Valve: "DRM damages value of games"
Valve's Gabe Newell reckons that DRM only lowers the value of games in the eyes of customers.
“One thing that you hear us talk a lot about is entertainment as a service,” the Valve founder said as he picked up a Pioneer Award at the event. “It’s an attitude that says ‘what have I done for my customers today?'"
“It informs all the decisions we make, and once you get into that mindset it helps you avoid things like some of the Digital Rights Management problems that actually make your entertainment products worth less by wrapping those negatives around them.”
The comments were reportedly greeted by cheers from developers and industry luminaries, according to Develop.
Draconian DRM systems have been an increasingly controversial subject in the past years, especially with Ubisoft having just launched a new system for PC titles that requires a constant internet connection. It hasn't worked out all that well.
Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
Previous Article
41 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyAnyways, when Valve can sort out their offline mode to work reliably, their DRM will be transparent, as it is I still have occasional problems. He is right in what he says though.
Ubisofts requirement to be online all the time is scandalous. What about families that dont have internet?
I feel its the intrusive software sitting there constantly connected to EA or whoever just incase you decide to play the game. God forbid you do actually play the game then before you do anything it's a "Checking for updates" which then stops you getting into the game. The log in to receive the download or else is far too draconian.
I happily leave Steam running as it runs quite peacefully and updates when it needs to and doesn't hog any bandwidth.
I have never had any problems with offline mode. It took me a while to work out why I can't just log in as offline instead of being online to go offline, but then when I realised it could be used to share your games I found it fine.
I do find it funny that steam is very obtrusive and in your face in terms of a DRM, but because it serves as a nice platform for most or all of your games and the ability to chat with friends it has become accepted and bloody awesome.
1) Always on internet connection. I work offshore and play games on my laptop when I'm off shift. No internet connection for two weeks at a time there.
2) Malware that stops other programs on my PC from working. Despite what EA and the like think, there are plenty of legitimate uses for copying/cloning software. They have no right to disable it.
3) Limited number of installs. I wipe games and reinstall them on a regular basis. I've lost track of the number of times I've installed BG2 now. Always on my own PC and always for my own use.
Things I will accept
1) Internet connection to register the game (to my email address if they must)
2) CD to be in the drive while playing the game. I know that doesn't work for downloaded games, but for CD's/DVD's it's not a problem.
However Valve have managed it, they have done so in a way that people don't even know it's there; Good DRM. Most other implementations seem to cause grief for paying customers, with the pirates usually finding a way around it.
At the risk of suggesting a Valve monopoly, can't all future games just be released on Steam? Why don't all publishers and developers use it, are there any downsides to it for them? The future of games distribution is clearly leaning towards download based rather than Retail DVD and as it stands at the moment, Steam is king of the hill. I doubt many people use the EA or Impulse alternatives.
I wonder if there is some way to make Steam more appealing to publishers rather than them trying to implement their own form of DRM? If all games were available on Steam I bet it would help to further the regeneration of the PC Games market - most people use it, it allows for people to make impulse purchases, gives publishers greater control over pricing, eliminates physical media distribution costs and surely it would then also solve their DRM dramas by having a rights management system that just works?!
So far we've started making gentle enquiries with trading standards in the UK.
The group: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=2361831622#!/group.php?gid=357679392926
Lets face it.. we have all bought some dud's once in a while. It would be good to offload them somewhere !
Trouble with the second hand games market is that it doesn't make money for anyone except the reseller, so it's understandable - at least from Valve's point of view - that they haven't built that functionality in.
Joined ! a worthy cause if ever there was one
Eh, I'm sick of it all. Gamers have been reiterating this issue over and over for years yet devs/publisher keep (ignoring us) trying to push different forms of DRM down our throats.
The only form I'm happy with, CD/DVD check, thats it. No other form is 100% acceptable to me. Even steam while "ok" has its issues. Some have already been mentioned but here they are.
One: the offline mode made me insane at one point. It may be better now but I haven't had the need to try it.
Two: why must I buy two copies of the same games so I can play with my kid? At least let us spawn LAN play.
Three: Can't resell, even hardcopy games you bought in the store.
Sorry I'm old school from the 90s. I've personally witness how bad gaming has become. The funny part its coming from the big name publishers. The indy devs don't give us that much headache. Its those who have made to much money from us over the years wasting it on DRM schemes instead of putting it into new exciting games that aren't sequals.
Technically, thats wrong. You buy the right to play the game. The game doesn't become yours, you can't then go and copy it and sell millions of copies.
