this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
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He's right. Everyone hated the idea of any always online DRM to play the disc you bought in a store. Steam backed off with options for a game to sometimes work offline and a pinky promise to free your games if Gaben died and the new owner decided you own nothing.
It's weird, people hate the current DRM system for games and love Steam. Yet it was Steam that pioneered it. If Steam failed, there's a chance we would still own games instead of them being tied to online DRM verification.
Steam is the benevolent dictator but that's not going to last forever.
Steam pioneered always on drm? Do you have a source? I thougt that was ubisoft and maxis primarily. That developers use steam services to implement their always on drm is something else. But it is the developers that have to click that checkbox.
Games used stuff like cd keys and even pieces of paper that deciphered codes as DRM. DRM was always something sought after by companies. Just take a look at Sony rootkit scandal for music CDs.
It could last a very long time, though. It's a privately owned company, so if they keep it that way, there's no board to satisfy with big payouts and stock holders to appeas. There's a lot less bullshit to deal with when you're a private company.
Also, drm and online registering is way older than steam.
The best drm was back on floppy drives. You needed a piece of tape to cover the square hole so you could copy the game for your buddy. Lol.
There were some very elaborate copy-protection schemes. Like, "go to page 12 in the manual and enter the word at the bottom of the page". Of course, people could just share what the word was, so some games did stuff like having a fucking codewheel in the manual, instead. So you had to take the code the game gave you, turn the wheel to the correct spot, and then enter the result the wheel gave you.
Split the wheel and copied it on the school copier. ;) much easier the copying the whole manual that was sometimes needed
This is revisionist history. Steam was not the origination of DRM or even online DRM.
He didn't say valve created DRM he said that steam pioneered it. Don't revision people comments.
Had to google "pinoneered", but it say: "developed or be the first to use or apply" and i do not think valve did either.
They have an easy way for developers to implemet drm by require steam services tho.
But in my opinion it is better there are few well understood methods instead of a million uniqe ones. Incase there is a world this have to be reverse engeneered.
I remember, buy game. Enter CD key "key already taken" Return game "sorry, box is open we don't take media returns" Rage.
I remember taping over the square hole.
"Actually this disc is defective. I'd like to exchange it for a new one."
This trick will be useful if you ever go back to 1999.
No, that's what consumers like you are thinking in hindsight and unrelated.
The context Gabe is talking about is when he was approaching publishers. They were just being anti tech and believing in traditional brick and mortar. They were definently pro-DRM. They just couldn't fathom a digital marketplace.
Maybe you weren't old enough to remember it, but people were pissed and swore they would forever boycott Steam when it released
I indeed was one of them. Managed to boycott until left4dead2. Then i caved in. The war was lost anyway. And now i have easily put 5 figures into steam and own nothing.
steam drm is the bare minimum license check and its not mandatory for anyone to implement in their game
Steam is undoubtedly convenient.
But if any game you care about keeping is on GOG, it's a good idea to buy a copy on there, and then squirreling away the offline installer files/extracted game files somewhere safe.
Steam is undoubtedly inconvenient. Imagine a third party proprietary launcher filled with ads was required to use your browser.
You can use steam without ever seeing an ad. Due to low internet bandwidth I just turned off the couple of popups and I currently see 0 ads if I don't specifically go to the store part. Steam boots into library, so no ads, none in downloads. I don't use the rest unless I'm actually looking for a new game.
What a load of fucking shit. My "everyone" loved the fact that we didn't have to keep track of stupid garbage fucking DVDs and keep track of some license key.