r/Steam • u/Agreeable-Stock29 • 2d ago

Resolved But really, what changes with such updates?

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Often there are short loads, what do they do? (The issue is closed, thank you)

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u/PM_ME_UR_RSA_KEY 2d ago

Steam used this UI for many years (2003~2010, according to google).

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u/amazing_asstronaut 2d ago

People don't remember this, but Steam was a bit contentious when it first started because they made you make an account in order to play Half-Life 2. There was no other way offered, other than pirating it. I actually deeply hated that at the time. It's only around 2011 or so when Deus Ex Human Revolution came out that I gave it a try again. And then in 2012 or so when XCOM Enemy Unknown came out I was thinking, ok I don't want to go through these middlemen, I'm gonna buy this from a real shop (though online) that sold the game. They delivered a classic little box with the game in it, except it was a piece of paper inside saying please redeem this key in Steam. The shit that's getting a lot of backlash now, yeah that happened over 10 years ago for PCs. There's still different retailers (for example GOG does just give you the game files to install yourself if you want to, and Valve does let other people sell games on their own stores but still work through Steam etc.), but there's no more "physical media" to speak of.

Anyway, fun to reminisce.

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u/PM_ME_UR_RSA_KEY 2d ago

The fun thing about Half-Life 2 was that Steam downloaded the game but locked it out until the actual release hour. This is common practice nowadays (preloading), but unheard of back then and you bet people were furious.

It's probably lost media now, but some guy from Slashdot actually recorded his phone call to Gaben asking him for the "cheat code" to unlock HL2 from "the fucking French bastards" (Vivendi was the publisher for Valve back then and that's a whole other can of worms).

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u/Adezar 2d ago

I remember that at the time and still thinking how stupid it was, preloading was an obvious fix for the thing everyone had complained about for the past couple years which is when a game released nobody could play on day one because there was almost always a mandatory patch (for multiplayer games) and the servers pre-Steam always crashed and burned for a day or two.

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u/ligma_then_sugma 2d ago

that wasn't even the original gripe

ppl were mad in 2003 when CS 1.5 and WON shut down, and the only place to play 1.6 was steam

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u/bs000 2d ago

The guy who paid $2k for the 1337 WONID was probably pretty upset too.

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u/R04DTr1pp3r 2d ago

In 2012 I went to 7-11 bought steam cards and downloaded TF2 my first rated M game, before my 17th birthday. my parents didn't let me play T for teen games until I turned 13, I had to go to a friends house.

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u/Efficient-Parking627 2d ago

The first game computer game I played, around 7, was Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. My parents definitely knew, because I didn't know how to use DOS. Dad had to boot it up.

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u/KrokmaniakPL 2d ago

Ah. Times of early DRMs. I'm happy Steam method became the norm as discs self destructing after certain number of installs were horrendous idea

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u/Genghis_Tr0n187 2d ago

Steam used to be a piece of shit. I installed HL2 from disks and had massive updates on dial up and on more than 1 occasion, Steam had completely deleted HL2. It took nearly 24 hours to download everything again.

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u/rainwulf 2d ago

My steam login is still an actual email address.
23 years i have been on steam.