In 1998, the American software company Valve wanted to create a popular computer game in a highly competitive market. By sourcing information from advanced game users and letting the users participate in creating a new game, Valve was able to launch a new type of computer game never seen on the market before, Counter Strike.

When Valve released their new computer game Half Life, they also decided to make 80% of the game codes available for modification by users. The code was restricted, requiring the use of the core engine of Half Life, thus making the original game the platform for building modifications and playing new versions of the game. Valve also released a number of tools to the online user communities to match the publication of the game code.

In order to find the most popular modified version of the game, Valve tracked the various communities and identified which modifications were played the most. Valve picked the most popular version of the game, and hired one of the core members of the modification team to continue the development of the game in-house at Valve. While the original game Half Life is a linear first-person shooter game, the modification Counter Strike is a team based, multiplayer game taking place in realistic settings.

Valve packaged the modification of their original game and released it as a new commercial game, Counter Strike. Contrary to other computer games where sales fall after a year or two Counter Strike’s sales increased year after year. In total, Counter Strike has sold more than 11 million units and made an estimated profit of US$ 300 million.

Source: Jeppesen, L.B., (2004) Organizing Consumer Innovation - a product development strategy that is based on online communities and allows some firms to benefit from a distributed process of innovation by consumers.