Gabe Newell talks about Piracy and Steam (Video)

[Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude]

Is steam DRM? Sure. But you're getting a lot out of it. What do you get out of other DRM schemes? If you're lucky, nothing. If you're unlucky, a massive headache.

Why SHOULDN'T Gabe be the one to bring up community funded games? Who better to make it happen than Valve? Can you think of another developer/publisher better suited for the job *Who could actually pull it off*?


Bottom of the line, steam isn't other DRM. It isn't universally hated like securom/others because it's actually useful, and is making a compromise by providing a needed service.

If securom sucked your dick all day long would you still hate it for being DRM? Probably not.

 

[Sander]

This would be a valid point, if it wasn't for the fact that almost every anti-DRM statement tries to attack DRM as a fundamentally wrong policy.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Sure. But Valve and their invasive assrapery is the last company that should wag their finger at the industry for not "getting" piracy, and talking about properly serving your customer. You kidding me? No one recalls the ass-fuckery of early Steam?

Having used Steam since it's beta stages I can only agree. Steam started out as a giant steaming pile and it took years for it to become comperable to Valve's previous system (which I would still prefer to use to be honest and it effectively prevented duplicate CD-keys from playing online).

Steam and similar services are the best compromise that we (humans) have found up to date. No one is totally satisfied with it but everyone can live with it. That is the soul of an acceptable solution.

Bullshit, Blizzard has a much better software security method because it's less invasive (oh no, I have to enter a CD-key!) and remains effective (can't play on bnet with a duplicate CD-key).

Bottom of the line, steam isn't other DRM. It isn't universally hated like securom/others because it's actually useful, and is making a compromise by providing a needed service.

The DRM portion of Steam is in no way useful to the consumer and is the biggest problem with the software, strip that away and you have pretty solid digital distribution software. I still prefer to have physical copies of everything so I'm not a big fan of pure digital distribution in the first place.

 

[pkt-zer0]

Bullshit, Blizzard has a much better software security method because it's less invasive (oh no, I have to enter a CD-key!) and remains effective (can't play on bnet with a duplicate CD-key).

It's so effective they're removing LAN play from SC2 for anti-piracy reasons.

The DRM portion of Steam is in no way useful to the consumer and is the biggest problem with the software, strip that away and you have pretty solid digital distribution software.

Yeah. But when publishers are unwilling to get rid of DRM on their decade-old titles to be put up on GOG, I certainly don't see them releasing their brand new titles with any less DRM than Steam provides. Some will even stack some TAGES or SecuROM on top of it for good measure.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

It's so effective they're removing LAN play from SC2 for anti-piracy reasons.

They're merely naturally expanding their limits on what people who choose to pirate their games can do and, in the process, making less work for themselves. Their anti-piracy has always only restricted multiplayer so it makes sense that they would expand that to prevent people from having LAN parties and spreading one copy of the game to a number of people for it (though in the end it'll end up being fruitless since many people run private WoW servers). They, along with Valve back before Steam, focused on preventing pirates from accessing the portions of their games with the greatest replay value, the online play. No DRM is 100% effective and the more invasive you make you're DRM the more customers you'll dissuade so Blizzard uses a completely non-invasive method that is more effective than many of the invasive methods (Steam is probably a little more effective but it's been cracked as well).