Steam
In 2002, physical game distribution was very dominant. Nevertheless, for a PC-centric developer like Valve, being able to quickly patch its games for all players at the same time was important. Even with broadband not being as widely implemented in the world, many of its players still had access to high-speed internet. After gaining the rights to digital distribution for its titles from Sierra, Valve set about creating its own client to patch and eventually distribute its games digitally.
When it finally launched in 2004 with Half-Life 2, many faced issues with even being able to access the game due to server load. It’s been a long road since and though concerns with digital rights management and software ownership continue to persist, Steam is now the dominant digital platform for PC with over 120 million monthly active users as of January 2021. It inspired the creation of Origin and so on along with competitors like the Epic Games Store looking for a piece of the market.
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