Post
Gabe Newell bet that gamers would ditch physical discs for downloads, and built a monopoly doing it.
When Steam launched in 2003, PC gamers hated it. It was a mandatory client for playing Counter-Strike 1.6 and Half-Life 2, and it was buggy, slow, and felt like DRM. But Valve played the long game. Steam Sales trained a generation to build massive libraries. The platform opened to third-party publishers, then to indie developers, creating a marketplace that democratized PC game distribution. By the mid-2010s, Steam had over 75% market share on PC. Valve essentially became the landlord of PC gaming without shipping a new game.
Example
The Steam Summer Sale became a cultural event: memes about wallets crying, wishlists exploding, and buying 50 games you'll never play. Half-Life 2 (2004) requiring Steam activation was controversial, but it forced millions of players onto the platform.
Why it matters
Steam killed the boxed PC game and proved digital distribution was the future. It enabled indie games to reach audiences without publishers, created the Early Access model, and its success inspired the Epic Games Store, GOG, and every platform storefront since.
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