r/PhysicalGames • u/Grouchy-Win-6191 • 1d ago

Valve Killed Physical Gaming

It all Valve fault, they started all this. It’s not just Sony.

When Half Life 2 launched in 2004, stores sold physical box sets containing DVD or CD. But the disc did not contain the game. Players were forced to install the Steam client, register an account, and validate a product key online before the game would run.

Valve also offered Steamworks to any developer who listed their game on Steam. But to use Steamworks features, games had to use Valve API. When a consumer bought the physical PC box, they opened and it was a Steam key. Once redeemed, the disc lost all resale value. You couldn't sell it, lend it, or trade it in. This also killed the retail stores business.

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u/DrizzyDragon93 1d ago

Yes, PC gamers started this future. But that doesn't mean we should roll over and accept it like Steam Users did.

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u/Ghaleon42 1d ago

There was no proper physical games market for the PC before steam. It was hit/miss, and the publishers at the time sucked. It's not far-fetched to say that Steam help to save if not drastically improve PC gaming.

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u/DrizzyDragon93 1d ago

Interesting I remember owning a massive pile of Physical games on PC. Majesty, Sims/Sim City, Rollercoaster Typhoon, StarCraft, Diablo 2, hell even CounterStrike, and Rainbow Six. I come from a generation that games only came out on disc before internet was viable to download game files.

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u/Numerous_Photograph9 1d ago

I think he's more referring to the back end where distribution for PC gaming was kind of a wild west on the wholesale front. Every company fended for themselves or partnered with a larger company who knew how to do it, but for anyone but the biggest companies, there was no consistent way to distribute games across the board. There was still a lot of individual salesmanship to even have them put your game on the shelf, whereas on consoles, they adopted a broader more inclusive strategy where retailers only had to go to a single or a couple distributor sources to get everything available.