He’s right. Everyone hated the idea of any always online DRM to play the disc you bought in a store. Steam backed off with options for a game to sometimes work offline and a pinky promise to free your games if Gaben died and the new owner decided you own nothing.
It’s weird, people hate the current DRM system for games and love Steam. Yet it was Steam that pioneered it. If Steam failed, there’s a chance we would still own games instead of them being tied to online DRM verification.
Steam is the benevolent dictator but that’s not going to last forever.
This is revisionist history. Steam was not the origination of DRM or even online DRM.
He didn’t say valve created DRM he said that steam pioneered it. Don’t revision people comments.
Had to google “pinoneered”, but it say: “developed or be the first to use or apply” and i do not think valve did either.
They have an easy way for developers to implemet drm by require steam services tho.
But in my opinion it is better there are few well understood methods instead of a million uniqe ones. Incase there is a world this have to be reverse engeneered.
I referenced DRM in the context of online DRM.
American pioneers didn’t discover that America existed. They went out with maps from earlier explorers and settled.
Can you name any online DRM single player game that came out before HL2 and was as popular as Half Life 2? I played fps’s and rts’s in 2004 and none of them required online DRM.
The Steam hate was huge on forums I frequented. (Arstechnica, Slashdot, Usenet)
To be a pioneer is to be the first to do something. In the context of American pioneers, they were Western settlers, who intended to actually live in the place rather than just chart it. If you put enough qualifiers in front of it that I don’t think are necessary to the argument, like “single player”, then sure, they were probably pioneers. I can find an old RTS from a failed digital distribution platform a few years earlier that also seems to qualify, but fine. Even still, there’s no world where we didn’t have Steam and then online DRM didn’t become standard, because you’d have to ignore the world we lived in post-Napster that led to iTunes, which had online DRM at the time. The lack of it in video games was likely due to middleware partners having not invented the solution for it yet, but I guarantee you they were working on it (SecuROM was only a few years later), as both piracy and used copies were the enemy of the video game industry for decades, and aggressive DRM measures at the time would even negatively interface with and end up breaking some users’ disc drives. Combine that with how lucrative MMOs were turning out to be for their recurring revenue, and there was no way we weren’t rapidly converging on exactly what Steam and live service games ended up being.
The Steam hate back then was as prevalent as you say, and it earned it, particularly back then.
I remember, buy game. Enter CD key “key already taken” Return game “sorry, box is open we don’t take media returns” Rage.
“Actually this disc is defective. I’d like to exchange it for a new one.”
This trick will be useful if you ever go back to 1999.
Steam pioneered always on drm? Do you have a source? I thougt that was ubisoft and maxis primarily. That developers use steam services to implement their always on drm is something else. But it is the developers that have to click that checkbox.
No, that’s what consumers like you are thinking in hindsight and unrelated.
The context Gabe is talking about is when he was approaching publishers. They were just being anti tech and believing in traditional brick and mortar. They were definently pro-DRM. They just couldn’t fathom a digital marketplace.
Maybe you weren’t old enough to remember it, but people were pissed and swore they would forever boycott Steam when it released
Steam is undoubtedly convenient.
But if any game you care about keeping is on GOG, it’s a good idea to buy a copy on there, and then squirreling away the offline installer files/extracted game files somewhere safe.
Steam is undoubtedly inconvenient. Imagine a third party proprietary launcher filled with ads was required to use your browser.
You can use steam without ever seeing an ad. Due to low internet bandwidth I just turned off the couple of popups and I currently see 0 ads if I don’t specifically go to the store part. Steam boots into library, so no ads, none in downloads. I don’t use the rest unless I’m actually looking for a new game.
The only “ad” steam pushes into your face is the startup pop-up, which can be disabled in settings.
Without that, you can use whatever you like to launch your games. Valve doesn’t care. You can have a desktop shortcut for every one of your games and never see steam open, or use something like PlayNite to aggregate the games from several services into one library.
Games used stuff like cd keys and even pieces of paper that deciphered codes as DRM. DRM was always something sought after by companies. Just take a look at Sony rootkit scandal for music CDs.
I referenced Online DRM. Can you name a single player game from before 2004 that required online DRM to play? (Not register. You needed to verify online almost every time before playing.si gle player HL2. )
It could last a very long time, though. It’s a privately owned company, so if they keep it that way, there’s no board to satisfy with big payouts and stock holders to appeas. There’s a lot less bullshit to deal with when you’re a private company.
Also, drm and online registering is way older than steam.
The best drm was back on floppy drives. You needed a piece of tape to cover the square hole so you could copy the game for your buddy. Lol.
Can you name a big single player game from before 2004 that required online DRM?
Because you originally couldn’t play single player HL2 without internet. They slowly backed off the DRM but it wasn’t like you needed to register once and could play forever. You needed Internet to play single player.
I don’t remember needing a constant internet connection to play hl2. I just remember needing it after the initial install. 20 years was a long time ago, so I don’t remember if it was the first single player game that had to be activated online first to run or not. I remember a lot of cd keys and ban type stuff for multi-player games pre hl2, but I don’t recall any single player ones.
