Welcome to The Drive, a new weekly column looking at some wacky, interesting, cool, and pivotal things within the tech space! I'll also highlight anything noteworthy from XDA reviews published in the week.

There's a high probability the primary PC game client of your choice is Steam. You're not alone as Valve's storefront remains king of PC gaming and has done for the past 21 years. Launching on September 12, 2003, this digital game distribution platform wasn't received with open arms but has grown to become a beacon for those who wish to lose themselves in virtual worlds with enticing deals, killer software support, and a great community. Originally designed as a way for Valve to roll out updates to players of its games, the software package quickly turned into the distribution platform we know and (sometimes) love today.

The first digital game distribution platform

Valve was formed by two former Microsoft employees, Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. Harrington left in 2003 but managed to stick around for the launch of the company's first game, Half-Life in 1998. Being a critical and commercial success and having a sizeable impact on the first-person shooter (FPS) genre, Valve launched Steam. This software was to make it easy for the company to roll out game updates for its titles, which was followed by Half-Life 2 in 2004. Contrary to some notions, Valve has developed and published numerous games, including Half-Life 2, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, Portal, Alien Swarm, Counter-Strike, and Dota. Many of these games have been a roaring success.

At the start, Steam wasn't required though Half-Life 2 would be the title that would change this with required internet access and Steam to authenticate, even if you didn't purchase the game through this new storefront. Like many launch days, Half-Life 2 experienced some issues relating to Steam and its severely underdeveloped infrastructure. It also didn't help that connectivity and computing power weren't in abundance as they are today. Steam was transformed after the launch of Half-Life 2 from a first-party patching service into a fully fledged store with support for third-party titles. The first of which was Rag Doll Kung Fu.

Developed to help combat piracy and cheating and provide a way to keep all players updated with the latest (and greatest) releases, Valve inadvertently laid the foundation for an incredible piece of kit that would quickly become the go-to storefront for millions of PC gamers worldwide. Although many still enjoyed collecting physical games, the convenience of buying, downloading, installing, and launching a PC game within an hour or two (depending on your net speed) was a marvel in the early 2000s.

Turbulent times for the gaming service

Launch day shenanigans aside, Steam was hit with issues after launching its Steam Greenlight program. This essentially allowed developers to pitch their games as ideas to be voted on by Steam users. Before this program, only five games were published on Steam each week. There were countless fraudulent game submissions, many genuine ideas never made it to the storefront, and the whole thing was just a pain for developers to use. 80 games were added per week. After many, many complaints, Valve eventually removed Greenlight altogether and simply allowed anyone to release a game on Steam through a short review process.

Steam has had competition too with the launch of GOG Galaxy from CD Projekt, the makers of The Witcher, as well as launchers from Ubisoft, EA, and other publishers. Epic Games even launched its store offering to challenge Valve's monopoly. All the competitors have had their fair of troubles, but it's Steam that continues to dominate the market. Competing publishers with their stores have even returned some of their games to Steam. Although using Steam is incredibly convenient, we are giving up ownership of each game. We're relying on Steam servers to be available forever to provide access to our library.

Now, it doesn't seem likely that Valve will go under anytime soon as the company is in a healthy position, but it's worth considering since we don't have access to physical copies of these games. Then there's the issue with nested launchers. When launching games through Steam, some will fire up a second launcher, which can then be used to manage the game or launch it. So you're launching a launcher to launch the game — we're progressing down various stages of launch-ception. Slight niggles aside, Steam has largely been a blessing for the PC gaming industry and provides a means for anyone to find new titles to try out.

Why PC gamers continue using Steam today

Gamers continue using Steam today. I've used Steam for almost two decades and will do so for many more years to come. I don't purchase games on the Epic Games Store, nor do I buy anything directly from EA or Ubisoft. GOG is another storefront where I have an active account, particularly for the support they provide with older games, and this is something that Steam falls short. Although the company has worked magic with Proton and the Steam Deck for gaming on Linux, vintage games have largely been forgotten. If it doesn't work, oh well. GOG at least attempts to patch titles and keep them running.

The Steam sales are amazing. The software works flawlessly most of the time on all platforms, including Linux. DRM isn't an issue, so long as the game isn't running Denuvo or some other imposing nonsense. Even running Steam on my mini PC retro box in the living room allows us to enjoy classics as well as modern indie titles with some hilarious results. Everything is simply easier through Steam. Whether you're trying out a new game beta, writing a review, downloading some mods, or checking to see what your friends are playing. I struggled to make the jump as 2010 hit, but I'm glad I eventually moved to the digital space for PC gaming.