
How Steam stopped me from pirating games and enjoy the sweet DRM kool-aid - silvia77
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/07/05/how-steam-stopped-me-from-pirating-games-and-enjoy-the-sweet-drm-kool-aid/
======
recoil
I've used a Steam a little over the last couple of years (bought maybe 3 or 4
games), but with this recent summer sale I've added another 15-20 games to my
collection, and all for around $60 total. When the price is right, I'm very
happy to use a service like this, despite the DRM. The user experience beats
anything else out there, including going to the local mall and buying a game
boxed.

The key is the price though. With Steam games, I lose the ability to sell the
game on after I'm finished it, and publishers of all kinds (music, movies,
ebooks, videogames) need to understand that I'm not going to pay them the same
(or more) for something that doesn't give me the same rights as the physical
media.

The policy of certain publishers to charge considerably more for the same game
in different regions (in my case Australia - see e.g. the price of Mass Effect
2 in Aus here:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/clwk1/steam_final_da...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/clwk1/steam_final_day_borderlands_sid_meiers/c0ti2lt))
is also something I'm not going to tolerate. I didn't buy _any_ of the games
in the Steam sale that were priced higher in this country, so those publishers
lost out.

I presume that this is due to the way publishing rights are apportioned
internationally, and I've seen similar problems afflict other media
(particularly ebooks, where the availability of a particular Kindle title
varies a lot depending on whether you're in the UK, US or Aus). Again,
publishers need to understand that consumers really couldn't give a toss about
this sort of thing: we just want to buy their product, not have to worry about
some international publishing agreement bullshit. If somebody can't buy
something on Amazon/Steam/iTunes/whatever in their region, that's driving them
towards the pirates, not towards the locally-published version.

~~~
lionhearted
> Again, publishers need to understand that consumers really couldn't give a
> toss about this sort of thing: we just want to buy their product, not have
> to worry about some international publishing agreement bullshit.

Firmly agree. This nonsense is a relic from an earlier age - back in the day,
you'd sell the rights to a book to a local publisher/distributor. Back then,
an American publishing house might have minimal contacts in Australia, so
you'd license or sell to an Australian company with better local contacts and
an understanding of the local market.

Mind you, this dates back to before long distance calls were possible, let
alone the internet, and it made sense back then. Now it's mostly just hassle,
nonsense, and bureaucracy. It'll eventually get more sensible, either because
the old guard will wake up or some new players will emerge to eat their lunch.

------
frio
What gets me about Steam are the extra layers of DRM crud games get layered
with by publishers. I recently purchased Arkham Asylum in a sale; to play it,
I need Steam, GfWL and SecuROM activation. I understand that in this instance
Steam is merely the distribution tool, and that the extra DRM is installed by
the publisher for retail sales, but it sure is a pain in the arse to get the
game loaded.

The same could be said of GTA IV (Steam, Rockstar Social Club, GfWL) or
Riddick (TAGES). I wish publishers would just give up on these other
activation methods altogether.

~~~
stonemetal
Also note that if you pickup the add ons for GTA IV then you get to download
the game twice(sure connections are fast these days but an extra 16GB
really?). It doesn't integrate with GTA IV. So if you load up GTA IV and click
on the expansion pack it takes you to a screen to buy it and vice versa.

~~~
teamonkey
Yes, you don't get the two episodes as DLC over Steam, you get the standalone
SKU "Episodes from Liberty City". Just the same as if you bought the EfLC
retail box on PC.

------
ohwaitnvm
At work, a typical response I've received upon mentioning that I get most of
my games through Steam is "Oh. Isn't that the one with DRM?"

At first, this threw me; I wasn't even aware that there was DRM on Steam.
Well, of course I intuitively knew it, but I never associated it with the
issues that people usually complain about regarding DRM.

I've never had the DRM get in my way... My experience with iTunes has been
that when a bad bump on an airplane toasted my external hard drive and lost me
every piece of legitimately paid for music and every legally purchased TV
episode on it, I would never be able to download those purchases again. Steam,
on the other hand, has let me download the same game as many times as I've
found necessary, external to external, computer to computer.

~~~
matwood
Apple doesn't advertise the fact that they do keep a list of your purchases.
If you call them you should be able to get them to let you re-download all the
content you have bought through ITMS.

