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 fogger on 13 September 2021 at 4:29 pm UTC
Quoting: ArdjeQuoting: TcheyToday i have 984 games + several hiddenHow do you hide games? Asking for a friend ;-).
Really no idea, i don’t think i’ve hidden any of them.
I just repeated the info from the website.
Maybe related to "bought vs activated" on Steam ?
You will have to find other ways to hide your porn, sorry.
I was gifted though retail copy of Civ V back in 2011 and that needed activation on Steam. That meant running Steam client with Wine. When Linux version of Steam client was released, I was slowly weaned away from Windows games as back then you had to switch between the Windows and Linux clients.
Quoting: wintermuteQuoting: BeamboomHow weird, my purchase history doesn't go further back than 2011, even though I have the 16 year badge so I've had this account since 2005
A lot of the early stuff was available as physical releases and only activated on Steam, you can see it under "View licenses and product key activations" on your account page rather than the purchases section.
Ah, indeeed!
Quote20. aug. 2005 Half-Life 2 Retail Standard
1 Dec, 2006 Prey Retail Retail
5 Sep, 2006 Half-Life 2: Episode One Complimentary
19 Dec, 2004 Half-Life Platinum Pack Complimentary
24 Nov, 2004 Half-Life 2 Retail Standard Complimentary
For Prey I just used my Doom 3 CD Key, lol
Last edited by kuhpunkt on 13 September 2021 at 3:28 pm UTC
Quoting: ArdjeHow do you hide games? Asking for a friend ;-).Right-click on game in Library -> Manage -> Hide this game.
Quoting: Bogomips30 September, 2003 for me and the first thing I did was add my Half-Life/Orange Box CD keys :)
Haha, pretty cool. :)
Mine is from the 6th of December 2003.
We were playing Counter-Strike and there was news that Valve was going to shut down the WON network in favour of Steam. That's when I decided to make the switch, was first among my friends. Everyone else followed the next year. :p
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