Today, Steam is a very popular service, and many accuse Valve of a 'monopoly' in the PC market. However, the creators of this service many years ago didn't really believe in it and didn't even think they could achieve such results.
The creator of the original Counter-Strike, Minh "Gooseman" Le, recently gave an interview. During a conversation with the author of the YouTube channel Indie Game Joe, he spoke about how Valve employees viewed Steam.
The new service was created amidst problems with the publisher Sierra — the company that released Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress. Minh Le explained that the unpleasant experience of interacting with the publisher inspired Gabe Newell to find a solution that would allow them not to interact with them:
I think Gabe was the guy who came out and said, 'To hell with all these publishers,' because he had, let's say, difficult relationships — that's probably common knowledge by now. So, I think it's safe to talk about it now. In short, Valve was then collaborating with Sierra, which was their publisher. But working with Sierra turned out to be such an unpleasant experience that it left a very bitter taste in Gabe's mouth, and he just decided: 'That's it, I never want to deal with publishers again.' And then he had the idea to create Steam — essentially, to create a digital platform where Valve could sell its games directly.
Minh Le said that many at Valve, including his colleagues, were very doubtful, asking questions like, 'Will this work?' In the early 2000s, the Internet wasn't as fast as it is now — downloading, say, Half-Life could take a day:
This was around 2001–2002, the Internet was terrible then, very slow. And games were bought in regular stores: you had to go and buy a physical disc. There was no talk of 'downloading games' then. I remember how my brother and my friends, who were used to buying games on physical media, thought [about Steam]: 'What is this? This will never work.' We were like, 'It takes us a whole day to download Half-Life.' We didn't think the Internet would become what it is today so quickly.
Also, during the conversation with Indie Game Joe, Minh Le recalled Gabe Newell's hobbies. At a certain point, the head of Valve started singing, which greatly annoyed the employees.