Some of Steam’s oldest user accounts are turning 20-years old this week, and Valve is celebrating the anniversary by handing out special digital badges featuring the original Steam colour scheme to the gaming veterans.

Steam first opened its figurative doors all the way back in September 2003, and has since grown into the largest digital PC gaming storefront in the world, which is actively used by tens of millions of players each day.

“In case anyone’s curious about the odd colours, that’s the colour scheme for the original Steam UI when it first launched,” commented Redditor Penndrachen, referring to the badge’s army green colour scheme, which prompted a mixed reaction from players who remembered the platform’s earliest days. “I joined in the first six months,” lamented Affectionate-Memory4. “I feel ancient rn.”

  • gridleaf@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Did you make your account for Half-Life 2? My account is the same age, and that’s the game that introduced me to Steam.

    • [email protected]A
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      1 year ago

      I made an account in January 2005, probably for HL2.
      I initially resisted making an account and I hated Steam back then.
      They’ve since fixed a lot of things and I now have 250+ games on it.
      I have to admit, Valve is one of the few big game companies that haven’t gone to absolute shit.
      Though I dread the day GabeN steps down or sells out…

      Another thing that I didn’t agree with back in the day was WoW, paying a subscription to play was a hard no. Still haven’t played it, which kinda sucks because I was a big fan of the old Warcraft games and of RPGs in general.
      Voting with my wallet certainly didn’t change much for them, although it probably was better for me.

      • CancerMancer
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        1 year ago

        WoW is a bit nuts: you pay a subscription fee and buy expansions? What’s the damn fee for then?

      • gridleaf@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That’s quite similar to me. I got HL2 Jan. 2005. I played Guild Wars instead of WoW because I didn’t want to pay for a sub.

        • [email protected]A
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          1 year ago

          The first Guildwars was great.
          The second one was nice too and I played it a bunch, but there’s something about the first I can’t quite put my finger on, might just be nostalgia.
          My GW2 time has been mostly spent helping people with jumping puzzles, which are kinda cut short these days by mesmers making portals for them, which I also do sometimes.