1998. HALF-LIFE sends a shock through the game industry with its combination of pounding action and continuous, immersive storytelling. Valve's debut title wins more than 50 game-of-the-year awards on its way to being named "Best PC Game Ever" by PC Gamer, and launches a franchise with mor...
My account is so old I have (or had, before they normalized the format) a four digit steam ID. I "owned" Half Life 2 for like four months before it released thanks to getting a code free in the box with my Radeon 9800 Pro back in the day. For a short and glorious flash of time in the summer of 2004, I was guaranteed a copy of the most hotly anticipated game ever, even though nobody could play it yet, and also owned an example of the fastest video card on the planet. Damned if I didn't mow a fuckton of lawns and reinstall Windows and Outlook an a horde of septuagenarians' computers to afford that card.
I probably have 500+ hours in Counter Strike Source and about the same in Day of Defeat Source, (edit def add cs1.6 and original dod to those numbers) from 2003-2005. All before steam kept track of play time. So many games (including HL2!) show "no recorded activity". It really irks me but it's also kind of funny. Took a near total break from gaming until about 2015. Didn't get a decent PC until 2020. I Was surprised I even remembered my steam login.