Steam turns from a patch tool into PC gaming's storefront

What happened

Valve Corporation launched Steam on 12 September 2003 to solve a problem with its own games: getting patches and updates onto players' computers automatically instead of relying on them to download files manually. For its first two years the platform carried only Valve's own titles, such as Counter-Strike, with no way to buy other publishers' games; that changed in 2005 when Ragdoll Kung Fu and Darwinia became the first third-party games sold through the store. Half-Life 2's November 2004 release, which required Steam to authenticate even retail copies, drove a surge of new users and overloaded Valve's servers on launch day, but it also cemented Steam as something players had to use rather than an optional add-on.

How we know

Valve's own official announcement, published on Steam Community by the company itself for Steam's twentieth anniversary, states the exact 2003 launch date and original purpose directly; PC Gamer's own detailed version history of the platform independently corroborates the 2005 expansion to third-party titles.

Sources

• Valve Corporation (Steam Community). Thank You for 20 Years of Steam! · Primary source (author-declared)steamcommunity.com · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match).
• PC Gamer. The 19-year evolution of Steam · Reputable sourcepcgamer.com · The domain "pcgamer.com" is on our Reputable source registry.