It's truly hard to imagine just how much Valve managed to change what PC gaming is thanks to Steam. On September 12 2021, the Steam client celebrated 18 years. Steam is now old enough to buy alcohol in the UK.
Do you remember what Steam originally looked like? I sure do. It was a much simpler time, with none of the fancy tricks Steam does now. There was no Steam Play, no Linux client, no macOS client, no reviews system and just — not much of anything. A few games, a couple of buttons and that was mostly it. This was long before the likes of GOG, Humble, Epic, itch.io, Origin and so on.
Not only was it a bare-bones client, a lot of people really didn't like it either. This was back in the days where most people went into a real-life game store, picked up a box and took it home to insert a CD and read the manual while it took forever to install. The idea of needing the internet and a client to register and play was just weird. Back then Steam had a bit of a history for being unreliable too, with all sorts of server and login issues.
It wasn't long until Steam was a requirement with Half-Life 2 releasing in 2004, which truly set the stage for PC gaming digital distribution from that point to slowly become the norm. Later in 2005, the first externally developed titles arrived on Steam like Rag Doll Kung Fu but Steam remained a firmly closed system with Valve firmly curating the titles until later in 2012 when Steam Greenlight appeared for indies to submit their games, get votes and eventually (hopefully) get accepted.
Things are vastly different now of course. There's over 51,000 games on Steam and thousands release every year, thanks to Steam Direct allowing developers to pay $100 to get their game listed.
Looking at my own purchase history, looks like Day of Defeat: Source was actually my first purchase on my own account back in 2008. What was yours?
Happy Birthday, Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Last edited by Ehvis on 13 September 2021 at 8:22 am UTC
hardpenguin Sep 13, 2021
So Steam ingested WINE too early?!? :DBa dum tshhh!
Wow the Windows XP in the screenshot 😄
Anyway, anyone remembers running the old, classic Steam on Wine to play some Counter Strike? 😉
The Orange Box is a bundle that includes five titles from Valve: Half-Life 2; Half-Life 2:Episode 1; Half-Life 2: Episode Two; Team Fortress 2, the sequel to the game that put class-based, multiplayer team warfare on the map; and Portal, the game that blends puzzles, first person action, and adventure gaming to produce an experience like no other.
Current account active since Q3 2007.
Today i have 984 games + several hidden
My account is semi private and i need to turn it public to have more details from https://steamdb.info/
I know i didn’t play a few of them, but not much. I did play (almost) all my games.
Didn’t say to the end... I almost never "finish" a game, even if i play hundreds of hours.
I don’t care about stories most of the time, only gameplay.
Fun fact: my very first purchase on Steam was freshly-released Superfrog HD, while the original Superfrog was my very first Amiga game, bought along with Amiga 500.
Last edited by pb on 13 September 2021 at 9:12 am UTC
But my purchase history only goes back to 2012.
Before that I bought physical media.
I think winex/cedega was the reason I did buy half life and forced me to create an account.
(It was a lot easier back then to get the pirated version running in Wine).
Today i have 984 games + several hiddenHow do you hide games? Asking for a friend ;-).
Given the marketshare of Steam, it's really a blessing that valve didn't rest but kept improving steam to the comfort it offers today...
rustybroomhandle Sep 13, 2021
Looking at my own purchase history, looks like Day of Defeat: Source was actually my first purchase on my own account back in 2008. What was yours?
For me, it was Half-Life 1 Anthology (bundle of HL, HL: Blue Shift, HL: Opposing Force, and Team Fortress Classic), in June 2008.
Arehandoro Sep 13, 2021
BloodScourge Sep 13, 2021
27 Nov, 2004 Half-Life 2 Retail Standard
I redeemed a few retail games (Half-Life Platinum Pack, Dark Messiah, Prey, The Orange Box, Left 4 Dead) before my first digital purchase (Braid) in September 2009
rustybroomhandle Sep 13, 2021
My first purchase was The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, on 2009.
Mine is the exact same. But I'm pretty sure the Orange box stuff would have been before that. Maybe records only go back so far.
Comandante Ñoñardo Sep 13, 2021
I made my first steam purchase in Tuesday, September 11, 2012 at 08:53:25 and it was HALF-LIFE 2
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