The Steam Summer Sale has produced a new badge for everyone - the Years of Service badge.
Much like the “Join Date” here on The Dope, it honors when you first signed up for the service.
I know I got here late, so I am trying to compensate.
I’ve got a 7-year badge, which started on Nov 14, 2004 at 4:16 AM. Why I signed up for Steam at 4:16 AM I will never know - that is lost to history.
I know Senor Beef has a 7-year badge as well.
Hmm…
Actually a little Googling shows me that Half-Life 2 was released on Nov 14, 2004. Signing up for Steam must have been one of those things that popped up during installation.
Ah, you can also click on your friend’s badges to see when they got them.
I see that Mr Beef screwed off for 4 days and did not sign up for Steam until Nov 18, 2004. What a slacker! You call yourself a gamer?
Anyone else want to share their Steam join dates? And also WHY they finally joined?
May 5th, 2008 at 4:41 pm. The first game I bought was Portal so I assume that’s why I got it. May 5th, May 5th. I bet it was a present from me for surviving my first year of college.
Back then, I thought it really was a gamble and the internet was full of “what if steam stops working…” and look at it now : it’s one of the most important digital distribution game platforms.
October 4, 2008. How did I even live before that? Where did I put all of those boxes?
Looking through my first few Steam e-mails, the amount of money that I spent to buy games those first six months or so was pretty ridiculous, too. I think I got 8 or 10 games so far this Summer sale for what I paid for Dragon Age: Origins in Jan 09.
View your own profile. On the right side between Actions and Gameplay stats will be Steam badges. The years of service one is just a number. Click on it and it will show you the date and time you initially signed up for Steam.
And at least one 8-year member makes me a total slacker!
I’ve been on Steam for more than 4 years, since Oct 14, 2007. I signed up to get the Orange Box. I was also pleasantly surprised when Steam accepted all my old codes for the original Half Life games.
December 3rd 2008. I was originally very anti-Steam for the usual anti-DRM reasons but Football Manager 2009 required Steam to play and my principles seemed less important .
Definitely a late adopter. I just didn’t trust the damn thing.
Now that Steam has more or less won the internet, I suppose I still don’t trust it but for different reasons. Doesn’t stop me from eying each day of the summer sale like a hawk, though.
I actually don’t remember WHY I joined. I think it was to play something on a work laptop. Or maybe to give Mass Effect a whirl when they started talking about a second one coming out.
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