A couple days ago I talked about the Long Con of DRM and the inherent ethical and cultural problems with embracing (or even accepting) DRM systems.
When this topic comes up, people often mention Valve’s Steam as a counter-example of how to “do it right”.
They’re half right. Steam has taken the onerous nature of DRM and turned it into a feature by allowing you to access your Steam account and play your games from any computer in the world. The system also, obviously, allows you to buy games online and have them instantly delivered.
In other words, people don’t (generally) complain about Steam because the platform gives you the ability to do something that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to do. I can understand (and share) the appreciation of that added value.
On the other hand, all of these features could be offered without DRM which requires the copy I currently have downloaded to my computer to be periodically re-validated. (DrivethruRPG does it.) And any game that you buy in a box at your local store and then need to validate through Steam’s servers before playing is every bit as bad as every other online activation schema in terms of its long-term impact on consumer rights.
Make no mistake: The Half-Life 2 box I have on the shelf contains nothing but a worthless coaster on the day that Valve goes out of business or migrates to Steam 2.0. And the Orange Box I purchased through Steam directly will become nothing more than wasted hard drive space only a few days later.
The features Steam offers to the consumer are the reason I’m willing to occasionally buy games through the service. But the unethical DRM that they’ve made part of their service is the reason that I rarely do so. And if there is any other method of purchase available, I’ll avail myself of it.
Unfortunately, the PC gaming industry’s increasing reliance on draconian DRM is the reason that all my game purchases in the past 3 years have either been indie games or console games.
