It's interesting how the sentiment towards Steam changed since it's inception. I remember back when we had to use WON to play counter strike, then it got shut down and we had to move to Steam. But steam forced you to upgrade to CS 1.6, we liked 1.5 so we "boycotted" it and played on dodgy private servers and eventually WON2 (I think that's what it was called).
I remember not playing Half Life 2 for a while because it required Steam and I refused to install it. I eventually gave up and joined (17 years ago according to my account) and over those 17 it's one of those services that just got better and better.
Linux gaming is now in the "it just works" territory. They fixed controller support (no more using dodgy drivers to make your PS3 controller behave like an xbox 360 one). They added support for online in local only co-op games (one person streams the game to the other, the other person sends controller input).
There are so many cool tech features built into steam that I really can't imagine using anything else at this point.
I think you're mixing up a few things about the 'sentiment' here because of the timelines. If Wikipedia is correct enough Steam launched in autumn 2003 and as you say, for CS.
All of us who didn't play CS did not care at all about Steam. Then late in 2004 HL2 came, that was a bigger draw but still, for many of us who didn't buy it.. don't care.
My Steam account is from 2009, but I distinctly remember that I tried to sign up some years before for no good reason (maybe to grab a name) and couldn't get past the unreadable Captcha and because I STILL had no pressing reason (around 2006?) I let it go.
I'm not saying I'm a hardcore Steam user, maybe more like a casual user who buys some games from time to time and I didn't feel a pressing need to sign up for the first ~6 years of service and at some point they had enough benefits that people signed up and bought games.
TLDR: Steam was a niche product for many years so the current discourse about "the default game purchasing platform" is completely different than "publisher-owned distribution platform for 3 games"
I guess my point that it started out as a "publisher-owned distribution platform for 3 games" that many CS gamers at the time hated. Obviously I can't speak for the entire gaming community, but I remember sitting in some fairly large IRC channels with everyone bitching about it. They really managed to turn that around.
And then after becoming "the default game purchasing platform" they continue to improve the experience and invest in cool technological advances. The post says:
> Unfortunately, you can't just build a better mousetrap,
But no one has come even close to building a better mousetrap, the alternatives suck. Valve didn't just become the biggest and sit around stagnating and buying out the competition. They continue to innovate, at least in my humble opinion.
I remember not playing Half Life 2 for a while because it required Steam and I refused to install it. I eventually gave up and joined (17 years ago according to my account) and over those 17 it's one of those services that just got better and better.
Linux gaming is now in the "it just works" territory. They fixed controller support (no more using dodgy drivers to make your PS3 controller behave like an xbox 360 one). They added support for online in local only co-op games (one person streams the game to the other, the other person sends controller input).
There are so many cool tech features built into steam that I really can't imagine using anything else at this point.