IMHO, Apple should be putting a feature like this front and center, but my
guess is that the labels are against it. Who else wants you to buy the same
song first on vinyl, then tape, then CD, then digital, then...

~~~
masklinn
> Apple doesn't advertise the fact that they do keep a list of your purchases.
> If you call them you should be able to get them to let you re-download all
> the content you have bought through ITMS.

yeah but sadly:

1\. the list of stuff bought is pretty well hidden, and it's a pain to get
back to the media from there. Steam gives you your library front and center,
and from there it's a right and a left click to reinstall

2\. for everything other than apps, you can't just re-download the stuff you
lost. You have to re-buy it. That sucks. A lot. Here's hoping that improves
with a hypothetical iTunes 10 / iTunes Cloud.

~~~
AlisdairO
You can re-download stuff other than apps, but you have to contact apple. It's
an open secret that they'll modify your account to let you re-download.

~~~
masklinn
Ah yeah, forgot to point that out, but in any case it's a pretty sucky
experience. There isn't a big button saying "re-download EVERYTHING" and boom
everything you ever bought on iTunes gets requeued.

~~~
AlisdairO
Yeah, it's true, it is a really crap user experience. Considering the
miniscule cost of downloading a song, it really ought to be free to re-
download.

------
cturner
Something interesting about Steam - it is a business model that creates a
software distribution business without leveraging copyright. The guys at Valve
have taken responsibility for their business model, rather than insisting that
the government do it. Positive.

------
rkowalick
I remember back in 2003 when steam came out along with the release of CS v1.6.

The whole community complained for a long time, setting up private v1.5
servers and doing anything in their power to avoid steam.

The naysayers had their points, but now the bloated software,buggy friends
list and LAN party issues have morphed into a model content distribution
network making tons and tons of revenue. Who'd a thought?

Valve probably knew this all along.

~~~
Groxx
Steam _also_ had at least a couple orders of magnitude more problems with
crashing, corrupting files, and as it was new the (sometimes incorrect)
account banning had a _lot_ of weight. It's much better now, and look what's
happened: people actually _support_ it.

Valve may have "known it all along", and it's a _huge_ thing to attempt, so I
give them a lot of slack for their earlier problems. But it's succeeding today
in large part because it's not a steaming P.O.S. like it was when it started.

------
noonespecial
So if they make obtaining games legitimately _easier_ than pirating and make
sure that the DRM doesn't needlessly hassle the end user, people will do that
instead?

Stop the presses.

~~~
noonespecial
So -4 then? Was it because I advocated a form of DRM (and all DRM is bad
m'kay), endorsed Steam even though lots of people dislaike it, or just used
too much sarcasm because I thought this was self-evident to this crowd?

Steam seams like a faltering step in the right direction. Its quite a bit
better than the "cripple the whole experience and make the user stand on his
head while playing our game" DRM that's included in too many games today. Its
not perfect but for the first time, moral judgments aside, it makes obtaining
and playing a game as easy as pirating it. Its good to see people warming to
this and validating the model.

~~~
ars
Too much sarcasm.

------
lambda
The question is, what's the point of the DRM once you have something like
Steam? The DRM is not actually preventing people from pirating the games; you
can still download them from Torrent sites. And you can prevent people from
playing online if they haven't paid without any DRM; you just keep track of
that on the server side.

So, by still including DRM, you are limiting users freedom, installing crap on
their machines that they don't want, for no particularly good reason. The
essential part to keep people buying your games instead of going to torrents
is not the DRM; it's offering a good service that's competitive with the
torrents. The convenience of fast downloads, of being able to reinstall the
game on a new machine without keeping track of physical media and keys. And
with a service like Steam, you can offer more than that, such as a nice option
for online play, tournaments, leaderboards, and the like, updates that add
value and keep your interest in older games.

While some people are just so cheap that they'll go with the torrent no matter
what, I think there are a lot of people who would be willing to buy DRM free
games if they offer a compelling enough experience. The reason that media
loses sales to piracy is that they offer so much of a worse experience than
just doing a search and a download. See iTunes, for example. The music isn't
DRMed any more, and it's the largest music retailer in the world; it offers a
wide selection and easy download and no crappy DRM hassles.

Steam is not successful because of the DRM. It's successful because of the
service and convenience. They could drop the DRM, and be even better off than
they are today, and not have to spend all the time and money writing the DRM
that will just be cracked anyhow.

~~~
drewcrawford
> The question is, what's the point of the DRM once you have something like
> Steam?

These decisions aren't made by programmers or people who otherwise deal with
_facts_.

The _point_ is that when your boss's boss asks why it's showing up on TPB,
your boss can say "Look, we put DRM in it. We did the best we could. With more
funding we could make the DRM system better."

The next project gets a few more hires (probably only DRM-related on paper),
your boss practiced CYA, his boss practiced CYA, and everybody's doing great
except the legal consumers of the product, who nobody really cares about
anyway.

