Half-Life to Require Steam

It appears that Valve will soon be replacing the WON ID system of user authentication that Half-Life has used since the very beginning with Steam. Here's some quotes from Valve's Erik Johnson yanked from this Steam forum thread:

- There will no longer be a WonID system, it will be replaced by the SteamID system.

- When we convert the userbase to Steam, a single WonID will be valid for all of the products.

- If you're purchased a product from us at retail, you're going to have access to all of our products via Steam.

- No, you do not have to pay for Steam.

So sometime in the near future, Valve will be releasing an update to Half-Life that will require you to convert your old WonID CD-Key into a SteamID. We asked Mr. Johnson if this meant Steam would be required to play Half-Life online:

- That is correct, you'll have to have Steam installed to play the most current version of Half-Life.

This is a pretty significant change. While it probably makes sense to replacing the aging WON ID system, the transition over to Steam is bound to be a little bumpy.

News source: GameSpyDaily