Valve's Gabe Newell On DRM

Ars Technica is running a story about recent comments by Valve's Gabe Newell in which he bluntly stated, "As far as DRM goes, most DRM strategies are just dumb. The goal should be to create greater value for customers through service value (make it easy for me to play my games whenever and wherever I want to), not by decreasing the value of a product (maybe I'll be able to play my game and maybe I won't)." Ars then points out a response by Microsoft's Games for Windows Community Manager Ryan Miller suggesting Rockstar Games' recent decision not to have install limits for the PC version of GTA IV made the use of SecuROM acceptable. GameSetWatch has a related piece discussing the difficulty in measuring piracy and enforcing infringement laws.

Comments

I like Steam

[iamwhoiamtoday]

I really like how Steam currently works. Only one computer can be logged into the same account at a time, I can download / install all games on any computer, it works (mostly) in Wine. I also don't have to mess around with disks.

Steam seems to me to be a rather effective method of DRM. I can only be logged into the account from ONE computer at a time, and I can play my games. what's the problem?

Re:I like Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

My account was deactivated and they simply refused to tell me why, just that it was shut down due to suspicious activity (I had steam installed on about 6 computers that I own). They actually suggested I could create a new account and purchase the games again if i wanted to play. If you think you own the software you purchase through Steam, you are dead wrong. Valve can flip a switch and turn it off whenever they want. I'll never buy another game from steam or another Valve product ever again. I'll just download any new half life games from isohunt. the way I see it, they owe me about 350 dollars so I'll simply download anything I want to cover that

Re:I like Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, my fear with steam is not the account being disabled- that did happen once, they then fixed it after a week. But VAC bans, as in, someone steals your password, cheats on the account, gets it VAC'd, then you lose the value of every multiplayer game in your Steam account. They'll undo disables- they will NOT undo VAC bans.

Re:I like Steam

[Drinking Bleach]

Steam is basically the sanest solution to keep things clean for legitimate users. You just buy a game and download it, however many times you like or need. Pirates are always going to crack DRM, there's little reason to battle them only to punish legitimate users. See any torrent site and look for cracked versions of Valve games that no longer require Steam -- they're not hard to find, and it just furthers the point that pirates will do whatever to get a free lunch.

Steam is non-intrusive and allows all legitimate users to get and use games easily.

Re:I like Steam

[GFree678]

what's the problem?

Let's hope you don't want to resell a game you purchased from Steam.

Let's hope that VAC works perfectly and won't ban you from VAC servers by accident because you were running something perfectly legit which happened to trip its detection mechanism.

Let's hope that when Gabe says Valve will release an unlock tool so you can play your games when/if Valve ever collapses, he actually follows through.

Disclaimer: I've used Steam for years and continue to do so. I think it's great... as long as nothing goes wrong.

Re:I like Steam

[AuMatar]

Unless Steam decides you're not the owner, you lose the password, they think you're a cheater, etc. Then they take away all your games. I'll ignore DRM in bought games because it can be disabled, I will never buy a steam game.

Re:I like Steam

[D.A. Zollinger]

what's the problem?

The problem is that once you purchase the game, you cannot return it, you cannot sell it, and you cannot give it away/transfer it to another party.

As well, despite the fact that the steam version has no packaging costs, no printing costs, no warehousing costs, no stocking, shipping, or handling costs, you are still paying the same for the game as everyone else who bought it in the store.

Finally, the Steam store does not answer to market concerns, and operates arbitrarily. For example: In most stores, once the demand for a game has worn off, the price comes down in order to move the remaining copies of a game to make room for new games. In the Steam store, costs remain the same until the vendor authorizes a price reduction based on arbitrary decisions (increase sales volume, allow for pricing difference between game and sequel, etc.).

The technology embedded in Steam would allow for the first issue to be resolved, should Valve care to pursue this. As well, a second Steam store, not operated by Valve, yet accessible on the Steam system would ensure that the last two issues are properly addressed.

Re:I like Steam

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Yesterday I wanted to play Halflife during my lunch break on my laptop. Mind that this is my private laptop and therefore I've no internet connection at work. Ofcourse Steam decided that I can't play until I've reconnected to internet first.
Makes me wonder why I bought it instead of pirating it. I've had done the latter I would have been able to play.
Steam is a nice way to distribute games, but honestly the requirement to connect every so often is a pain in the ass for those of us who rarely find the time to play.