------
jac_no_k
Steam's pragmatic approach to DRM is okay with me. They make the whole flow
from finding the game, purchasing, and launching easy and straight forward.
It's one of the rare instances the Management is a two way street. I don't
need to keep physical copies of the games or track the serial numbers. I can
move from computer to computer and the games that are enabled for my account
are available. I'm really impressed that they don't charge extra for games
that run on OS X, that was originally purchased for Windows.

What does irk me still is the third party publishers on Steam that use region
lockouts. Steam's DRM does make it easy for publishers to not allow games like
Modern Warfare 2 to be sold in Japan. I understand it was licensed to a
publisher local in Japan and that is why Steam can not distribute. But this
crosses the line of my tolerance. Same with other media such as music and
videos. I wish publishers would set a global price, based on one of the major
currencies, and just let us purchase and use in any region.

~~~
w1ntermute
You might be interested to know that they unofficially tolerate players having
someone in another country (usually the US) buy the game and gift it to them,
as long as the middleman isn't making money off of it (only equal
reimbursement). If you're interested in getting the US version of Modern
Warfare 2 (or any other game) via Steam, contact this guy:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/cklqm/steam_day_7_ma...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/cklqm/steam_day_7_mass_effect_2_shatter_the_void/c0t87rn)

Obviously this isn't a justification for their actions, but it is an available
workaround.

~~~
benologist
I bought $170 worth of games today through a friend in the US. :)

The only thing _I_ don't like is PC games are stupidly complicated with add
ons, expansions, packs, chapters, bla bla bla. I don't have time to keep up
with gaming to know what I need, what order I should do it in etc.

~~~
w1ntermute
That's why Valve's TF2 updates, combined with Steam, are great (they had one
today, coincidentally). You can get new features without lifting a finger :)

------
ajuc
There is also "good old games" ( www.gog.com ) - steam like site that sells
old games without DRM and tuned to run in modern OSes. Sorry for advertising,
I'm not connected to them in any way, just like this company (they made The
Witcher) and wanted to promote DRM less online software selling.

------
starnix17
Steam is awesome.

I used to never play PC games, and when I did I usually pirated them for
convenience and simply because I couldn't legitimately purchasing the PC games
I play (many of them are older and no longer in stores).

However, since this Steam sale came around I've been addicted. I ended up
buying like 6 games with an average price of about $5 a game. It's just easier
than pirating and it's cheap very easy just to click the buy button and charge
my credit card.

Overall it's a great way to distribute new PC games and it definitely keeps
the income coming in (although it might not be as much) for older games that
no longer get shelf space in brick and mortar retail stores.

~~~
robryan
Might not be much but it's a hell of a lot more than the $0 they get for
pirated copies.

------
isamuel
Steam doesn't even feel like DRM. The hallmark of DRM is always that there's
some thing you run into that you want to do but can't: you can't play your
music on THAT device, you can't convert your video to THAT format.

But the only thing I want to do with PC games is play them, and on any PC that
I want to play them on. Steam lets me do that. It's copy protection, no doubt,
but it's a bargain where I actually win in the exchange.

~~~
gridspy
The main price is waiting for steam to login and initialize before you can
start loading the game.

~~~
masklinn
Offline mode works if you want to go faster and/or need it though. Didn't work
a few years ago, but works like a charm nowadays, it's a pleasure.

------
natmaster
"In order to counter piracy.... It’s this sort of scheme that forces people to
pirate games."

For publishers to understand why restricting rights of their customers is bad
for them, they need to understand this. Steam, and other systems like it are
the future. Those who do not understand this will (and should) be swept under
the rug.

~~~
masklinn
> For publishers to understand why restricting rights of their customers is
> bad for them, they need to understand this. Steam, and other systems like it
> are the future.

Steam _does_ restrict customer rights (can't resell games for instance). The
truly important thing is that the rights your DRM scheme restricts should not
be rights the user cares for or wants to use.

At the end of the day, experience is king, and Steam's great because the
experience is better than piracy's.

~~~
jasonlotito
I know you aren't arguing against Steam. I just wanted to expand/respond to a
part of your comment.

Steam does require giving up certain rights you'd have if you had purchased
the game from a store, true. However, it also provides you rights you wouldn't
otherwise have. For example, I can reinstall games without having to worry
about finding that CD/CD Key. If I lose the game DVD, I can't play it anymore.
With Steam, I now have that right.

