Valve - Credit: valvesoftware.com
Video game maker Valve decries DRM as redundant and devaluing.
Valve is a wonderfully open company—in many cases, direct questions sent to the publisher will be answered by a member of the creative team within hours. One gamer recently e-mailed Valve and asked why he saw EA’s logo on a commercial for Left 4 Dead: he bought the game via Steam but didn’t want to support EA after the Spore DRM debacle. He got a reply from a managing director at the company, Gabe Newell, that was to the point: EA only handles distribution for the physical product, and Valve thinks most DRM is “just dumb.”
Newell doesn’t have kind words for the use of digital rights managements. “As far as DRM goes, most DRM strategies are just dumb. The goal should be to create greater value for customers through service value… not by decreasing the value of a product.”
December 4th, 2008 at 16:46
He seems to be forgetting his own company’s Steam software is itself a dumb DRM scheme.
February 18th, 2009 at 2:21
Too true, and more and more game companies are using Steam as the new SecuROM. DoW2, and Empire: Total War are the first in what will likely be a pile of new games which will require Steam whether you buy it thru steam or in a brick and mortar store.
To be honest, I’m not terribly against the concept of Steam, except that I dont like every game i own being tied to one account with which they can take away $100s of dollars worth of games if someone hacks my account, or I make a mistake and swear or something that breaks the terms of use and gets me banned. I do not like how I cant access my games if steam goes down or I lose my internet. I dont like the requirement of being logged into the stupid client when i start a game (it runs on Internet Explorer, which I delete from my system for a reason). However, I do appreciate the auto updates (except when I’m playing a different game and the update download slows down my internet), and I also appreciate the support it provides for community mods of popular games. There can be something better though…