Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update

It doesn't seem to be mentioned here, but HL2 (which now includes the sequel episodes) is completely free to claim on Steam until the 18th, if you're new to the series.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/220/HalfLife_2/

Also try clicking on the gravity gun at the end of the anniversary page.

Also I highly recommend Black Mesa, which is the remake of HL1 in the HL2 engine. The Xen levels went from what they were to possibly some of my favorite levels in the game, and the music scoring is top-notch. It feels great to play.

Black Mesa is also 75% off right now, incidentally. Seems like everything Half Life is either free or on deep discount for the anniversary.

And when you buy an album on CD you just license it for personal use, you can't play it on the radio or in a commercial space. "Buying" a copy of some intellectual property always had strings attached even in the age of physical media.

Steam can delete a game from your account, they can't delete a cd that I physically have with me.

Why does this even need to be spelled out...

Do they have a record of doing this?

Paranoia here is largely warranted. But people had fewer rights than they realized before. And finding a way to play older media is often a rather expensive endeavor.

Edit to add: I also find picking on Valve awkward here. Microsoft? Sony? I would be far more inline. Even Nintendo. Valve seems to be much more on favor of empowering users, though.

Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all have physical releases for most of their games that they can't take from my cold dead hands. Valve has singlehandedly killed that market for PC games.