Half-Life 2 pushed Steam on the gaming masses… and the masses pushed back
SMRTR summary
Valve's Steam platform, initially seen as DRM for Half-Life 2 in 2004, revolutionized PC game distribution and became the industry standard. The service faced early backlash and technical issues but ultimately transformed how gamers purchase and access their games, moving away from physical media to digital downloads.
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to Ars Technica.
Read the original article