gaming World, and CNET's Gamecenter and has sold over 2 million units worldwide on the PC. More information about Valve is available through the company's Web site at www.valvesoftware.com.

Sierra On-Line, Inc. (www.sierra.com) is one of the original developers and largest worldwide publishers of interactive entertainment and productivity software. Sierra is a division of Havas Interactive, a global leader in interactive content, and is one of the world's largest publishers of education, entertainment and home productivity software. Its divisions, Blizzard Entertainment®, Coktel, Knowledge Adventure®, Sierra™ and Flipside.com™ are famous for releasing critically acclaimed and award winning titles. Havas has operations in the US and in Europe and is a subsidiary of the French publishing house Havas, part of Vivendi Communications.

*According to the leader board on www.gamespy.com