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.”
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Fellow sept 12th here! Never would have thought that the simple looking launcher would turnout to be one of biggest juggernaut of selling digitale games!
Had to make a account so I could keep on playing CS 1.6. good times.
Team 9/12/03 reporting in
I’m two days behind you.
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Lmao I get this all the time. My account turns 20 tomorrow.
Oh man that’s awesome
Mine doesn’t turn 20 until January. I decided to wait a bit to see if it would actually fail first.
I hated the idea of an installer to install programs that had their own installers. It seemed like a pointless extra program to me, so I resisted getting it until I wanted to play Counterstrike and Steam was the best, or maybe the only way to do that. So I broke down and opened a Steam account.
I’d still prefer if we didn’t have to have these launchers.
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Counterstrike 2. But I guess I was misremembering, since I can’t find any reference to a CS2. I guess maybe it was CS 1.2. Shrug
You’re thinking about Counter Strike Source, which was on the new (at that point) Source engine. CS:Source is what came after CS 1.6
Yes that must be it! CSS. Ha! Web dev shit.
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Thanks. I think it was Counterstrike Source.
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I was playing CS as well back then. I don’t recall being forced to use steam
They closed the WON network in November I believe it was, which is when I had to make my steam account.
My steam account was also created in November, so I’m going to say that is correct as CS was the reason I made mine too
CS is what got me to finally open a steam account too. I can’t remember if it was the only way to play, or if it was a considerably better way to play. Either way, everyone playing CS was on Steam so I finally opened an account.
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Same
I remember thinking Steam would die in less than 6 months because nobody wanted dematerialised games…
Part of the problem was how poorly steam ran when it was first introduced
yeah at the time you were forced into it. the won servers were shut down and most peoples computers werent good enough to play CS and have this clunky software running in the background at the same time. it worked but alt-tabbing back then was a gong show and you definitely had the performance hit.
i played CS daily then so the first day was a shit show and I dont think I got much time in that day. mostly just trying to get connected…the servers were overloaded.
That brings back memories. I used to play ARC on WON. TEN prior to that. Anyone remember Kali? I think it’s still running.
I still remember that meme with the Valve gear fucking a guy in the ass. Steam was not well received.
I cursed Valve for forcing me to install Steam to play HL2.
I didn’t want it, still don’t. I actively avoided any game that required it but seems I gave up on 23 July 2011
Wow, same here. I gave up June 30, 2011.
Skyrim?
Oblivion, actually. Skyrim didn’t come out until that November.
I pirated almost any game that required it, only ended up signing up in 2018 I don’t remember why at the time but I don’t think it was to buy games since I didn’t buy any until almost a year after creating the account.
I thought it was great. I got a physical copy of the Orange Box for $20 and didn’t care that I had to install Steam to play it. After I had it set up and realized I didn’t have to physically go to the store to get games anymore, I like it even more.
Ah man, mine is only 18 years old.
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.
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.WoW is a bit nuts: you pay a subscription fee and buy expansions? What’s the damn fee for then?
Servers ain’t free. But they could at least roll the expansion cost into the subscription.
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.
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.
I think so or CS, I’m not sure?
17y 10m for me
Lol mine too. I guess I wasn’t that early of an adopter.
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I remember connecting with WON before steam, nostalgia CS days
“Only” 12 years here.
I hit 16 a few months ago.
Orange box homies say whatsup.
Yes! I spent entirely too much time in TF2 and Gmod.
Haha yup. I bought it for half life, but figured i would play the other games first. Portal was amazing, so I gave TF2 a shot next.
I didn’t play half life for like 2 years.
Hitting 20 in 5 hours… ;)
I am at 16 as well. I feel so old now lol
Only 18 here.
Same here. I created my account after getting Half-Life 2 for Christmas. Hard to believe that came out in Nov 2004.
15 here.
I only signed up to play hl2 I think before that I used keys and CDs for things like ground zero
I remember a work friend burnt HL2 on cd for me and the only way to make it work was he also gave me his steam login. and the dude had a ripper username I still remember to this day, even though I havnt seen him in nearly 20 years.
mrpoo
Incredibly, some of Steam’s early adopter accounts are still actively in use today, a full two decades after their creation.
There are dozens of us!
I’ve got about 8 hours, but I also live on the opposite side of the earth +12 hours, so we’ll see if it’s bound to UTC time 😂
At least
Edit: Mine turns 20 in 5 days
Apparently I’ve got 6 more days til mine turns 20, as well.
Probably thousands, if not more!
Nice. I didn’t make a Steam account until it supported Linux back in 2013 or so. So I guess I’ll be celebrating 10 years on Steam soon.
Oh man. It is year 20. I think I made my account like 6 days in. I have a 6 digit steam ID.
Took me awhile to look it up, but just saw I’ve had my account since December 31, 2003. I’m just about at 20 years.
Mine’s 15 now, but back in the day I used those bootlegged Steam clients that allowed me to run Garry’s Mod for free. Those were the hackey, piratey times of 700MB aXXo DVD rips that took 1 hour to download.
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I think I made mine in 2009 for some sweet sweet TF2.
The orange box was such a good deal
aw, only 19 for me!
Mine was 19 years, but I was military and got sent overseas for a few years. When I came back, I hadn’t actually logged in for the entire time and my account had been reset.
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I remember how much everyone hated steam at first. The WON was fine why ruin it with this stupid steam thing?
My account is @hotmail.com. I’m not sure I’m in this wave, but it must be a few weeks till I hit it.
Mine too, I hit 20 years this week 🥳
Mine is @yahoo, really wish I could change it.
If you still have access to the original email address you can definitely change it.
Hmm I’ve definitely changed the email that was associated with the account name, but the account name I think originally required an email domain in the field? That is something that you cannot change. It’s fine though, because the user name can be changed.
Found it on the FAQ, Account ID can’t be changed - https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/2816-BE67-5B69-0FEC
My account becomes 20 years old in 5 days and I’ve never had an email domain in the account name.
Yeah I dunno, maybe I was dumb back then but I’ve seen others posting similar questions/observations on Reddit and elsewhere before. Thankfully Steam lets you change the display profile name.
Mines a domain I used to have thinking I was cool. I was not…
@irtehwin.com
Mine is still a @yahoo login but I wont hit 20 years until February.
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