SD on 26/8/2017 at 17:29
Half-Life 2 was the most anticipated game in history when it came out. Of course, you needed Steam to run it, and that is where the platform's early userbase came from. Looking back, it's obvious that Half-Life 2 was the vehicle for launching Steam upon the world, and not vice versa. This was all planned; an iTunes for video games. I'm surprised Valve even went to the trouble of making Episodes One and Two, as they clearly find the actual work of developing games to be such a bother.
twisty on 27/8/2017 at 06:32
Like it or not, they kind of saved pc gaming in their own way. They innovated a delivery platform that simultaneously made it easier to acquire games and reduce piracy; with all the complaints that people have with drm, they've made it fairly innocuous. Everything else is gravy.
icemann on 27/8/2017 at 08:06
Have to say that I agree. PC was on a gradual downward trend. Then Steam came a long and slowly made a difference.
icemann on 28/8/2017 at 18:06
I do remember thinking I'd never see a Starcraft 2, and then many years later got that. So you never know.
For a while Blizzard fell into the hole that many Developers fall into when they release a successful MMO. That hole being that it becomes their sole purpose and they stop focusing on anything else. Just as what happened to Origin after Ultima Online's release.
In Blizzard's case that was only temporary.