I'm not for DRM though, atleast not stuff like SecuROM and the like. Steam is fine by me, extremely good system that works perfectly.
I think offline mode has just recently been updated. In one of the updates, it said "Offline mode finally fixed". :D
You could argue that DRM is completely pointless as it has always been bypassed by those who are determined to do it.
Technically, it is not wrong.
You do normally buy the right to own the games. They're ours to keep.
What you don't normally buy is the right to own the actual copyright to copy and sell millions of copies :)
Which is what DRM is supposed to stop us from doing.
Was working away from home Mon-Fri staying in hotels and quite often, I'd fire up steam fully expecting the option to work offline.
Click the work offline button and it comes back with a connection error.
Well duh!!??
So while Steam isn't perfect yet, it is very nice to use IMO.
I just hate that some devs are fording more and more DRM crap on top.
GTA4 anyone??
Steam+Rockstar lounge pish+GFWL sh1te!!??
No thanks!
I must say though, judging by the reported reaction from the developers in the crowd, most of them would be happier without DRM too.
Must just be the greed of the publishers?
Disc check makes me angry. Insert disc, start install, insert further discs if there are any, insert the first disc again to finish the installation, HEY YOU NEED THE DISC TO LAUNCH THE GAME WHY DID YOU PUT IT AWAY? Okay go grab the disc again, play, finish playing and launch another game UH OH WRONG DISC BUDDY
**** that.
But it doesn't "just work". Modern Warfare 2 was ripped from steam and cracked the moment it came out. Assassins Creed 2 hasn't been cracked yet. Thus publishers will continue to throw crap at the wall to see what sticks.
Steam has helped the PC Gaming genre immensely, one huge example being their sales, where you can pick up 5 games for the price of one.
Gabe Newell for Supreme Overlord!!!
You think that distinction matters to pirates? Or to the publishers? They just want to bleed us dry.
I got GTA4 from steam and it still has the rockstar lounge and GFWL, They dont impede on my gaming, i dont even notice them except the initial rockstar 'play' window.
Id rather they werent there but in this case i think people were bitching just for the sake of it.
The cracks available are barely functional, letting you play certain sections of the game and breaking if you go into others. That matters to pirates, some of which are lazy enough to just buy it if they can't get it to work for free. And that matters to publishers.
And this is a thread about DRM, not DLC. I don't see how publishers wanting to enforce us paying for a full game they spent millions to create as "bleeding us dry".
Ditto until recently they started massively jacking up the price for new releases. Case in point: DoW II: Chaos Rising. £29.99 on steam, £17.99 mail order. Now, why do they need a nearly 50% markup on a system that is virtually overhead-free (yeah, there's server running costs, but compare that to running a shop -- no comparison)? Still, I continue to buy from steam as a first preference, and will gladly pay a SMALL premium for the privilage.
Having said that, I haven't got around to buying AC II yet precisely because it's not currently on steam. Now I hear all these issues, it seems like a bit of serendipity.
Having said that, the AC II problems seem to pale compared to GTA IV's DRM. GTA DRM is, I think, the worst example I've ever seen. Anything that forces a piece of software into my startup tray, and tries to make me log in every time I turn on my computer is BAD. It's a shame I love the game so much, or the I could claim that, combined with the obscenely bad optimisation (I can't max out the settings with a GFX 275, 4GB of RAM and a Q9550!! WTF?) had caused me to boycott the game in a show of consumer protest. I suppose I could always lie...
It all very well encrypting a game or film on a disk but consumers then need it decrypted to access the content they paid for.
So basically, there is no logical way to protect something using DRM.
What I cant stand is games that sell through Steam yet choose to bypass the whole steamworks operation and say, install GWFL or some other awful app/DRM. Only reason I haven't got Dawn of War 2, or GTA 4.
? You got freaked over a simple thing? Juts get a No-CD crack or copy the CD/DVD to ISO. Problem solved.
Steam is great when friends list isn't down for maintenance.
i don't understand why Ubisoft doesn't just use steamworks, have to make their own DRM
Zing? :D
http://membres.multimania.fr/sifer1/brian-says-its-wrong.gif
(20mins work in that gif just for this thread. It's highly reusable however)
I ended up making it work by farting in it
Aaaaannnnnnnnnnd that's how I became an engineer
Except it's not been tested, and the BSA et al are assuming it'll hold and prosecuting the crap out of everyone for it, "so they must be right" is the general feeling.
...
I hate you Kenny.