what was PC gaming like before Steam?
It was good.People were motivated to create tons of fan games by the virtue of games not being allowed on PC.DBZ games were made on Quake 3 and Half Life 2 engines.
>>740260150I only played the HL1 Earth Special Forces DBZ mod. Final never everhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9gG9kitVkg
>>740259992It was dying a slow, painful death.
>>740259992>insert cd 2>this requires adobe shockwave player not flash for sherwood dungeon and moonbase>install the java web applet to play runescape>free flash games galore>this game requires shader model 2.0/3.0>card doesn't support dx9>missing DLL please install blablabla>no auto updates so i never realized i why i couldn't play with my friend but he had a newer patch it seemed
>>740259992On-disc DRM was a complete cancer, we would crack every game as standard operating procedure so we didn't have to deal with it.
>>740261152oh ye that too>u needed to insert CD rom at all times fuck that was annoying
>>740260968why do uncs love faulconer slop so much?
>>740259992securom key generator.exe hoping it wasnt a virus to play your friend burned game
>>740259992pain in the ass
>>740259992I miss it, I miss it so much.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0aXAm0jqd0
>>740259992fun.For the first DECADE, people HATED Steam and online requirements.
>>740261260music was based around the 90s industrial/electronic scene at the timesubcultures use to be a thing zoom zoom, sucks you never had any
>>740261152My favorite form of antiquated drm was when games like X-Wing actually required a code from the manual. It was funny you'd go to a specific page and grab the weird star wars language characters on the pages it wanted but I'd often get in pretty easy with just random guesses as a kid cause I lost that shit almost immediately.
>>740259992>buy CD>put CD into reader>install>play
there was something magical about burning a cd/dvd on your pc and just popping it into your modded ps1 and ps2 and it just worked
>>740259992this maybe isn't necessarily a problem that steam fixed, but i remember when i was a kid it was a complete roll of the dice when i got home from the store whether a game would work. like i remember i bought tribes 2 or i guess my parents did for me and just straight up didn't run on my PCsteam having refunds is nice, is the point of this little story.
>>740260968>HL1 Earth Special ForcesThis and The Specialists were 2 of the most fun I ever had playing video games.
>>740261152god i learned about noCD patches so fucking quick due to that bullshit.took forever for our PC to spin up a disc so avoiding that step saved a lot of time
>>740262126reminder steam only added refunds after they were forced by the EU in 2015. it was 'tough luck & fuck off' before that
>>740262239add Natural Selection 1 and Vampire Slayer and same. Why were hl1 mods so good?
>>740262530>Why were hl1 mods so goodpassion projects done for fun without ever expecting a dollar in return
>>740261362>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0aXAm0jqd0that reminds me, a fun random fact, I was listening to some old doujin albums, stuff you'd normally expect, remixes of music from VNs etc., but one track stuck out like a sore thumb, it's a remix of MEC Loading Theme (it also lists it's source as "secret" when every other track accurately lists the source material, which i found weird too).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sBJ7W2niVw
>>740259992all but the big budget genres died out because walmart would only give space to about three PC games at a time + a circular wire rack of shovelware
>>740261260nigga is the goat
I want to go back to playing UT99 and Tactical Ops on my dad's work/office computer while freezing my ass off late in the night
>>740263105i wish i could stay there. Not one worry in the world.
>>740261458>everyone in this photo is now deadPretty sad senpai
>>740259992You bought games instead of licences
>>740261458>people HATED Steam and online requirements.True. I hated steam, and I hate it even more with electronslop update and """"social media"""" aspect of it. I never opened steam for long time now.
>>740262126I remember when i got the Orange Box as a present, except the CD key didn't fucking work and Steam Support told me to fuck off as i didn't have a proof of purchase. This was my first ever boxed Steam game.The second one was Shogun 2, i bought it for offline install as i had a dogshit DSL Internet link at the time, but Steam still forced me to pretty much redownload the whole game because Creative Assembly couldn't patch for shit.
>>740261134>This game does not support Windows 2000
>>740259992it was finelots of cds
Imagine a demo and magazine microcosmos that could feed you for MONTHs. That was the magic wonderland we were living in. Actual gaming journalism with in depth interviews, reports and REVIEWS.
>>740259992Missing the folder simply labeled "stuff" where you cleverly kept all your porn in that picture.
>>740264081I remember getting UT 2003 and it came on 3 cds and after all the patches i had to download the game was like 3.5 gb and i wondered why games needed to be that bloated
>>740259992>it's called Nero because you're burning ROM(e)how the fuck did it take me this long
>>740264254the h0mework folder is right there
>>740264380How the fuck did I miss that? Right you are. 100% that is the porn folder.
literal heaven
>>740259992Game installation process had more soul.
>>740259992>buy game>insert cd>play gamethere's your answer
>>740263515Nah... I was part of a pretty big LAN party group back in the day and most everyone is still around. The only guy I know who died was exactly the type you would expect to die by like early or mid 40s. I miss the social interaction side of it but everyone scattered due to real life. Kids went to college, adults got married and had kids etc... Also not sure modern systems can LAN party at a hobby level anymore in homes due to GPU power draws. We where hitting power issues with home breaker boxes even with pre 2010 tech. Modern GPU? No chance...
