5. Valve

Valve is behind the world-conquering Steam platform, which has become the preferred choice for PC gamers when buying games online. But given that Steam is a de facto monopoly, it has been controversial – good competing alternatives like GOOG have had a hard time getting a foothold due to Steam’s success, and certain games have been banned from the Steam platform at Valve’s sole discretion. For instance, the controversial video game Hatred was removed from Steam after its violent content caused an uproar, although the game actually wasn’t any more violent than best-sellers like GTA V (Hatred was later reinstated). And while the Steam sales offer great discounts, they have been criticized for encouraging gamers to fork out for games that they will likely never actually play.

And Valve has also been controversial for not delivering the game that many gamers have been anxiously waiting for more than a decade. The phrase “give us Half-Life 3 already” has been popping up in gaming-related forums for years, although Valve has remained tight-lipped about a possible sequel to their seminal Half-Life 2 until now.