I too was around when Steam first launched and I waited years before succumbing just to play HL2. The hate for Steam was mostly justified. It was essentially just DRM. I would love to hear someone's explanation on how Valve supposedly saved PC gaming, though. PC Game piracy is still a thing, but unlike in the days of game discs and CD keys, when a publisher goes under, those games vanish. I can list quite a few games I bought on console, but want to own on PC, but due to the death of the developer/publisher, I couldn't. (Until I discovered the Internet Archive)