>>740259992
>>740263921this, it stopped working for me on Gentoo some time after they've completely removed -vgui option (rip VGUI...).Steam also removed the option to block game updates, also it now forces Proton on all games so you can't even differentiate between native Linux games and Windows games running through Proton anymore.All of this because of telemetry, the people making decisions have their brains fried by statistics, if a feature is only used by 1% of people they HAVE to remove it. Doesn't matter if that 1% is power users for which the said feature is super important.Remember, Microsoft removed Start menu in Windows 8 too because telemetry data told them barely anyone was using it.I finally got the Steam client to work again, but now i'm downloading and archiving my whole library so that I'll never need Steam again, for Steam DRM i assume i can just use Goldberg.
>>740261458>UT2004 Onslaughtawwwwwwwwww yeah
>>740264693I don't use troonix, but using steam on windogs is awful as it takes like 500M from your RAM just to show slop avatar frames.
>click on a game to run it>it just runs and works and I can play the gameIt's actually crazy to think there was a time I could launch a video game without seeing 6 pages of bullshit.Either way I pirate 99% of my games so I don't have to let steam run for anything other than steamvr.
I remember playing some platform where you could download game demos. I also played doom, duke, quake, hexen, bad toys, after dark games and shadow warrior on my dads old windows 95 laptop
before steam I spend half of my gaming hours on Newgrounds.
>>740264934Isozone?
>>740261458fuck that asshole with the crt, poor bowl cut kid has barely any space to move his mouse
>>740259992It was comfy. Getting ahold of any game was a momentous experience as a non burger since there weren't many distribution methods. Playing stuff like Doom, Quake, Sims 1 and Simcity, DOS games etc was kino.
>>740264958milenitroon childhood is laced with jewish propaganda lmao
>>740264969Mayne. Its been so long and i was so young I barely remember shit. I remember for the longest time a short demo of the 1st level of deus ex stuck in my memory, especially the main theme T. 1994
>>740265126Remember, Isozone was shutdown because it contained n64 roms. fuck nintenjew.
>>740264543what pisses me off is that even the storefronts like GOG don't preserve this. Wish they included the retail CD/DVD image as a bonus.For some games they even install a heavily modded version of a game, e.g. Thief 1 from GOG actually runs the game on Thief 2 engine, removing software rendering (afaik the real Thief 1 only had software rendering, optional hardware rendering was added later in a patch).Same with not being able to play the original versions of the games without expansions, no Thief The Dark Project, only Thief Gold, no Gothic 2, only Gothic 2 Night of the Raven etc.Thank God for old CD/DVD dumps.
>>740259992Objectively way worse.
>>740265157I havent bought a nintenjew console since the dsi xl
>>740264996what's the matter, lcd boy? afraid you might loose to superior response times?
>>740259992What made PC gaming great, although more hobbyist, was the Internet itself. Hundreds upon hundreds of fan-made mods for even middling titles. High quality people making high quality stuff, and discussing it. Dozens of new game modes, skins, and maps for online multiplayer, and dozens of fan-made single-player content that made a $50 purchase feel worth it.
>>740259992Big boxes with manuals.
Ugh, makes me so erect inserting the original WoW disks into my PC and getting the OG custom installer with the medieval GUI. Before the godawful battle net slop. Especially upgrading to burning crusade and getting the error message crash that my toaster PC was too weak to run it.Peak soul and will never be relived ever again.
>>740264543I'll always remember C&C installs.
>>740261260People were more retarded and more susceptible to brainwashing, they started the whole localization industry. No one even knew Biohazard and Metal Gear Solid were Japanese games.
>>740265473It's pretty crazy how nostalgic I am for this time period
>>740265815i can believe Biohazard but MGS flashes like 83 japanese dev names in the hanger intro while youre playing.
it was great until like 2006, that period until 2009 was the worst
>>740259992GFWL can kiss my ass. It infuriates me that there are people here who worked at Microsoft during that era. Fuck, fuck you personally.
>>740261458Yeah, I did not trust steam at all when it first came out. Really didn't like the idea of not having physical copies.
>>740265815>No one even knew Biohazard and Metal Gear Solid were Japanese games.mostly true for biohazard, not true for metal gearkojima exposition dumps like any other zipperhead that can't write
>>740265815>No one even knew Biohazard and Metal Gear Solid were Japanese games.Buddy, come on. That is absolutely not true. If you followed video games you totally knew it was Japanese. There was dev interviews for almost every single RE game in video game magazines (and online), even RE1. Next you'll try to tell us no one knew Street Fighter was Japanese and Mortal Kombat was from the US. I have a ton of video game articles like this, pic related.
