Valve: We've Made DRM Obsolete
- Thread starter Keane Ng
- Start date
Isn't anything that promises to reduce piracy, by definition, a form of managing digital rights, and therefore, again by definition, DRM? I'm just curious at the choice of words here because if you still need to be connected to Steam to play, it's still DRM.
Saying it's the end of something when you are actually just a different form of that something sounds like spin, hype and market-speak to me.
Saying it's the end of something when you are actually just a different form of that something sounds like spin, hype and market-speak to me.
This is another form of my point, BTW. I'd say that copy-protection is the same as DRM, it's a subset at most. There's not much use in drawing a distinction except to use the scary word "root-kit", as if "internet connection" couldn't be used for the same purpose.KDR_11k said:
That's not bad a strategy, but I find it quite audacious to say it's not DRM, because it is. It's just not SecuROM, or as the Steamworks leaflet says, machine-based DRM. I can't say it's descended from heaven, but if EA decided to drop SecuROM and go for CEG, hell, that would be nice.Keane Ng said:
(And I guess the reason they're distinguishing it from DRM is that people have adopted DRM as a synonym for activation limits)
Well, this sounds like a good idea in theory... guess we'll just have to wait and see whether or not it actually works. I'm guessing not, since there are generally several ways around things like this, but hey, If they think it'll work and it's not DRM, it's at least worth a shot.
Worthless? No. Currently, 1 USD = 3.36 PLN and going down (used to be 1 USD = 2 PLN last summer). It's just that they have this retarded 1 USD = 1 EUR conversion, which doesn't make ANY sense.oliveira8 said:
I mean, Mass Effect was 130 PLN for a long time, that's... almost 50 USD. And now ME can be bought for 80 PLN, that's 23 USD and 18 EUR. And how much is on Steam? 50 EUR. And on, for example, Direct 2 Drive? $20. TWENTY DOLLARS! They don't even bother to update prices on old games!
It sounds like you won't need to be connected to Steam after downloading. It would seem that they will build you a unique EXE when downloading that will lock that app to your machine. Which is DRM. Only different than how it works with a CD key or license server (steam).SaintWaldo said:
Alternatively, it could be that the custom EXE is not tied to the machine but to the user account and that the account information is only there for tracking abuses (much like ITunes provides non-DRM songs or water-marking). That would be non-drm but I don't know why they would pursue that route.
There's a line to walk with copy protection - from the game company's standpoint they (should) want to minimise illegal copies, while maximising the satisfaction and freedom of legitimate users. Too lax (no measures taken at all) and anyone and everyone can, without effort, copy the game. Whilst this will win you some brownie points, it'll also open you up to widespread casual copying. Too restrictive and the pirate copy becomes less hassle than the real deal, whilst the legit experience offers you nothing extra. Then everyone that cares will refuse to buy, on principle, and even normal users are going to be frustrated, possibly turning them on to illegal copies as a workaround, increasing piracy in the future.
Acknowledging that piracy is going to happen, despite any big and complex DRM scheme, the middle road really consists of just enough anti-piracy to prevent someone cutting a copy without thinking about it, but no more restriction than that. CD-keys are close to this - takes more effort than a straight copy/paste job to make a copy, but it doesn't really hassle people who bought the game for real. I think Steam pretty nails it in a different way - it's not hard to find a pirate copy of a game that's on Steam, but the Steam service itself adds value to the games you've bought (tracking achievements, finding servers, the whole community aspect of it) and encourages legality that way. Meanwhile in the background there's protection that's barely noticeable under normal use.
You can download and install your games as many times as you like (there's another bonus to going legit - backup stored for you in your account), you can play on multiple machines so long as you're not in two places at once, you can go offline, the full works. Admittedly it runs into problems when you want to share a Steam account with other people in the family, even to play different games simultaneously, but that's part and parcel of the idea of being tied to an account - the account should be yours and yours alone. Not perfect... you don't want to have to re-buy a game for more than one person... maybe they should allow a small number of concurrent logins, but it's not bad.
The only other part of Steam that bugs me is that you can never return, re-sell, lend or transfer a game after purchase... I honestly think that needs improvement, but it's hard to see how they could do it without opening an exploitable hole. On the other hand, there are always exploitable holes, and people are more likely to hop onto BitTorrent than try to play silly buggers with Steam, they could just put it through a non-automated service to get some human oversight of the process and it'd probably be fine. Either way, I love me some Steam is what I'm saying.
Acknowledging that piracy is going to happen, despite any big and complex DRM scheme, the middle road really consists of just enough anti-piracy to prevent someone cutting a copy without thinking about it, but no more restriction than that. CD-keys are close to this - takes more effort than a straight copy/paste job to make a copy, but it doesn't really hassle people who bought the game for real. I think Steam pretty nails it in a different way - it's not hard to find a pirate copy of a game that's on Steam, but the Steam service itself adds value to the games you've bought (tracking achievements, finding servers, the whole community aspect of it) and encourages legality that way. Meanwhile in the background there's protection that's barely noticeable under normal use.
