Steam celebrates 20th anniversary with new discounts
Random access memories.
Want to feel old? Yesterday Steam turned 20. Sorry.
To celebrate this huge milestone, Steam has launched a new anniversary page detailing major games and events from the past 20 years. There are some big discounts too.
"Valve launched Steam on September 12, 2003, and we're super proud and incredibly grateful for what we've been able to do in the 20 years since," reads the page. "Steam's success is a direct result of the players and developers around the world who use it."
The page includes some fun artwork marrying gaming characters with popular memes, which makes for a fun guessing game.
Then there are some interesting milestones from throughout the history of Steam (and Valve).
Steam was actually first announced at the 2002 Game Developers Conference ahead of a full launch in 2003. It was primarily used to more easily deliver Valve game updates, but has now grown into the biggest PC platform.
The first game launched on Steam was Counter-Strike: Condition Zero in March 2004. Half-Life 2 followed later that year.
There's also a dispute as to which game was the first third-party release on Steam. Codename: Gordon released in May 2004 but was eventually delisted. Rag Doll Kung Fu was the next in 2005, but remains on the platform.
2007 was a particularly big year as Valve released The Orange Box, including Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Half-Life 2: Episode 2. That year was also the first major Steam sale, now a regular occurrence.
You can check out the site yourself and test your knowledge.
The post also includes the top games released in each year, many of which are hugely discounted.
The original Half-Life, for instance, is available for 71p, while its follow up is just 85p. There are discounts on more recent games too, like Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, Resident Evil Village, Valheim, and F1 2023.