There is not much to specify for the question, its really simple: Which title is the first game you have purchased on Steam? Was it a good decision? How much did you pay? When was it and what device? You don’t have to answer all questions, this is just a fun discussion to have.
You can check your history: https://store.steampowered.com/account/history/ Edit: Some in the comments pointed out that the purchase history doesn’t go back all to the beginnings of Steam. So if you purchased something earlier, it won’t be listed on your account.
(I reply with my game too.)
The Orange Box - well, technically Steam came with it…
Yup. First Steam account created 24th of December (guess why) 2007 for Orange Box.
Back then, it was possible to play Team Fortress 2 on one account on two PCs at the same time, but not on the same server. So my brother and I sat beside each other playing TF2 “together”, but each on a different server.
We did this until we gathered enough money to buy a second copy of Team Fortress 2 in April of 2008. We were finally able to play both in the same match and it was glorious.
We both have and use these accounts to this day.
Wow, that sounds amazing able to play on two PCs with a single license. I didn’t know this was possible. Also being able play against or together must have felt like heaven. :D Sounds like Steam was very worth it back then even.
I‘m old - Half-Life 2 in the box. I had dial-up. Needless to say I loathed Steam and it’s puke green interface through the 00s. I’m still not exactly fond of it.
Same, but I always liked steams look.
Same!
The orange box. ~$50. Great purchase.
According to this page my first in store purchase was Audiosurf in 2008, and yeah - great decision and great game. I put 80 hours into it for $10.
But my actual first “steam game” was Half Life 2 in a box from a department store
Oh god you just reminded me there is probably still a FRAPS recording of me getting the high score on a mindless self indulgence song in 2008 on youtube somewhere.
Audiosurf was the first third-party game I bought on Steam, but the Orange Box was my very first.
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Pretty sure I still have the highest score for the Gurren Lagann Opening song, had to fight a guy for it. I love that game.
It wasn’t often I had to battle for a top spot because I was putting all my friend’s bands music through it to see how the highways generated lol. Always #1!
Half Life 2 as the first Steam game. You were eating good.
The Talos Principle. That was in 2016, when I created my Steam account. It was also the first game I bought legally. I will now proceed to install it on my Steam Deck.
Great game, I never finished it. Got stuck on some puzzle after completing 50-100+.
I really loved the narrator and minimal storytelling in that game. It had a strange sense of religion, math, technology, and mystery.
Like portal, but with absolute severity and no jokes.
I may try it again myself. I had a fun time.
Half Life 2 retail standard. August 18, 2005.
I didn’t even know that this list was available. There’s a ton of games on there that I’ve never played because I bought them to play after I upgraded my computer and forgot about them. I have a steam deck now and really should go back and try them out.
Pretty sure mine was the same. My history doesn’t go back that far though, only to 2020 which was my first purchase through steam online.
Found the date: 16th November 2004!
I got my Steam account through a HL2 disc too!
I remember being very excited when Steam added a new game that was not made by Valve. It was, at the time, an interesting experiment in digital distribution outside a big publisher. “Rag Doll Kung Fu”, a shitty click-driven fighting game.
Early on, I never imagined they’d get big names like Call of Duty publishing there, but it happened sooner than I expected.
Half-life 2
Wow, so many Half-Life 2 as their first game. … wait a sec, is that a kbin account? I thought kbin died. It was one of the reasons I switched over to a Lemmy instance.
It’s Mbin now, but they kept the original URL. There’s also fedia.io
As I recall, you couldn’t get hl2 in stores when it first released. It was the vehicle that got people onto steam. It was a few years before they opened the platform up to other publishers.
You could, but it was the first game that needed steam to run it. You bought the game to make the install/download faster.
That makes sense. I’m pretty sure I bought it as soon as it was available for purchase. It might have been the one and only time I pre-ordered a game. I definitely remember doing the pre-download a while before it was officially released and available to play.
The Orange Box. Greatest gaming value-for-your-buck there ever was.
the orange box
I think that page only tracks 2008 and newer
Because my “first” purchace aparently was in 2009, and by that point my steam account was already in active use for 6 years.
The first game that I used steam for was CS 1.6 - about a week after steam launched.
And I think the first new game I paid money for and added to steam was HL2
It should work for pre-2008 because my first purchase shown is a digital copy of the Orange Box in 2007. Did you buy it boxed? It doesn’t show my boxed copies of HL2 or the HL platinum collection I’d bought retail before that point.
It’s possible that all my games before that were physical copies. But I could have sworn I bought stuff before on steam directly
the og sierra retail box of counter-strike is my steam originator code.
my purchase history wouldn’t go back far enough for the few steam sales items i have on it. the only other retail box added was hl2 the week it came out.
TF2 after playing the orange box at a friend’s.
Half-Life 2. steam was mandatory to play it and the shitstorm around it was something else. But I learned quickly, that youbcpuld just switch languages to not only download the original version but also the uncut one. Loved steam ever since.
I remember that whole kerfuffle. It spawned the first meme gif I can recall seeing. Warning, moderately NSFW:
spoiler
Wow, that unlocked a few memories.
Man, so many had one of the Half-Life games as their first game on Steam. How everyone hated Steam in the beginning, and now, most seem to love it. In fact in Gaming, Steam is one of our saviors it seems.
Ragdoll Kung-Fu
It was pretty fun back in the day. It was one of the first games even sold on the platform, too.
Now, I did own Half-Life and the stand alone Team Fortress Classic and Counter-Strike releases that switched over to being on Steam and needing Steam to play online after the WON servers were shut down. But I bought those in a store, before Steam was even announced.
it was the first 3rd party title sold on steam
That’s basically the reason I bought it. The idea of a random indie game being so easily obtained was novel af in 2003.
It was 2005, but yes
little fun story is, that I was part of a small mod team back then. And by pure chance we were in contact with someone at valve, who told us about the plans of opening up steam to 3rd party games and mods. And our mod was considered to be put as one of the first games to be put into the store. at least for a short time (alas, didn’t work out for… internal reasons. I think mainly because it was a mod and not a full game)
Oh geeeez I forgot about this game and now I need to invite my (not-so) little cousins over for pizza and kung fu like old times
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1002/Rag_Doll_Kung_Fu/ is not available in my region (Germany). I wonder what happened.
Violence, maybe? I don’t remember if it had blood effects or not. I don’t think it did. But it was released back in the day when Germany was almost as bad as Australia in terms of censorship/banning games so maybe it just never was available there. 🤷♂️
Skyrim.
