“The most interesting decision” That Gabe Newell Says Shaped Steam is What Companies Like Activision, Blizzard are Abusing in Black Ops 6, Diablo 4

Many modern video games employ always-on DRM or always-online DRM, which basically forces players to always have an internet connection to play the game, even during single-player mode. If we backtrack to the game that started this trend, we will reach Gabe Newell’s Half-Life 2 as it required players to have Steam on their systems.

Technically, it was the first game that required an internet connection to play as there was no way to run Half-Life 2 without Steam.

Today, Steam is a well-known video game digital distribution service and storefront managed by Valve, however, things were different back then. This decision to force players to install Steam proved to be highly beneficial for Valve as it popularised the idea of selling video games online in an era when everyone was convinced that physical copies were the only way to distribute video games.

Gabe Newell’s Clever Decision Made Steam A Massive Success

Valve was founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington and in 1998, the studio’s first game, Half-Life, was released for Windows to critical and commercial success. Thanks to the success of the first game, a sequel called Half-Life 2 was developed.

Half-Life 2 was released in 2004, however, Gabe Newell made a crucial decision with the release of Half-Life 2. When players got the game, they were asked to install Steam, a product that Valve created in 2003, just one year before the game’s release. In the Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Documentary, Greg Coomer, one of Valve’s first employees, explained how everyone at Valve was nervous due to this decision,

The decision not just to ship Half-Life 2 with Steam but to actually require Steam, even with the versions that were purchased at retail in a box, was the most interesting decision of all those – because it turned out to be an incredibly important decision for the future of the company, and a lot of us were nervous, and a lot of the people who’d been at Valve for a long time, since the very beginning, were the most nervous about that decision.

Half-Life 2 was a massive hit, but it was particularly special for Valve because the game’s success also familiarised players with Steam. At the time, things seemed impossible but Newell had a strong vision.

No One Outside Valve Believed In Steam

It’s no secret that Steam is a pillar that has been supporting online gaming for two decades now. Right now, it is hard to imagine gaming without Steam but 20 years ago, no one believed in this idea. Newell said in the documentary,

It was a very weird time – I don’t think people understand how many times we would go to people and say, ‘No, you will be able to distribute software over the internet’ and have people say, ‘No, it will never happen.’ I’m not talking about one or two people. I mean like 99% of the companies we talked to said ‘It will never happen. Your retail sales force will never let it happen.’

The gaming community refused to believe in this idea as physical copies were the only way to distribute games back then. Today, Valve stands as one of the biggest digital storefronts in the world, generating massive revenue each year, all thanks to Gabe Newell’s unique idea.

Today, a similar idea has been adopted by many video game publishers as popular video games such as Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Diablo III, Super Mario Run, and Starcraft 2 employ always-on DRM by requiring players to connect to the internet to play, even in single-player mode. This move has been criticized by fans all over the world, but developers have always defended it, claiming that it is necessary to tackle hackers and roll out necessary updates.