When Steam arrived, many were angry. We had to be connected to the Internet via ADSL connections and be able to download the games which often did not exceed 25 Kbit/s. It was crazy to think something like this would work, considering we had DVDs to install our purchases onto the computer faster. But Valve was ahead of its time, at a time when a threat was ravaging the entire PC ecosystem. Gaming.
The turbulent 2000s
In 2003 there was a permanent download culture. Napster and MP3s, eMule and films Screener and of course pirate games, which at the time were a scourge that no one seemed to be able to stop. Furthermore, there were times when Because of the anti-copying systems, using an illegal version was less of a problem of a game than the original that was sold commercially.
The introduction of Steam not only began to put an end to this problem, which was never eradicated but mitigated, but gave developers a faster and more reliable distribution window, who were able to get rid of the enormous costs of publishing physical editions of their games in dozens of countries – box, manual, CD, print, etc. Eventually, the market allowed small studios without resources to program a title to release it on Steam while making it available virtually free in Europe, the US, Canada, Australia… and every other area in the world you can think of. I just give a percentage of sales to Valve. Without any other middlemen.
Thanks to Steam the panorama In the flourished, giving publishers security guarantees and simplifying the procedures necessary to launch a game anywhere, which promoted and laid the foundation for the PC Gaming that we currently have and that, Later it was copied by the big players in the console market: Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. Not to mention Apple or Google with their app stores.
Everyone thought the PC was dead
As we tell you, The era before Steam was nothing more than a collection of bad omens in which many companies have already announced their production cuts and threatened to no longer bring their new products to the computer. PSP, for example, died due to the systematic piracy of those years and the PC, if not, was thanks to the guarantees that Steam soon put on the table of the developers. A success far beyond any other milestone – or problem – that he experienced during those two decades in which he later starred.
Today, The PC is the platform with the most users – significantly above PS5, Xbox Series Gamers to play with their exclusive products. It is the pretty girl (permit us the expression), the one that works best, the one that best adapts to each time, and the one that keeps our purchases alive forever thanks to practically endless backwards compatibility.
