Steam turns 20 at the moment, and Valve is celebrating by internet hosting a sale on all its titles.
Alongside the sale, Valve additionally supplied an inventory of video games that had been the highest releases on Steam annually, and plenty of of these video games are becoming a member of the twentieth Anniversary celebration with reductions of their very own.
Steam was introduced in 2002 on the Sport Builders Convention (GDC) as a better approach to ship Valve recreation updates, with the last word purpose of offering recreation builders a possibility to construct audiences straight.
Counter-Strike: Situation Zero was the primary recreation launched on Steam in 2004, and Half-Life 2 adopted later that 12 months together with the primary third-party recreation for the service: Codename: Gordon – a 2D Flash sidescroller shooter developed by NuclearVision as a promotional recreation for Half-Life 2.
In 2008, Valve launched Steamworks together with Steam Cloud, and two years later, in 2010, MacOS help was added to Stream, and Steam Play was launched to help Linux customers. Steam Pockets and the TF2 in-game retailer additionally got here out in 2010.
2011 noticed gamers in a position so as to add screenshots to Steam, and Steam Guard was launched, as was the centralized place for player-created content material: Steam Workshop.
Steam Greenlight went stay in 2012 to streamline how titles got here to the service, Steam Group and Steam Group Market went into beta, and Large Image Mode launched, permitting you to pair your PC with a TV and controller.
Steam added options that embrace buying and selling playing cards, household sharing, and participant critiques in 2013, plus began providing the choice for builders to launch video games in Early Entry.
The Discovery Replace arrived in 2014, which was additionally the 12 months Steam obtained the in-home streaming and broadcasting characteristic, and SteamVR was launched for the Oculus Rift.
Steam added a {hardware} part supporting Steam Controller, Steam Hyperlink, and Steam Machine in 2015 – the identical 12 months Steam Refunds turned a factor. The primary annual Steam Awards occurred in 2016, and Valve teamed up with HTC to launch the HTC Vive headset that very same 12 months.
Steam Greenlight was phased out with Steam Direct in 2017; in 2018, Steam Chat launched; Distant Play Collectively went stay in 2019, as did the cellular app for Steam Chat, an replace for Steam Library, the inaugural Steam Subsequent Fest, and Steam Labs; lastly, in 2022, Valve launched Steam Deck.
There’s extra to the Steam timeline by means of right here, together with different nuggets of details about annually. Additionally, you will discover a good batch of video games on sale damaged down by 12 months of availability when clicking that hyperlink.
Blissful Birthday, Steam!