Some of Steam’s oldest user accounts are turning 20-years old this week, and Valve is celebrating the anniversary by handing out special digital badges featuring the original Steam colour scheme to the gaming veterans.
Steam first opened its figurative doors all the way back in September 2003, and has since grown into the largest digital PC gaming storefront in the world, which is actively used by tens of millions of players each day.
“In case anyone’s curious about the odd colours, that’s the colour scheme for the original Steam UI when it first launched,” commented Redditor Penndrachen, referring to the badge’s army green colour scheme, which prompted a mixed reaction from players who remembered the platform’s earliest days. “I joined in the first six months,” lamented Affectionate-Memory4. “I feel ancient rn.”
I remember thinking Steam would die in less than 6 months because nobody wanted dematerialised games…
Part of the problem was how poorly steam ran when it was first introduced
yeah at the time you were forced into it. the won servers were shut down and most peoples computers werent good enough to play CS and have this clunky software running in the background at the same time. it worked but alt-tabbing back then was a gong show and you definitely had the performance hit.
i played CS daily then so the first day was a shit show and I dont think I got much time in that day. mostly just trying to get connected…the servers were overloaded.
I remember getting Half Life 2 for free with my graphics card, then realizing that I needed to download a whole ass other program to redeem my code and download the game. I thought it was for sure a scam and some kind of virus they were trying to get me to install. There were lots of “free” things back then that required you to download a virus to redeem.
Eventually I learned it was legit and downloaded it and got my free copy of HL2, but I was not happy about it.
Now every time I download a game at 800Mbps, I’m like, “I LOVE STEAM”
Edit: I just checked when I created my account. 16 years, 10 months ago. I still have a bit to go before I hit that 20 year mark. Apparently I created my account on my mom’s birthday? I wonder why I did that instead of doing something with her?
I too got hl2 free my graphics card, it was some kind of special edition that had like better cooling or something. It came in a special case too.
Unfortunately there was something wrong with it, don’t remember what. But I went back to the store and they didn’t had a replacement for it.
But for 50 bucks extra I could get a other, better card. They paid 50 themselves as a customer service thing, very nice that was!
I ended up flashing the card to unlock it to a higher tier card, never had any problems with it. So it was a truly great experience for me when hl2 launched.
The good old days.
Same thing here. I didn’t want another program just to manage my programs. I could do that without Steam. Of course now it’s pretty awesome, but it was fairly redundant when it released.
I cursed Valve for forcing me to install Steam to play HL2.
I didn’t want it, still don’t. I actively avoided any game that required it but seems I gave up on 23 July 2011
Wow, same here. I gave up June 30, 2011.
Skyrim?
Oblivion, actually. Skyrim didn’t come out until that November.
I pirated almost any game that required it, only ended up signing up in 2018 I don’t remember why at the time but I don’t think it was to buy games since I didn’t buy any until almost a year after creating the account.
I thought it was great. I got a physical copy of the Orange Box for $20 and didn’t care that I had to install Steam to play it. After I had it set up and realized I didn’t have to physically go to the store to get games anymore, I like it even more.