Re:I like Steam

[El_Muerte_TDS]

So what that he posted AC, it doesn't change the fact that Valve has a kill switch for your steam account and therefore all games associated with that. That's a form of DRM I also don't like. And for that reason I don't play steam games.

Re:I like Steam

[Burnhard]

IANAL, but you should have legal redress if you haven't broken the TOS. My nephew got a VAC ban for using a "wall hack". In effect he had to start a brand new steam account because he only played VAC based multi-player games. In fact the only people I've heard about who have had their accounts disabled or VAC bans are almost always cheating/hacking in some way or engaged in some other nefarious activity.

So the trade-off with Steam is as follows: you have the convenience of having a delivery platform you can take anywhere, it's easy to purchase/patch new games, you don't have to faff about with CD's. The downside is you share ownership with Steam - which means you can't hack/crack/etc. without the possibility of losing your purchases. In my view the benefits to me as a gamer outweigh the costs, because I don't hack to run cracked/downloaded games.

Re:I like Steam

[Kattspya]

Hmmm... looks like you're right. The normal behavior for STEAM is to just fall back to offline mode when it can't reach the servers. I just disabled my network connection and tried to start STEAM and it wouldn't run in offline mode. After going online without updating anything and then trying again offline mode worked fine. Perhaps there is some silly timeout or maybe it bugs out but that behavior isn't acceptable. Try contacting customer support and ask what the hell is up.

Re:I like Steam

[MR.Mic]

Uncheck "Don't save account credentials on this computer" in steam settings.
Then you only have to log in once, and the computer will allow you to go into offline mode any time after that.

It works for my laptop when I can't get wifi when traveling.

Re:I like Steam

[TheRaven64]

I used to play a lot of Half Life mods, particularly CounterStrike. When Steam came out, I installed it and used it a bit, but it had numerous issues and when I had to reinstall Windows I didn't put it back. Since I bought Half Life, I still have the option of playing the last pre-Steam version (although I don't know if anyone still runs servers for it). I wrote to Gabe at the time to explain my decision when I got the 'you haven't logged in to your Steam account for 30 days' email, and explained that I would not be buying any future games that required Steam.

Given the number of people who defend Steam on /. I think he's probably right about people not caring about the DRM. For me, it's a simple question of value. Anything I buy from Steam, or any other DRM source, only works as long as the seller wants it to work. It's the equivalent of something bought 'sold as seen' from a dodgy guy at a car boot sale. It may or may not ever work, but if it's cheap enough then I might consider it. Steam games are not cheap enough to warrant this risk.

Re:I like Steam

[Moryath]

I won't touch Steam.

It's not that the games don't interest me, it's (a) the fact that I'm exposing my machine to their kill-switch and (b) the fact that I should never, EVER have to go through "activation" bullshit to play a single-player game.

Steam carries DRM. I do everything in my power to (a) remove DRM from the things I purchase where it cannot be avoided and (b) avoid it the rest of the time.

Sorry, Valve. You get in bed with DRM, you lose business. THAT is how DRM really works.

Re:I like Steam

[robot_love]

Sorry, Valve. You get in bed with DRM, you lose business. THAT is how DRM really works.

...except Valve is doing quite well and selling a lot of games. Something about your logic isn't right.

Re:I like Steam

[ch1lly]

Translation: "It doesn't work all the time with Linux and it doesn't give me a physical copy to have as a backup. I love it!"

You can have discs if you want them. Steam includes a tool to backup your games. Plus you can buy the games in retail which comes with the discs of course if you prefer.

Re:I like Steam

[travbrad]

So to activate off-line mode you have to be on-line? *head explodes*

The only games I play on steam are online/multi-player anyway, so not a big deal for me. For people wanting to play single-player or against bots though, that's completely retarded. Better off pirating if you are playing single-player games I guess..

Re:I like Steam

[Hatta]

Have you considered taking them to court? $350 is about the right amount to make it worthwhile going to small claims court. The nice thing about small claims court, no lawyers. I'd argue that the clauses in their TOS allowing them to terminate service on a mere belief of wrongdoing, with no appeal or arbitration process, or refund of any kind are unconscionable. Look into it. At the very least, you'll cause Valve $350 worth of trouble, and it might even make a nice story for /.

