A nostalgic look back at Steam 10 years ago
Spoiler alert, Steam 10 years ago is very, very different
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Ah, Steam, where to begin? Steam has been the biggest PC gaming Platform, and if not the largest, nearly the largest gaming platform in the world for years now. But of course, it wasn’t born like that, Steam was initially rejected upon its release in 2003, so I thought it’d be nice if we took a look back at Steam within the last 10 years. So here we go, a nostalgic look back at Steam 10 years ago.
Steam was very different 10 years ago, as you can imagine., If you were on Steam 10 years ago like me, you’ll likely notice some of these relics, and bask in the memories of them pulled from the deepest corners of your mind.
What did Steam look like 10 years ago?
Steam looked a lot differently 10 years ago. this was way before the slightly blue color scheme existed and long before any fancy Windows Aero-style transparent UI elements.
This is a screenshot depicting Steam in 2012, from this post on Reddit, and yes, I can do the math, I’m aware 2012 is 11 years ago. The UI still looked the same through 2013.
As you can see, it’s very dark, the nostalgia just kicks you in the stomach, doesn’t it? This is Steam to me, as it is to a lot of people, this was when I used to play TF2 for hours on end with my school friends long after bedtime – I was 14 for clarification. Ironically my bedtime then was much later than my bedtime is now.
Here’s another very old picture of the Steam Summer Sale 2013, which depicts a somewhat recognizable Steam Store, showing that the original format hasn’t changed very much. Steam is the epitome of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
I prefer the new look and feel of Steam personally, but you can’t deny that it does take you back to a simpler time when life was free and there was very little to worry about. The good old days.
What features did Steam not yet have 10 years ago?
Obviously, there’s going to be one or two things added to Steam in the last 10 years that we take for granted today.
Here is a list of relevant Steam releases from 2014 up until 2023:
- In-Home Streaming
- Steam Music
- Video purchases/renting added to the catalog
- Steam Link
- Steam Controller
- SteamVR
- Steam Awards
- Steam Direct
- Steam.tv
- Remote Play
- Steam Labs
- Steam Cloud Play
- Big Picture Mode overhaul
- Client visual overhaul
This is a list of all the major items and features of Steam that came to light After 2013. but we still had a whole lot of features even in 2013. Did you know that 2013 was the year Trading Cards were added to Steam? As well as Early Access? And kist one year before that, we got Big Picture mode.
Of course, since then there have been a lot of UI updates, Store and game library overhauls, Client updates, and more. but listing all of them would take days, and a whole lot more than one article.
Steam is pretty old, and it’s easy to forget that, especially looking at the UI update that came out a month or so ago.
How popular was Steam 10 years ago?
The answer is unsurprisingly: pretty popular. In 2013, according to Backlinko, Steam saw an average of 5.79 million concurrent users each month throughout 2013. That’s pretty big for 10 years ago.
Nowadays the latest peak concurrent players for 2023 is 33 million, according to Statista. That’s 5.6x the number of players in just 10 years. With that being said, the number of games released on Steam has grown exponentially over the years too.
According again to Statista, the number of games released on Steam in 2013 was a meager 583, whereas, in 2022, that number skyrocketed to almost 11,000 as the popularity of the platform grew.
Steam will always have a special place in the heart of many gamers
It’s too easy to forget the good times we had in the past, hopefully, this gave you a glimmer of nostalgia to hold you off until we reminisce about how Steam is now in another 10 years. I know for one that I’ll still be gaming away.
This was more than just an article depicting what the glory days of Steam were, it was a love letter, written to Steam in thanks for all the good times. Here’s to 10 more years.