You can download and install your games as many times as you like (there's another bonus to going legit - backup stored for you in your account), you can play on multiple machines so long as you're not in two places at once, you can go offline, the full works. Admittedly it runs into problems when you want to share a Steam account with other people in the family, even to play different games simultaneously, but that's part and parcel of the idea of being tied to an account - the account should be yours and yours alone. Not perfect... you don't want to have to re-buy a game for more than one person... maybe they should allow a small number of concurrent logins, but it's not bad.
The only other part of Steam that bugs me is that you can never return, re-sell, lend or transfer a game after purchase... I honestly think that needs improvement, but it's hard to see how they could do it without opening an exploitable hole. On the other hand, there are always exploitable holes, and people are more likely to hop onto BitTorrent than try to play silly buggers with Steam, they could just put it through a non-automated service to get some human oversight of the process and it'd probably be fine. Either way, I love me some Steam is what I'm saying.
Steam also make older games almost pointless to pirate, this weekend I bought both Oddworld games for £2.25, about $3.50, two full games for what, the price of a Mc Happy Meal?
Also, all this week they're doing 50% off a Ubisoft game each day, was Assassin's Creed Monday, Prince of Persia today, and it keeps you logging in at least once on weekends to see what's the deal.
Hell I bought GTA4 when it was on the weekend deal of £18.99, only to find it wouldn't fun on my PC, I knew I was below min spec, but figured I didn't mind it running a bit slow or choppy, turned out I was getting less than 1 FPS!
Steam watches all your games and auto patches them for you in the background when needed, and I tried GTA again recently and it's now running fine. ( Well, pretty badly actually, but vaguely playable at least, considering I'm on a single core processor and old video card.)
Oh and before that, all 5 X-Com games, £3. And you buy an old game, it comes with Doxbox or whatever else might be needed built in, so there's no issues with buying ten year old games for Vista.
Also, all this week they're doing 50% off a Ubisoft game each day, was Assassin's Creed Monday, Prince of Persia today, and it keeps you logging in at least once on weekends to see what's the deal.
Hell I bought GTA4 when it was on the weekend deal of £18.99, only to find it wouldn't fun on my PC, I knew I was below min spec, but figured I didn't mind it running a bit slow or choppy, turned out I was getting less than 1 FPS!
Steam watches all your games and auto patches them for you in the background when needed, and I tried GTA again recently and it's now running fine. ( Well, pretty badly actually, but vaguely playable at least, considering I'm on a single core processor and old video card.)
Oh and before that, all 5 X-Com games, £3. And you buy an old game, it comes with Doxbox or whatever else might be needed built in, so there's no issues with buying ten year old games for Vista.
The difference between conventional copyprotection and DRM is that the conventional kind only checks for a physical object (game disc, dongle) and assumes that it's legit when that's present while DRM keeps track of the user and exactly what he is and is not allowed to do. Conventional protection only checks the what, DRM checks the who. You can give a conventional game to someone else and that means he can play and you cannot, with DRM he cannot play and depending on the implementation you may or may not be able to. I consider machine locks a user id.SaintWaldo said:
Oh in Steam...But you arent forced to buy games from Steam at all...So whats the problem? But the prices on Steam apart from Valve games and the weekend sales arent Valve's responsability, its EA who you have to complain about not dropping the prices of ME in Steam. If you check Valve games go down in price. Apart from L4D and The Orange Box all Valve games are 20 euros or under.Abedeus said:
There worse coins out there than the US dollar.ChainsawEnima said:
My guess is that this is going to be something along the lines of:
1) Log in your Steam account to a PC,
2) Download/restore GCF files for the game you want to play,
3) Unlock the game, which generates the account-dependent executable.
While this is technically DRM in the strict sense of the term, there is a big difference between CEG and the travesty that is Spore. There is no installation limit. You can still run your game from any PC at any time (as long as you have the GCFs available). Steam has offline mode, so (assuming you've logged in at least once) you don't have to connect to an authentication server to validate your installation every time you want to play.
I'm still not a huge fan of DRM (and likely never will be), but Valve have taken steps toward doing it "right", if such a thing is possible. We'll have to see how it pans out.
I see Steam as just a digital distribution platform that happens to discourage piracy (discourage, not prevent).
1) Log in your Steam account to a PC,
2) Download/restore GCF files for the game you want to play,
3) Unlock the game, which generates the account-dependent executable.
While this is technically DRM in the strict sense of the term, there is a big difference between CEG and the travesty that is Spore. There is no installation limit. You can still run your game from any PC at any time (as long as you have the GCFs available). Steam has offline mode, so (assuming you've logged in at least once) you don't have to connect to an authentication server to validate your installation every time you want to play.
I'm still not a huge fan of DRM (and likely never will be), but Valve have taken steps toward doing it "right", if such a thing is possible. We'll have to see how it pans out.
I see Steam as just a digital distribution platform that happens to discourage piracy (discourage, not prevent).