Re:I like Steam

[MunchMunch]

"You can have discs if you want them. Steam includes a tool to backup your games." Plus you can buy the games in retail which comes with the discs of course if you prefer."

Thanks, I did not know that you could back them up after downloading them.

However, the disc is still basically just a big authorization key, since what really allows you to play or not is the server. So having a disc is really just misleading you into believing you 'own' something.

Though kind of moot since apparently most of Slashdot (though not you, thankfully) would rather just mod me troll than respond to my arguments. :)

Re:I like Steam

[SScorpio]

Steam doesn't let you gift games out of an account. It's true that you can purchase games and then gift them to someone, but once a attached to an account it can't get sent to someone else. This prevents people from being able to trade games with one another which is one of my main issues with digital downloads and the new installation limits in newer games.

Re:I like Steam

[Chris Burke]

Given the number of people who defend Steam on /. I think he's probably right about people not caring about the DRM.

Most people don't care about DRM as long as they don't notice it, and that includes /.ers. Some care based solely on principle, some care because they don't trust any DRM to be unnoticeable. Most just want to play a game they paid for, and if DRM doesn't stop them from doing that then no, they don't care. There are no articles about xbox DRM because you never see it, you stick a game into your console and it plays.

Steam's DRM is mostly harmless, most of the time. Thus it falls beneath most people's thresholds of caring. When it actually breaks, like the AC post above describes, then damned right people will care even if they didn't even know what DRM was before. They may even become distrustful of DRM in general. That won't necessarily affect the opinions of people for whom it is working.

So I think he is right, to the extent that DRM is done "right" and is unobtrusive and doesn't break your games. As time goes on, as DRM becomes more common, and more people get bit by it, then there will be more people who will consider the potential for DRM to break their games, and more people will care.

Re:I like Steam

[Omestes]

The iTunes thing is just odd, I've never had a problem with offline play. Right now I'm using a MacMini as my jukebox, and it hardly ever is online, yet it hasn't given me any problems with iTMS purchases. As far as DRM goes, iTunes is the best, its rather convenient, and non intrusive (which doesn't go so far, its like saying "as far as dictators go, Castro is the best"). You probably found a bug, or accidentally clicked "unauthorize", or such.

My problem with DRM such as Steam, is that it is only trustworthy in the short term. I have a CD wallet of hundreds of games, most of them old, and a large amount of them from defunct publishers. I enjoy reinstalling them, from time to time, and replaying them. With Steam this activity is dependent on whether or not Valve is in business 10 years from now, and whether or not they feel like keeping their Steam/authentication servers active all that time. Neither of these propositions I trust.

Imagine if the original Fallout games (Interplay = dead) required online authorization? Or Total Annihilation (Cave Dog = REALLY dead)? Both of these games I recently installed on my computer, which I couldn't do with current Valve products. Its like buying a book you can only read if the author is still alive, which makes very little sense.

I don't trust other people to keep my keys, fully realizing that times do change, and companies (no matter how strong they seem) die. It's my $50, and I might want to reclaim my value 10 years down the road.

The only ethical solution I've found so far is buying it, then downloading a cracked ISO and burning it (replacing the original disk). Yes, its still illegal, but I take upholding my ethics (I own what I purchase) over legal technicalities.

Re:I like Steam

[Omestes]

PROTIP: VAC is triggered by the detection of entire known binaries. You can't trip it accidentally without having the cheating mechanism on-disk, and if you do have it on-disk... well that's your fault.

As if software can never go wrong. False positives will always exist.

Yes, there is a very slim chance of it happening, but it still is possible.

There are other ways it can happen, like hacked accounts, or such.

Also... Having a cheating program on your HDD, is not the same thing as cheating. Isn't that somewhat a "thoughcrime"? It should only ban for ACTUALLY cheating, and not just having some software sitting about.

Re:I like Steam

[fotbr]

Yet I've bought many more games via Steam than I would have if I had to go to the store to get them. I'm sure I'm not the only person who has done so.

If sales caused by Steam > sales lost because of Steam, how exactly is Steam bad for business?

In other words, if I run a business (say, a restaurant) and institute a no-children policy, thereby "losing" some business (parents bringing their children), but in the process I gain more business (people who want to eat without kids being around), why are the "lost" sales a negative?

Sorry, I couldn't think of a car analogy that would work.

Re:I like Steam

[BitZtream]

I just feel that it should be pointed out that the 'no lawyers' thing only applies to individuals suing individuals, not individuals suing a company or the other way around.

