because most people got exposed to steam's launch on HL2's launch. Where they bought the physical game, came home, installed it off like 5 CDs.. then had to run steam to decrypt it and download more files because the fucking install was encrypted, and the goddamn fucking decryption took like 8 hours if you didnt have the worlds greatest computer.

Nope, I'm still totally not salty about not being able to play the game I fucking bought until the day after cause bullshit encryption fuckery, why would you ever think that.

I still have that goddamn box somewhere.. i need to dig it up and see what release retail HL2 is like compared to HL2 you'd downlaod today from steam..