That’s kind of why they are successful though, right? They were the ones that figured out how to supply games digitally for a profit, which required a way to prevent people from sharing the product for free. This was previously done with CD keys, but the advent of the internet rendered that mostly ineffective.
Comment on Valve runs its massive PC gaming ecosystem with only about 350 employees
Lets_Eat_Grandma@lemm.ee 2 months agoI think people often hate steam for their success
I hate them for forcing me to use a kind of DRM which will stop working once their servers stop.
Halflife was just fine without steam. Adding steam seemed to be a way to stop players from sharing CD keys.
Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Abnorc@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I think publishers value the fact that steam is essentially a form of DRM, so we got fairly lucky all things considered. Imagine if steam didn’t exist and we had to deal with software like Uplay and Origin.
morbidcactus@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Imagine if securom was everywhere again.
homicidalrobot@lemm.ee 2 months ago
You can play: Half-Life 1: Source Half-Life 2 Half-Life 2: Episode One Half-Life 2: Episode Two All with steam closed. Original half life expansions aside, your take is senile. I suppose alyx could’ve done without it.
Lets_Eat_Grandma@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Okay, but what about all the games that have come out since steam has launched and ONLY have online-only drm options?
Not talking about MMOs because those are their own beast. I’m talking about a huge amount of games though excluding mmos.
homicidalrobot@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Okay, but what about pre-steam DRM? But what about services that have existed for less time and actually done the slippery slope shit you’re cowering in your boots about (Uplay)? You’re so busy listing possible problems and making problems up that you are not comparing and contrasting your available options. It strikes me that you are complaining to complain and don’t have realistic solutions in mind, you’re asking for either a rental system where you put up collateral to play a game or you’re suggesting that the developer only be able to sell a game once. Are you one of those crazy “first sale doctrine” sovcit types?
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
And the fact that they can just decide to take your games away from you by deleting your account?
wolfshadowheart@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
Luckily steamless is piss easy to use because Steams “DRM” is only meant to be preventative. As in, you’re playing it on steam for the community, workshop, cloud saves, per game notes, control scheme setups, etc etc.