A corp like Valve is a legal entity not a person, when they go to small claims court they are allowed to be represented by a lawyer on the corps behalf. Don't think for a second that by suing them you're going to meet Gabe and be able to have a battle of wits in front of the judge.

You'll meet one of their lawyers who will promptly tear you a new legal asshole and you'll get thrown out. Unless you happen to get lucky enough to come before the judge who is sympathetic to the individual, which does happen in small claims.

Re:I like Steam

[knails]

You know, you can always rip an disk image instead, and if the game needs a key, store it as text with the image. Simple as that.

Piracy, oh really?

[kvezach]

DRM can't be about piracy. In the very best case, it's about opening day piracy; any longer and the cracks are already out, and you don't have to be a wizard to go to TPB or GameCopyWorld and download them.

Re:Piracy, oh really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spore was 0-day'd, it really is just about pissing off legitimate users.

Re:Piracy, oh really?

[Asmor]

0-day? Pfft.

It's been a while since I did much with warez, but I distinctly remember many things (including the game Rune) being available for download much sooner than it was available to buy.

Priceless

[Goldberg's Pants]

Gabe comes out and says this the day after GTA IV has released on Steam complete with Securom.

Dear Mr Miller: No, it is NOT acceptable, and I will no longer be buying any games that follow what you consider acceptable. So many of the issues people have with running new titles is down to the copy protection.

I really want the PC to die as a mainstream gaming platform to be honest. (And I say that as a hardcore PC gamer for the last 12 years.) Despite all the mounting evidence that shows it's ineffectual and pointless, copy protection is getting worse and worse. Kill the platform entirely, EA and the like can fuck off to the consoles and stay there in their happy little pirate free zone (yeah right), and the PC can go back to serving niche genres for a smaller customer base that are actually treated like customers and not thieves.

Re:Priceless

[Sj0]

I think you're way off-base.

The games I buy off of xbox live have exactly ONE install, and god help you if you delete the game.

This is better than a PC?

Re:Priceless

[mrchaotica]

I really want the PC to die as a mainstream gaming platform to be honest.

Why? DRM on the PC may be bad, but consoles are completely locked!

I want console gaming to die!

There's nothing blunt about it.

[subreality]

The goal should be to create greater value for customers through service value (make it easy for me to play my games whenever and wherever I want to)

No, the goal is to increase revenues by decreasing piracy and preventing sale of used games. What is said above is their method of making it palatable to the consumer.

If the goal was *really* to "create greater value" and "make it easy to play games whenever and wherever" the solution would be simple: DON'T USE DRM.

I understand the need to fight piracy, but quit trying to spin it like it's being done for me, or that there's some silver lining.

Re:There's nothing blunt about it.

[Dunbal]

No, the goal is to increase revenues by decreasing piracy and preventing sale of used games.

      No, the goal (for the DRM peddler) is to PRETEND to offer increased revenues by PRETENDING to decrease piracy and prevent sale of used games. However the only revenue that is actually increased is the "security" company's.

      No one wants to buy shitty games. The good games are cracked usually within hours of release with few exceptions. However good games still make money. If Electronic Arts could build a multi-billion dollar company by releasing endless versions of the same steaming piles of shit, there's money to be made despite piracy.

      But it's so easy to blame lack of sales on copyright infringement. Piracy and sales are DIRECTLY, not inversely, proportional. If a game sucks NO ONE WILL PIRATE IT. So if your game didn't sell it's because IT SUCKS, not because everyone managed to download it before going to the store.

Re:There's nothing blunt about it.

[Stormwatch]

Sure, all of this would also be possible withOUT DRM, but it wouldn't be much of a business model if everyone could just download everything to any computer and just leave it there for someone else to play.

But that is what already happens anyway! Take a look at The Pirate Bay, Mininova, Black Cats, whatever... name any game, it's probably there. DRM is a serious nuisance to legit clients, but merely a quick and fun challenge to crackers. All this DRM-mania does nothing but make piracy look more attractive!

Gotta admire the GOG people... they sell some nice stuff at decent prices, and don't give you any of that DRM bullshit.

Re:There's nothing blunt about it.

[Ash-Fox]

StarDock is offering something like Steam but completely without DRM.

When is StarDock going to release a game I might want. Like a freeform space like X3: Terran conflict or FPS like the Unreal series?

