My profile says November 28, 2003. I have no idea why I created the account back then... I didn't play Counter-Strike, so that wasn't it.

The first entry in my Account Purchase history is from June 2008, when I gifted my dad Portal, but that's obviously a limit to the purchase history rather than an accurate report of my first purchase.

Like others here, the first thing I remember using my Steam account for was buying and playing Half-Life 2.

Was there some kind of update to the first Half-Life and/or its expansions if you registered your game with Steam? I have some vague memory of something like that, but I could be wrong.

Xero wrote on Jun 15, 2023, 15:32:

MacLeod wrote on Jun 15, 2023, 14:42:
Now if only they could make it so I don't have to have a decades old email address as my login ID.

lol this. My associated email address that I haven't used or opened in about 17 years. Last I was in there, it had so much spam and virus looking emails, I should of just disabled it, lol. Steam is literally, the only thing keeping that email alive to this day and I wish I could link my Steam ID to a modern email. I mean, I know my email preferences are going to my current email, but the actual Steam login ID.

I haven't even had access to my Steam login ID email in over 17 years, so I don't think you need to keep that email alive.

I was stupid enough to use an email address with my ISP when Steam first became a thing. I left that ISP about a year later and Steam wouldn't let me change the Steam ID, just the official email associated with the account -- which is obviously more important.

Now nearly two decades later I still have to login with that ancient email address as my ID, but I don't think it matters. It's basically just a username that happens to look like an email address. I've tried contacting Steam support a couple of times over the years about this, but they've never been able to do anything about it.

That is, pretty obviously, not his main point. He just wraps his main point in that faux rationality to sneak it passed people.

But I'm just gonna hold my nose and slowly back away from this potential dumpster file.

I gotta admit: I'm hoping Blue just didn't look closely at the "Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things" article. It's deeply disturbing.

It does a fair job disguising its true intention, and I'm sure plenty of people just skimming the first few paragraphs may not realize it.