Valve Takes on Piracy With Free, Pre-Packaged Game Publishing Tools

Heartless Gamer writes "Valve is rocking the boat in a big way, especially for PC gaming piracy. They have just announced the release of a complete collection of publisher tools, called Steamworks. They're making it available to developers and publishers completely free. Valve notes that beyond simply making the product available to consumers some of the tools can integrate copy protection, social networking services, or even server browsing features into a developing game."

Comments

Valve and piracy

[Brian Gordon]

They don't really have anything to worry about- their madly popular titles are all multiplayer so piracy is impossible and "cracked" servers are rarely of any quality..

Re:Valve and piracy

[Brian Gordon]

Oh, also they're the only game publisher that actually charges a reasonable price for games, and the steam platform is fast and I love steamcommunity. Steam is really the first digital RIGHTS management system instead of digital restrictions management.. they provide so many top-quality services at the mere input of your password on any computer in the country that I'd rather have the DRMed version than the CD version. This is what the music industry should be somehow doing..

Re:Valve and piracy

[MvD_Moscow]

Yeah, I have to agree with you on that one. Using steam is actually better than buying a DVD. You can access your whole game library just by logging onto steam. No need to to care a HD with all the image/patch/no-CD data. Automatic updates, near instant access as soon as you pay for the game.

Though some parts of steam still need some work. The 'Favorite Servers' options in CS:S is kind of buggy and it doesn't always remember your favorites. The steam game store can also at times feel slightly slow, they need to make use of more AJAX with less reloading and new windows and stuff. They also need to improve their screenshots section. More screenshots and higher resolution.

Re:Valve and piracy

[p0tat03]

I find Valve's pricing to be very reasonable. I bought the Deus Ex collection for $30, a better deal than I would've gotten at any other store, and the ability to find old titles certainly beats rummaging around the bargain bin at EB.

$20 for Portal is iffy, I agree, but consider that you get TF2, Portal, HL2, Ep1, and Ep2 for $50, it's a fricking steal. Even if you've already played all the singleplayer Half-Life games, TF2 + Portal combined is IMHO easily worth $50, particularly TF2.

Re:Valve and piracy

[Brian Gordon]

Do you still think Portal's price is unfair when it's part of Orange Box? Counter-Strike: Source and TF2 are both worth a full $50 but they've always retailed at $20 and $30. Episode 2 is worth eh $20. So portal's free per valve's pricing, and TF2 is disounted the entire price of portal for what I would pay for it!

Re:Valve and piracy

[ThinkingInBinary]

Do you still think Portal's price is unfair when it's part of Orange Box?

Hell, I thought Portal's price was fair when packaged alone! I normally expect to pay something like $50 for a really big game, so $20 for Portal, which is shorter than most games but quite excellent, was a good deal.

Re:Valve and piracy

[enderjsv]

I agree. When some other companies are charging 50 bucks or more for utter crap games that make better coasters than pasttimes, I'm more than willing to pay 20 dollars for something of quality. LENGTH != QUALITY.

Re:Valve and piracy

[RonnyJ]

How can I sell my DRM'd Steam games though? I might not actually get around to selling any of my old games, but I feel I should have the right to.

You mention that the music industry should be doing similar, but this is the equivalent of being unable to buy or sell second-hand audio CDs.

Re:Valve and piracy

[ahoehn]

Exactly. With Valve games on Steam, you can:

1. Play your games on as many computers as you like, downloading them as many times as you want.
2. Install them on a friend's computer, and just like lending a book, your friend can use it any time that you're not.
3. Receive automatic content updates
4. Often chose to buy games individually or as a package.
5. Back up your downloaded copies of games
6. With HL2 Engine based games, even play them in Linux with Wine.

While I suppose you don't "own" physical copies of Steam games, I have enough rights that I never notice the downside.

The music and movie industries could learn a thing or six from Valve. I've never even thought of pirating a Valve game because they're so convenient and affordable to purchase.

Re:Valve and piracy

[badboy_tw2002]

I'm actually pretty curious why they don't let you transfer rights to someone else - its not like you couldn't do it anyways. There's no limit on the number of accounts you could create, so you could:

a) Create a new account for each game
b) Buy the game with that account
c) Play game until you're bored
d) Sell account on ebay

I'm sure they have rules against this, but I'll bet it happens anyways. I know I did it when steam first launched to give a gift for christmas. I just created my brother an account, bought the game, and gave him the login. Now they have gift giving, and they let you transfer HL2 to someone else when you bought orange box, so I say "why not let me loan out the rights to one of my games to someone else?" I can't play it while they have the rights, and I can take the rights back when they're done. They could have a "transfer for good" or "let my friend borrow it" program. Its going to happen anyways, so why not enforce it and stop people complaining once and for all. They only hurt paying customers otherwise, because if your friend doesn't borrow it from you and doesn't want to pay for it, well, we know where they're going next.

