[anon4242]

If you still pirate games in 2023 then it's because free is more important to you than anything else. But back when Steam launched it was much more of a hassle to get a game:

First you needed to go to a physical store miles away and once you got there the game you wanted may have been sold out. And then there was seldom any sales, except the box of mixed five-year-old games no one wanted by the counter (only $1.99) that you could rummage through and hopefully find a gem. "Darn, they were out of Half-Life[1] but maybe this copy of Strike Squad[2] will be fun while I wait for two weeks for the next batch of Half-Life?" Also note that while a five-year-old game today will barely look dated, back in those days it's the difference between [1] and [3]. Then when you came home to finally install the game, the CD was scratched and the game wouldn't install. And typically the installer didn't notice this until it had reached 95% after 45 minutes of waiting. The StarCraft CDs were notoriously bad in this respect and you needed to treat them like delicate flower petals. "Eh, my StarCraft CD no longer works, can I borrow yours? NOO!"

So for those of us, who pirated StarCraft after the third authentic CD had broken down, Steam was a godsend.

[1] https://www.mobygames.com/game/155/half-life/screenshots/ [2] https://www.mobygames.com/game/9899/strike-squad/screenshots... [3] https://www.mobygames.com/game/1068/doom/screenshots/