Would Steam Still Have Existed Without Half-Life?

[AlphaZeroX96]

If Half-Life was not made, would Steam still have been created? Was Half-Life one of or the main reason for Steam existing?

[ KARR™]

Steam was created 12 September 2003
Half Life was created 19 November 1998

Steam was created as a method for easy patching of their games. Half Life 2 wasn't released until a year after Steam was released.

[Cathulhu]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(service)
In short, yes.

[cinedine]

No. Without Half-Life there would have been no Counter-Strike. Without CS, there would have been no need for a server-browser for it and the acceptance for an online account binding service for Half-Life 2 would have been even worse than it was back then.

Would there have been another digital distribution platform? Certainly, Steam wasn't the first nor the only in its beginning either.

[[N]ebsun]

No. All things are today as they are, it is impossible for anything to be what it is not without it's entire past and the past of everything else which could have affected it or it's history.
Steam was born out of Half-Life

[Lily McFluffy Butt]

Originally posted by cinedine:

No. Without Half-Life there would have been no Counter-Strike. Without CS, there would have been no need for a server-browser for it and the acceptance for an online account binding service for Half-Life 2 would have been even worse than it was back then.

Would there have been another digital distribution platform? Certainly, Steam wasn't the first nor the only in its beginning either.

This, on so many levels. The replies before you seem to not understand how important Half-Life, and by extension Goldsrc, was to Valve's success and existence.

[ElvisDeadly]

Originally posted by cinedine:

No. Without Half-Life there would have been no Counter-Strike. Without CS, there would have been no need for a server-browser for it and the acceptance for an online account binding service for Half-Life 2 would have been even worse than it was back then.

Indeed.

You could probably go as far as to say that without Half Life there may not even be a Valve anymore (unless something else they did had the same success and impact within the industry) let alone Steam.

[nullable]

Originally posted by Lily McFluffy Butt:

This, on so many levels. The replies before you seem to not understand how important Half-Life, and by extension Goldsrc, was to Valve's success and existence.

While I don't disagree. It is really hard to predict alternate realities and what would have happened.

However I have a hard time seeing why people would have bothered to use Steam without HL (CS, DoD, TFC/1.5) and HL2. And it was a few years after release before Steam had a significant library of non-Valve games, and frequent sales we've become familiar with.

Lots of services flop and fail because the timing and circumstances weren't quite right. The service itself could be fine, but the things that needed to happen didn't and that's it. You can't always control if the thing gets caught in a negative or positive spiral... it's not necessarily governed by reason and takes a bit of luck.

Would Steam have succeeded if HL2 was a bigger flop than Daikatana? Or rather what would the impact have been? Maybe it would still be around but more on the scale of GoG. Who's to say for certain?

[Haruspex]

Originally posted by cinedine:

No. Without Half-Life there would have been no Counter-Strike. Without CS, there would have been no need for a server-browser for it and the acceptance for an online account binding service for Half-Life 2 would have been even worse than it was back then.

Would there have been another digital distribution platform? Certainly, Steam wasn't the first nor the only in its beginning either.

Right.
Valve had excellent timing with Steam, and the tenacity to see it grow into the PC gaming juggernaut it is today. Valve launched Steam when everyone else was writing off PC gaming as a lost cause to focus on consoles. Even Valve seemed to be swayed by the idea slightly, as Dreamcast and PS2 ports of Half Life were made. Then later we got the Xbox version of Half Life 2, and Xbox 360 and PS3 version of Half Life 2, Portal, and Left 4 Dead.
(Edit: Now that I think about it, were those games on PS3? Someone want to confirm or correct that for me?)

Turns out PC gaming wasn't as dead as people were saying, and Valve hanging on to it paid off big time. Now Steam is huge, and everyone else is regretting betting against PC somewhat.

If Valve hadn't stuck with PC like they did, some other platform would have taken it's place. We would all be using Direct 2 Drive or something like that.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by  KARR™:

Steam was created 12 September 2003
Half Life was created 19 November 1998

Steam was created as a method for easy patching of their games. Half Life 2 wasn't released until a year after Steam was released.

And?

I don't see what point you're making here.

We do have some evidence of how Valve came to be. Gabe and others setup when leaving Microsoft and by his own admission said "we have no idea if we can actually make a game".

So from that alone it seems pretty straightforward their whole existence depends on the success of the first Half Life game.

It really doesn't matter about the "one follows another" thing thematically. All they needed to do was be successful and they then have the cash to pursue other things.

Think about it - these guys came from Microsoft. They were largely responsible for Windows 3.1.

I'd say it's MORE likely they'd be comfortable with turning out utility like Steam.

[Lily McFluffy Butt]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Originally posted by  KARR™:

Steam was created 12 September 2003
Half Life was created 19 November 1998

Steam was created as a method for easy patching of their games. Half Life 2 wasn't released until a year after Steam was released.

And?

I don't see what point you're making here.

He completely missed out on about 5 years of history and context.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Lily McFluffy Butt:

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

And?

I don't see what point you're making here.

He completely missed out on about 5 years of history and context.

I think he confused Half Life with Half Life 2, which the OP made no mention of.

[Mad Scientist]

Probably not. One likely funded the other thus making it possible, of which was likely driven for the purpose people noted; keeping their games updated. So I have doubts, as HL and the associated mods is likely what even sparked the idea, let alone said funding.

[GOf--=D]

Steam would be not if there was not a mod for Half-Life called Counter-Strike (eventhough half-life dm had a decent pop and was fun, cs was better).

3 big games back then - counter-strike, diablo2, street fighter

[cinedine]

Originally posted by GOf--=D:

Steam would be not if there was not a mod for Half-Life called Counter-Strike (eventhough half-life dm had a decent pop and was fun, cs was better).

3 big games back then - counter-strike, diablo2, street fighter

Unreal Tournament? Even had the better CounterStrike with Tactical Ops.
Quake 3D?
And the little known title "EverQuest" building upon Ultima Online.

Internet gaming was a long shot from how common it was just a few years later and sure CS was a big factor. But when you name Street Fighter, there are other games as well that competed with using your landline.

So let me turn the question upside-down:
Would Steam have been the success it was if it weren't for WoW and the rise of MMORPGs?

[adz]

half life was on the WON network from 1998-2002, steam was created when WON shutdown and used for the latest gold src games ( cs 1.6 ) for example and automatically patching your games i remember manually patching cs 1.5, 1.3.

my guess if WON was still active potentially steam might not have been made hard to say because as i said cs 1.6 was build on steam, as cs 1.5 and tfc 1.5, hl 1.5 for example all on WON network.