randomuser.833: To be fair, Steam wasn't alone at its time.
I will just name Triton (that got Prey exclusive) and Stardock Central (predcessor of Impulse), that got Galactic Civilizations as online destribution. One year before steam, less restrictive then steam. And later on with 3rd party support too.
And while steam started out as a delivery tool for patches and stuff, Stardock Central was a DRM-Store from the beginning.
But Steam got the Half Life 1 Community and the mod community of HL1.
It wasn't about HL2...
Linko64: If I recall rightly, Stardock was pretty messy and only got into a good place by the time Valve had its hooks in. i think I still have a promo lanyard from Stardock...in the same draw as my online console rip
Steam was messy at the start too.
But you claimed there wasn't anything else. And that is just not true.
Over the years Steam got many challengers, some even older then steam, some as old and some just slightly younger.
And a lot that are younger.
And Steam wasn't always the "better" one. For example Triton had the way better tech back then. You where even able to start playing a game, while still downloading it.
I think it has something to do with Valve being seen as "the good guy", while even before steam there was nothing to support that...