> People hated steam when it launched but you needed it to play CS 1.6.

I thought CSS was the first release on steam beta? I remember playing the crap out of it, then the actual steam release happened, and it somehow turned into a laggy buggy hunk of crap for months.

No, it was 1.6 that was on the Steam beta. That was years before HL2 and CS:S were even leaked let alone released.

Steam dropped basically alongside team fortress.