Gabe Newell talks about Piracy and Steam (Video)

[Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude]

If only he could get the other big publishers (I'm looking at you, EA) to see the light and provide a quality product without treating the legit customers like criminals.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLC_zZ5fqFk&[/youtube]

 

[Brother None]

Are you joking?
Steam is one of the most invasive DRMs in existence, and has forced usage for Valve customers. Valve is one of the worst anti-piracy treatment companies out there, they just managed to package it as something else, so we love them and hate EA.
He talks the talk, sure, but he doesn't walk the walk.
Stupid.

 

[Sander]

Yes. Very stupid. Steam is DRM, it goes 'you don't have Steam, you don't get to play the game!'.

That said, Steam is a pretty solid and convenient system and product and the fact that the DRM doesn't obviously seem to be DRM, or fuck with your hardware means that people still like it.

 

[Brother None]

Sure. But Valve and their invasive assrapery is the last company that should wag their finger at the industry for not "getting" piracy, and talking about properly serving your customer. You kidding me? No one recalls the ass-fuckery of early Steam?

 

[Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude]

I don't know if I'd call steam Invasive Assraping. For me at least, the auto-updating of every game along with never having to fuck around with cds or serials again balances out having to run it to access said games.

I'd much prefer if every game used steam instead of requiring an active online connection, hardware fingerprinting (Hey, you changed your sound card... go fuck yourself and reactivate this shit) and limited installs.

 

[rcorporon]

I don't know if I'd call steam Invasive Assraping. For me at least, the auto-updating of every game along with never having to fuck around with cds or serials again balances out having to run it to access said games.

This.

Count me in the "I like Steam" camp. Not messing with CD's, having to change discs to play different games, worry about the latest patch, etc, etc, makes life easy for me.

Also, they don't limit your downloads, etc either.

What he said though, about piracy not being about money but rather about quality makes perfect sense to me as well.

 

[Eternal]

Are you joking?
Steam is one of the most invasive DRMs in existence, and has forced usage for Valve customers. Valve is one of the worst anti-piracy treatment companies out there, they just managed to package it as something else, so we love them and hate EA.
He talks the talk, sure, but he doesn't walk the walk.
Stupid.

Copy Protection is what he really harps on in the interview, not so much the other forms of DRM.

A lot of early adapters still hold a solid grudge against steam NOW even if it has improved and lessened its hold. I wouldn't call it INVASIVE but it certainly excessive. SecuROM is invasive, it digs into your computer and regularly checks changes to your hardware/software and relays that information to servers and many of the products have limited install numbers and freak out if you change anything. Beyond that it also provides no positive to counter its negative aspects, in exchange for DRM steam provides a high quality service for free.

Should you be required to install and be running steam to be able to play your single player games? No.

But the system is not only upfront about what it does, it also is more easily removed, and allows you to install and play the game on any number of computers.

 

[Brother None]

I don't know if I'd call steam Invasive Assraping. For me at least, the auto-updating of every game along with never having to fuck around with cds or serials again balances out having to run it to access said games.

That's nice, but Impulse and GamersGate offer that too, without being DRM (or in Impulse's case, less invasive).

Look, just don't kid yourself. I use the heck out of Steam, but Steam is similar to consoles in one way: it's essentially a big-ass anti-piracy measure, which gobbles up huge fees from publishers for providing this anti-piracy protection.

The fact that it's packaged up with a smile is nice. The fact that it offers so many services is great. But it's still at its core DRM with a digital download store slapped on it.

 

[cronicler]

Bn: Sure it is a DRM, but to be frank it is an acceptable compromise. Paying for the minimal hoops (that you notice) that you have to jump to play the game, it allows you to safely store your games, update without too much hassle and other little tidbits.

Yes it is far, far from perfect but for the services it provides, it does demand reasionable demands from the user.

At the end it comes to the basic equation, does the service and its payment are in real lands or in choo-choo land like Ea and Ubi's idiot schemes...

