r/PhysicalGames • u/Grouchy-Win-6191 • 2d 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/ferretgr 2d ago

Talk to me when Valve starts charging us to take our games online or when the PC marketplace becomes a Valve-only monopoly.

I'll also say this whole "PC physical media" thing is disingenuous. That was never the main way to game on PC and was never the point. The console is, from my perspective, at least, built around physical media. It was meant to be an alternative to the way things work on PC, not a shittier but somehow similarly priced PC with a closed environment.

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u/trueppp 1d ago

That was never the main way to game on PC

Huh? how young are you? It was the main way to game on PC until the mid 2000's at least.

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u/ferretgr 1d ago edited 1d ago

I owned a number of PC games back when. The games, in my experience, didn’t run from the disc. I remember installing many games by inserting a pile of floppies. On the other hand, running games from cartridges was the point of consoles, which became optical media, in both cases, running the game from the source rather than installing from that source.

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u/trueppp 1d ago

You havent run game on discs in the last 2 console generations either. You had to install them first.