Digital distribution
In 2004, "Half-Life 2" was released with a boxed retail presence, but required the game to be activated online through a proprietary service developed by Valve, Steam, which also sold the game directly to customers - bypassing the traditional brick-and-mortar publishing model. It was met with backlash initially, with many users feeling that it meant they didn't really 'own' their game, and that it was a form of DRM that prevented reselling their titles second-hand. Digital distribution is now the most prominent and, for many titles, only method of distribution. Many boxed retail games as of 2021 contain only an activation code, in lieu of physical media.