Having obtained some Orange Box goodness over the holidays, I've become a fan of Valve all over again. My old skepticism long behind me, I'm now of the mind that Steam is the potential saviour of PC gaming and kudos to Valve for thinking ahead.

I just reinstalled Windows (XP, I'm still not Vista-inclined) again, I couldn't count how many times I've done that over the years and along with it all of my software. There was a small piece of joy in that process: I didn't have to type in the finger-numbing CD keys for any of the games on Steam.

Taking Steam Old-School

I've got the original Half-Life sitting on my old games rack, couldn't I install that into Steam? Why not? They sell it for Steam, but I already own it. Sure enough, I just hit that magical "Activate a product on Steam" button. It ended up being a download rather than install from the discs, but I didn't mind, because now the game is indelibly stamped into my Steam account. As long as Valve / Steam exists, I don't have to worry about scratched up old discs.

And even better...

Turns out, my old "Adrenaline Pack" qualifies as the "Platinum Pack" on Steam now, so I've gotten a few extra games out of it. Bonus. I never did get around to playing Blue Shift, now I can-- Right after I finish up a few more achievements in Portal. ;)