Half-Life 2's 20th anniversary saw Valve doing a Valve: The game received a massive surprise update, adding new commentary and integrating the two episodes, alongside, which features all sorts of digressions into the studio's multifaceted thinking, and the possibly unforeseen consequences: Most notably, the creation of what would become the de facto PC gaming platform Steam.
Newell may have had some idea of where he eventually wanted this thing to go, but Steam wasn't initially being built to distribute games: Until someone had a lightbulb moment. "So it was one of the rare exceptions to our decision-making process, and Gabe had to really step in and say, 'No, actually we're doing it this way.'"
"But also people would say, 'Users aren't gonna want this... people want physical copies.' There were so many bad faith arguments that were being made. Retail sales is not the goal, right. It's actually an impediment, it's somebody who sits between you and the customer."