An incredible story for the younger ;-)

You bought a PC game, installed it and was able to play immediately after installation. The most incredible thing was that you could gamble it at any time day or night without restriction. The terms server maintenance, server migration, etc. error37 players were unknown.

The Oberhammer at the time was that you could boot up the PC, without any Origin, Steam, Battle.net, etc. minutes "updated". In addition, the files were private on your PC and could not be spied on by the game developers.

I know that sounds all very utopian now and just think the younger reader here determined that I'm crazy. I swear that was really so, by the end of 2004 Steam appeared on the scene ...