>>740265473holy fuck I had that same pc case
>>740259992unbelievably shit, valve singlehanded saved pc gaming from the brink with steam, gaben is a literal saint
>>740259992Amazing.You owned the fucking games you bought.Steam was invented solely (Gabe openly bragged about this in an interview) so that Half-Life 2, which is about 8 hours and cost 50 dollars, couldn't be traded/sold since 'it was tied to an email'So you were essentially paying 50 dollars for a basic 'muh gravity gun' game that lasted barely 8 hours, most of which was just moving around>>740261152What the fuck are you talking about? They were barely even a problem
>>740267692Another great thing was lending games out to people you knewLike shit, now you want the latest single player slop? Good, pay 60 dollarsThen it was 'bro I've got 20, you got 10 and you two got 15 each? Cool, I'll play it first, then loan it out' or just fucking buy it and loan it around with a crackNow? Saar you are RENTING the games. Steam owns your money and your games. We tell you if you are allowed to play. Based and redpilled sar!
>>740267798The renting thing is a giant misconception to this day. We never "owned" the games we bought, we just had physical copies of them, and even most of them had some form of DRM that required you to preserve the disk at all costs. We always just bought licenses to games, physical copies were also just that but in physical form, "owning" the game would mean actually owning the IP itself, which these companies obviously didn't do when selling copies.
>>740269735>most of them had some form of DRM that required you to preserve the disk at all costsISO loaders existedAlso no-cd cracks existed. Like on day fucking one. >>740269735>"owning" the game would mean actually owning the IP itselfNot sure if autismo or retard or troll
>>740269940>muh cracks existedyes retard but that still was just bypassing the existing DRM.>not sure if trollingthat's literally what they mean when they tell you you don't own the game and instead you just own a license.Do you think the legal team would like it if they told random retards on the internet that they literally owned the games themselves? Someone with enough time on their hands could turn that statement into a headache for the company.
>>740259992Please enter the license key
>>740270203Sure 9STi-Q8cC-Io0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9STiQ8cCIo0
my parents never bought me games and we had dialup so i couldn't pirate games if they were huge so i'd borrow my friend's pc games and just burn copies of them and download nocd crackspiracy was actually the way i was able to manipulate my dad to get me vidya games. if i'd ask him to buy them he'd say no because vidya is expensive and violent. if i just asked him to pirate them then he'd simply ask a co-worker for the game and a few days later i had the game burned on a disc. dad didn't have to pay any money for them and he didn't even have to do any work to give it to me.thanks dad
>>740270130>that's literally what they mean when they tell you you don't own the game and instead you just own a license.>Do you think the legal team would like it if they told random retards on the internet that they literally owned the games themselves? Someone with enough time on their hands could turn that statement into a headache for the company.Carry on sar>>740270351>my parents never bought me games and we had dialup so i couldn't pirate games if they were huge so i'd borrow my friend's pc games and just burn copies of them and download nocd cracksthat is pirating
>>740261517Red screen ciphers, code wheels, they tried fucking everything in the early days. Funny shit.
>>740270425>that is piratinghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNTmBzLoDfw
>>740259992Pure piracy, because PC games being carried in stores was very fucking rare. But there were quite a few magazines with CD-ROMs that were pretty neat too.
>>740261260https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNReNVmdM14Tell me this is worse than any other version. Go on, convince me. Oh wait, you can't.
>>740270625>Pure piracy, because PC games being carried in stores was very fucking rare.maybe post Steam's marketingBefore 2004 I had literal walls of fucking PC games in my gaming stores around me
>>740259992I would download games using a web browser then launch it directly with a desktop shortcut. With steam I have to download and launch games via the steam app.
The amount of larping itt is too high
>>740270792You're probably on the first world.Here shit was dire.
>>740270792even staples used to carry a weirdly random selection of games. I bought homm3, sof2, rtcw and homeworld from them.
>>740267692Gabe invented Steam because he dropped a CD one time and was too fat to pick it up. I've seen the picture.
>>740264996see you have never been in a lan party. he is actually in adventage because he can pull the plug any time
>>740271014Visited a North African country in 2000They were selling Sega Genesis games for for about (converted to euro) 90 euroI did live in the first world where shit was more reasonably priced around 50 euro>>740271047PCs were the 'family computer' up till mid 2000s>>740271146not a shoop
>>740265473Not gonna lie. I miss AIM, IRC. I do NOT miss the communities I was in at the time (and they don't miss me) but I miss that software.
>>740270203FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8
>>740259992I had a bunch of these cd bags full of pirated games
>>740259992It was crap>wanna play A>insert disc A>now I wanna play B>remove disc A and insert disc B>now I wanna play A again>remove disc B and the goes disc A back in>cool, now I want C>now I have to remove disc A and put in disc C>...Changing discs is impractical and gets tedious really fast, not only that but with time your discs would inevitably get damaged from being constantly inserted and removed from the traySteam is easy and practical, wanna play a game? Just double click the icon and there you go, and since the media is digital, you cannot damage it, therefore you can't lose it
>>740259992It sucked ass, videos games were expensive and you couldn't order them on the internet yet so you had to jope bestbuy had it in stock
>>740271793>want to play rollercoaster tycoon>look inside the case>AutoCAD 2001 is in there>grab the case for autocad>it's empty>tfw
>>740271146
>>740271793>ADHD brainrot issue>>740272002>alzheimer's issueSounds like you guys have a problem with your brains not CDs