There were some very elaborate copy-protection schemes. Like, “go to page 12 in the manual and enter the word at the bottom of the page”. Of course, people could just share what the word was, so some games did stuff like having a fucking codewheel in the manual, instead. So you had to take the code the game gave you, turn the wheel to the correct spot, and then enter the result the wheel gave you.
One of the most famous moments of Metal Gear Solid is an anti-piracy measure.
That tracks, everyone still owned their games back then. At least Gaben got his 8 yatchs though.
Remember when you could sell games you’d never play again and people less fortunate than you could have their fun with them for a much lower price?
Yeah, but now at least the games still go on sale for a cheaper price and there isn’t a rare game that you can’t find anymore and if you do it’s $130.
Fun fact: if you want Harvest Moon for snes the game will cost you about $400. Good condition with the box and papers will go over a grand. Snes Aero Fighters is $1,500 for an ok cartridge.
True, that’s a point. Though we don’t know if it would be that way now too with ownable physical stuff. Gaming became waaaaaay more mainstream.
Also, steam inventory-gift-games are equally priced now. For collectors. At least thrice the original asking price for stuff you even can get for free. Last one i sold was 15 when it came out, was already in bundles a lot and it went for 100 moneyz.
I sent them an angry email when I bought my first house. I had purchased a physical copy of a game because I was waiting for my Internet to get turned on. I wasn’t able to play because it required an internet connection to complete the registration. I was so mad. I told them I would never buy another thing from Valve. That turned out to be the lie of the century. I was super wrong and Valve has been a company you can be proud of for decades. I often think about what a jackass I was for sending that email.
Valve has been a company you can be proud of for decades.
So proud of a company whos ceo built a billion dollar fleet of mega yachts abducting kids into gambling.
I love how you spam the same copy pasted stupidity everywhere steam is mentioned without knowing what abducted means.
Especially since the most expensive ones are - an experimental fishing vessel designed as a test platform for better eco-stewardship in the fishing industry, a mobile hospital that travels to places that can’t afford hospitals, or are experiencing a major catastrophe that has left their medical facilities overwhelmed, one of the most advanced scientific vessels when it was built, and more plans for boats with purposes like these.
Yes, there are luxury ones, but, as far as billionaire’s production of super yachts go, Gabe is still the least worst billionaire I personally know of.
I don’t think you were a jackass. You purchased a physical copy and thus shouldn’t need an internet connection to start your game (unless it’s multiplayer only). It’s crazy how easy it is for people to get used to new normals when it comes to things like this.
Yup. Valve rocks, but they’re not perfect. When I buy a game from Nintendo, I expect it to just work without updates, and they do. I don’t understand why other companies get a pass.
This is why I don’t but games on release anymore (except Nintendo first party), and why I’m largely okay with PC being digital only. Reward the behavior you want to see.
i’m pretty confused why people here understandably hate DRM, monopolies, and billionares, but are fine with steam and Gaben
Companies still fear piracy so DRM isn’t going anywhere, and companies are still reluctant to release games on PC.
Hate of monopolies is one I have when a company uses their position to make products worse than it was before like Sony and Nintendo moving to charging for multiplayer. And it’s a monopoly on a platform they don’t control. There’s no regulatory body preventing launchers from popping up like broadband expansion being blocked by government lobbying like traditional monopolies.
When steam shifts in bad direction I’ll complain too. For now I haven’t found reason to complain about Steam. I like the product Steam offers simple as that. I don’t care about the personalities of the CEO or how much money it makes. It’s not some checkmark of X is Y so must hate.
There’s no regulatory body preventing launchers from popping up like broadband expansion being blocked by government lobbying like traditional monopolies
Sorry I can’t figure out this sentence. What did you mean by launchers here
Even huge companies like Google have encountered roadblocks trying to expand broadband services because of regulations.
PC launchers though is one that can be started even by you on Windows or Linux with the difficulty being getting customers as opposed to whether you are even allowed to make a launcher in the first place.
If I buy something, decide I don’t want it anymore, I can refund it within 2 hours of playtime or 24 hours of purchase (I might have the exact numbers wrong, but whatever). I’ve only ever used this a couple of times, but this is a reasonable expectation if you think of a video game as a product that you purchase much like any other product. I’ve never had problems with refunds, ever.
One time I bought a game on nintendo switch, and discovered that I couldn’t play it because it required joycons and I didn’t have any of those. I attempted to refund the game, but nintendo won’t let you refund a game if you’ve downloaded it.
I still buy games on steam. My switch though, I gave that away.
I like that even without real competition on the market, they keep on improving and innovating the platform.
It’s a company that want’s to make money but they way they do it, giving the customers the best most experience possible, wishes me for other companies would take notice of. And i don’t only distribution platforms.
even without real competition on the market,
Which is the effect of
giving the customers the best most experience possible
I mean, if even Steam would have stopped 5 years ago with adding and innovating and just maintaining everything to work smoot, they still would be better than any other platform. Just sit and count money.
Look at epic, I happily claim every week the game they give away, but where is the motivation to even consider them over steam. They had all this time and money to just copy things steam did right or add new things themselves .
Almost nothing happens.