Right now they have no games that interest me, or many other gamers I know. Of course there is no piracy on mass.

But unlike Steam it doesn't force you do download patches

Uncheck the "keep my game up to date" box in the game's properties?

Funny he should mention that...

[Balinares]

Just yesterday evening, I was browsing PC games at the local store, having reinstalled a Windows partition recently, and spotted the box version of Portal. Awesome, I told myself, been wanting to play that one ever since I heard of it, let's purchase this shit. (Mind you, everything about the plot and even the ending are utterly spoiled by now, but who cares, the gameplay seems terrific.)

But for safety, I checked out the small print at the back of the box.

Which said something along the lines of, the game you are shelling out money for will just plain not run outright, you'll have to allow it to go online and then maybe our servers will allow it to run if you accept an EULA that you'll know nothing about until then.

End result: no go, sorry. If I give money for a product, I want it to run when I feel like running it. One less sale for you, dude. (Not that you give a damn about one sale, I'm sure.)

Re:Funny he should mention that...

[JorDan Clock]

I didn't have any problem installing The Orange Box on a PC when the wireless network was down. When I finally got it back online, Steam updated the game and that was it. I can continue playing in "offline mode" which is exactly the same as "online mode" except I don't get friends list updates and snazzy things like that.

DRM vs. Torture.

[crhylove]

DRM is a lot like torture:

It doesn't work.
It only hurts innocent people.
The truly guilty completely avoid it.
It makes the person doing it less popular.
It's unpleasant.
It's foolish.
It's evil.
Despite clear evidence that it IN NO WAY helps anyone, it is continuing to be done by a large institution against innocent people and other victims that have no relation to the initial causality.

If you are pro DRM, or pro torture, you are either horrifically ignorant, willfully stupid, or malevolently mis-informed.

Either way, do the math (or the research), and please wake the fuck up.

Torture and DRM are outmoded and outdated ideas that fail miserably at the assigned task, and should be completely eliminated, for the benefit of all, most importantly you promoting it.

I think this sums the situation up rather nicely

[Vitani]

"Until publishers do more to welcome their legitimate customers as friends instead of treating them as potential pirates, piracy will continue to eat at profits and morale."

I don't dislike Steam, but I don't like it either

[Joe U]

I'm mixed on Steam. I like the automatic downloads and automatic updates, but I'm wary of situations where 2 or 3 people in my family want to play different Steam powered games at the same time. They're locked into one account.

I won't be buying GTA IV on Steam for that reason. I don't want to lock the family out of Peggle.

I had problems with Steam too

[danieltdp]

My case was very simple. A friend of mine bought Half Life 2 and didn't liked it (crazy guy...), so he gave me the game.

Only then I figured out that it is impossible to transfer a game from one account to another! There is no way I can play the game without stopping him from playing his other games. I contacted steam support and they just told me that it is impossible to transfer the game.

This really sucks. I, for one, just began to hate valve and steam. I don't intend to spend my money there ever again.

Steam is the worst type of DRM

[danieltdp]

Note that the account kill switch is a multiple-game license kill switch. If someone at Valve's decides that you are a fucking bastard, he can take away from you a bunch of licenses that are worth hundreds of dollars. This is the worst type of DRM I've ever seen. It combines all your stuff in one package that is all or nothing.

6 of one, 1/2 dozen of another

[tkrotchko]

"but consoles are completely locked!"

They are, but your console doesn't get hosed by a bad implementation of DRM, and better, you can sell your console games when you're done. You can also loan them to your friends if they want to play.

5 of my friends have bought GTA IV PC at retail...

[Amphetam1ne]

... 3 of them can't play for more than 5-10 minutes without securom bombing and forcing the game to close instantly. The other 2 can't even get it to start up.

Aparently it only cost Rockstar $200k to cause this much inconvenience to their legitimate users.

Am waiting to see how long it takes for a fully functional crack to come out. Been just over 48 hours so far and it appears to be harder to crack cleanly than your average copy protection. Rockstar are claiming that it's "Uncrackable", which may not have been their best choice of words when the scene crackers are motivated primarily by having the bragging rights of being the 1st to bypass the most difficult DRM.

Support GOG.com to show them that drm-free sells

[Optic7]

Don't forget about gog.com where you can buy games that are completely DRM-free, and cheap. Show the industry that this is what we want.