The Steam was officially launched to the public 18 years ago, more specifically on September 12, 2003. Indeed, time flies.
When Valve launched Steam, people were not super 100% happy about it. The idea of having to register a game over the internet, even if it was a game you bought in a store, did not sit well with people. But over time, as Valve improved the service, offered third-party games, and ran seasonal sales, people began to change their view of the platform. In May 2007, Steam it already had almost 13 million users. As of January 2021, more than 120 million users are active every month.
When it was launched in 2003, Steam frequently stumbled. Servers would crash, players couldn't log in and there wasn't much to do other than stand around staring at a terrible-looking user interface. But relax, things have improved since then.
The first game to require registration on Steam was Valve's mega-sequel, Half-Life 2. Which was released in 2004. The following year, Valve began striking deals with third-party publishers to bring the first non-Valve games to the service. The first third-party game released on Steam was Rag Doll Kung Fu. It is still available in 2021. It is a fighting game, quite strange, and was made by some devs from Lionhead Studios (Fable). You can buy it today for the low price of R$2.29.
In May 2007 there were about 150 digital games available for purchase on Steam. Earlier this year, Steam reached 50,000 games. It is estimated that every year since 2018, between 8,000 and 10,000 new games are introduced to the store. Currently, Steam faces competition from Epic and other publisher stores, but it is still easily the largest and most popular way for most players to PC get new games. But back in 2003, Steam looked like just another weird experiment by the developers of Counter-Strike and Half-Life. Source: Kotaku[ajax_load_more]