Re:Valve and piracy

[Kreigaffe]

I hope you read this because I'm blowing my chance of modding something, and for once a subject that actually interests me has coincided with mod points..

You are obviously doing something wrong. Steam is open, you disconnect from the internet? Close steam, restart steam, click the "Start in Offline mode" button. OR, simply open the Games menu, go to File, and down to the "Go Offline" option. ... it's really not hard. You can use steam and never ever connect to the internet and still play any of the single-player games with no problems whatsoever.

Re:Valve and piracy

[urbanriot]

I spend more than $20 for a round of drinks when I'm out at night... $20 for the wonderful enjoyment that Portal gave me, a game I'll never forget, was well worth it. $20 is f-all.

$20 for Portal is iffy, I agree, but consider that you get TF2, Portal, HL2, Ep1, and Ep2 for $50, it's a fricking steal. Even if you've already played all the singleplayer Half-Life games, TF2 + Portal combined is IMHO easily worth $50, particularly TF2.

Re:Valve and piracy

[deadpool42]

Have you actually tried playing anything after doing that? If you want to actually play offline, you need to enable offline mode, run the game you want to play so it updates (even though when I tried it with TF2 it downloaded nothing, but still wouldn't play until you ran it first in online mode), and then it will be available in offline mode.

Regardless of difficulty, it's pretty ridiculous that you have to prepare for an Internet outage.

Re:Valve and piracy

[FlyveHest]

hey give you the right NOT to complain if a publisher charges too much (eg, Call of Duty 4 for Aussies )

Why in the world would you complain to Valve about this? The price in EU is also priced about 18$ above store-price, but this is in not part Valves fault (or, problem for that matter)

If Activision decides that the price point should be this and that, then Valve, as a distributor, really can't (and shouldn't, imho) begin to, its wholly up to the publisher to decide.

If you want, send an e-mail to Activisions offices in your country (I did), and let them know what a boneheaded move it is, but please, don't blame Valve for Activions less-than-sane decision.

Re:Valve and piracy

[Sparr0]

I always read replies, so thanks... But perhaps Steam has changed since I gave up on it. When I last used it, if you disconnected from the internet before going into offline mode then you could not play any games (for lack of "Authentication") until you got back online, even SP games.

Finally!

[PopeGumby]

social networking services

After all these years, my dreams of playing as a violent, gun-toting, car-stealing, cop-killing psycopath who uses MySpace to invite all his BFFs to his Sweet-16 party is coming true.

As a longtime XboxLive user, I'd prefer it if they were reducing the amount of social networking in games, rather than increasing it.

Smart one

[obeythefist]

Because copy protection has never been broken before, making it free will mean that game copying will stop forever. Just like how DRM ceased all music and video copyright infringement.

Re:Am I strange?

[Tacvek]

I'm against the idea of buying anything on physical media, which I then have to validate/register/"complete the purchase" online.

However, I'm okay with the idea of downloading the very same software (validation being one of the requirements for downloading).

I guess I feel that the "buy then validate" model is a cheat- If I bought it in a store, that should be proof enough. Whereas with downloading, they can do the validation/purchase at the same time.
No you are correct. Note that this whole kit is really a steam integration kit. So the primary purchase method will be online purchase. However, having a physical box sitting on the shelf at Walmart is still great for advertising, and even better for giving as a gift. What I find really weird, is that unlike with Valve's boxed games, the steamworks games will apparently not include the exe file on the CD. The CD will have all the resources, and everything, but the exe itself will need to be downloaded over Steam. The advantage (to the developer) is that the exe downloaded can be watermarked with the name and account information of the downloader, which makes distributing a no-steam crack for the game (which is necessary for widespread piracy) a risky proposition.

Warning:

[feepness]

Steam is great for first party Valve games and older games that have been out for awhile and had their issues sorted out.

It absolutely sucks for newer games which have their own copy protection schemes. See BioShock and Company Of Heroes: Opposing Fronts. I had trouble with Opposing Fronts and had to wait for a runaround before I got my money back, after which they said they would not do another. If you do a chargeback and they disable your account you will lose access to ALL your games.

I like Steam for Valve stuff... but just be careful with untested third party software. You can check there own forums on steampowered.com to see if people are having issues.

Re:The particular reason:

[wolrahnaes]

The page you link to appears to say otherwise. The Adobe case listed shows that the EULA doesn't apply until you actually agree to it (presumably by installing it) but the next case after that seems to have the clear result that once you have entered in to the license agreement the publisher can limit your rights as outlined in the license.

Given that Steam (and pretty much every other online digital content store I've ever seen) requires you to agree to the EULA before you can even get an account, you can't claim any of the excuses you could against physical EULAs.

IANAL and such