Steam might take away rights, but in doing so, it rewards me with other rights
that are if not equally as valuable, are more valuable then the rights they
are removing.

~~~
masklinn
> However, it also provides you rights you wouldn't otherwise have. For
> example, I can reinstall games without having to worry about finding that
> CD/CD Key.

That's not really a right, that's mostly convenience.

> If I lose the game DVD, I can't play it anymore.

Depends on the game.

> With Steam, I now have that right.

unless you lose your Steam password that is.

~~~
jasonlotito
> That's not really a right, that's mostly convenience.

Call it what you will, it's very valuable. Of course, if I have a right to
play the game because I bought it, and lose the CD key, I've now technically
lost that right.

> Depends on the game.

I'm sorry, but the majority of games you can't. Yes, their are exceptions.
Should I preface everything I said with a paragraph of legalese explaining
that their are exceptions.

> unless you lose your Steam password that is.

That's not correct. You have to lose your steam password and choose not to
recover it, which is much easier then if you lose your CD Keys.

What was the point of your response?

~~~
masklinn
> Call it what you will, it's very valuable.

I'll just call it what it is.

> That's not correct.

Of course it is.

> You have to lose your steam password and choose not to recover it, which is
> much easier then if you lose your CD Keys.

Or be unable to, which is pretty easy

> What was the point of your response?

That not only those are not rights, they're definitely not steam-exclusive
either.

~~~
jasonlotito
> Of course it is.

No, it's not. I've lost my password before. I've been able to recover/change
it, and reinstall my games.

> That not only those are not rights, they're definitely not steam-exclusive
> either.

Then you failed to make your second point.

~~~
masklinn
> No, it's not. I've lost my password before. I've been able to recover/change
> it, and reinstall my games.

And just because you have been able to recover your password you cannot fathom
that it might be unrecoverable?

It's very simple: lose access to contact email address, be fucked.

------
gregn
I just want to point out quick that what's so awesome about Steam is it's
apparent longevity. They provide the convenience of the App Store: you see
something, 2-or-3 clicks and it's yours, but the greatest value that Steam
offers is the fact that THE GAMES YOU BUY ARE ALWAYS THERE. 5 years down the
road, you will still be able to download and play the games you have bought,
onto a different computer with possibly a completely different OS, all patched
up. It's in Steam's best business interest to continue and grow and maintain a
presence, possibly forever, so they will always be there, and the game you
have bought and paid for the one time, you will always have, always. Try and
say that about a physical copy or the stupid App store.

------
rufugee
I installed a dual-boot of Vista so I could install Steam and play BioShock.
I'd love Steam if it didn't crash every twenty minutes or so. Granted, it
could be Vista...I had problems with Call of Duty 4 as well.

I _really, really_ wish a gaming virtual machine would catch on. Of course it
won't because it would defeat platform lock-in, but one can dream, right?
Rebooting Ubuntu into Windows just to catch a 30 minute break gets old _fast_.

~~~
CaptainZapp
It does sound like a hardware problem. It could, however, also be the game,
which is corrupt.

Fret not, there's an app^H^H^H solution for that:

\- Right click the game in your games list \- Select properties \- Select
"local files" tab \- Click "Check integrity of game cache" (or so)

This can take some time, but will re-download corrupted game components. I
ususally have to do this with Dirt, when it dies ungracefully on me.

------
omgsean
I can't wait until something like this comes out for my Xbox. I can't tell you
the number of times I've been bored enough to shell out $60 bucks for a game I
heard was good but was way too lazy (or slightly too inebriated) to drive to
the store.

Sometimes I feel like companies just don't want my money.

~~~
isamuel
This exists. It's how I bought Mass Effect for the 360.

~~~
chadgeidel
Website/explanation please? I wasn't aware you could buy non-Arcade games
digitally.

~~~
isamuel
[http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-
US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-...](http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-
US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8024d5307e8/?of=7)

Nothing much to it. Microsoft has been selling catalog titles via Xbox Live
for a while now.

edit: Here's a list of all the games available for full download.
[http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-
US/games/catalog.aspx?d=4&...](http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-
US/games/catalog.aspx?d=4&r=-1&g=-1&mt=0&ot=7&sb=2&rl=0&p=1)

~~~
chadgeidel
Thanks! wasn't aware of that. I'll have to check it out at home as it's
blocked here at work.

------
blub
There's another online games store that deals with older games: www.gog.com
aka Good Old Games. What's interesting is that it doesn't have DRM.

------
malbiniak
i owned counter-strike: source for windows. i was AMAZED that i didn't have to
purchase it for mac.

this particular kool aid is delicious.