 

[Sander]

The fact that it is decent value for money and a convenient program changes absolutely nothing about the fact that it is still DRM. You can like it all you want, but contending that it isn't DRM is ridiculous, and in that context Gabe Newell ranting against DRM is stupid.

 

[cronicler]

Sander: One way or another there is always going to be a "check" on the electronic media. You can't advocate that your freedom to use the product you purchased in any way you want is a stronger claim than the creator's wish to keep his creations' revenue safe.

Steam and similar services are the best compromise that we (humans) have found up to date. No one is totally satisfied with it but everyone can live with it. That is the soul of an acceptable solution.

 

[Sander]

Sander: One way or another there is always going to be a "check" on the electronic media. You can't advocate that your freedom to use the product you purchased in any way you want is a stronger claim than the creator's wish to keep his creations' revenue safe.

Steam and similar services are the best compromise that we (humans) have found up to date. No one is totally satisfied with it but everyone can live with it. That is the soul of an acceptable solution.

How is this relevant? No one is disputing that (although based on the simple fact that every single non-online game so far has been cracked very quickly one could easily dispute it as a 'reality'), and it isn't relevant to the fact that Steam is DRM.

I'm not saying that Steam is either good or bad, simply that it is DRM and hence Gabe Newell's bit is hypocritical. That's all.

 

[cronicler]

Heh, my little brainfart there. I thought you were playing devils advocate again (And i did not have utube access in previous posts )

 

[SuAside]

regardless of the copy protection issues and so on, he does have a point about the community funded games. i do believe we've had a thread about that a few years ago. i wholeheartedly support that idea. too bad a company like Troika never tried it... i'd have paid substantial amounts of money.

 

[Brother None]

regardless of the copy protection issues and so on, he does have a point about the community funded games.

And again, the wrong company and wrong person to present this message.

 

[SuAside]

regardless of the copy protection issues and so on, he does have a point about the community funded games.

And again, the wrong company and wrong person to present this message.

any wellknown company presenting that message is better than none...
who'd you prefer presenting that message? Iron Tower Studio or Valve?

quite frankly, i think Valve kinda wins there, my friend.

 

[Deleted member 53669]

Idealism aside.

If you have money and an internet connection, Valve owns.

If you have money and no internet connection, you get an internet connection anyways before you play games.

If you don't have any money, then work on that first.

Bottom line, valve owns.



Ohh, btw...

Valve games can still be pirated anyways. This battle between companies and hacker/piraters is the equivalent to the arms race during the Cold War. In the end, everyone got money and lots off cool stuff.

Except for that.... economy thing...

Wait a minute....

Dammit.

 

[Brother None]

any wellknown company presenting that message is better than none...

Oh right, we'd all love it if EA or Microsoft put this forward, huh?

Valve is one of the few gaming developers out there right now sitting on bags of money, and certainly a game developer that always thrived on mainstream hyped-up games selling millions. So where's the sense in that? Just because everyone fell for their lovey-dovey reputation?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

This battle between companies and hacker/piraters is the equivalent to the arms race during the Cold War. In the end, everyone got money and lots off cool stuff.

Except for that.... economy thing...

Don't overcomplexify the situation. The below quote sums it up much better:

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.

 

[Eternal]

regardless of the copy protection issues and so on, he does have a point about the community funded games.

And again, the wrong company and wrong person to present this message.

Actually while I don't know if Gabe is or is not the best PERSON to present the idea, I believe Valve is the best company to present it.

Ignoring the amount of fans and such they have look at it this way.

They are an well established software developer AND software publisher, and they created Steam as one of the earliest forms of Digital game distribution.

No other company regularly creates in-house games and publishes them as well as controls a digital distribution system allowing them to give direct downloads to PCs. Blizzard comes close with their new Battle.net system coming out, and Microsoft's Windows Live is a joke but also their in-house game development studio isn't exactly the most well respected for quality purposes.

Even if Valve and Gabe were pure evil and hated by many like microsoft is those are pretty much the perfect criteria for frontrunning an idea like what he suggested.