View Single Post
Old 05-08-2008, 10:17 AM   #33 (permalink)
Martian
Young Crumudgeon
 
Martian's Avatar
 
Location: Canada
Yeah, all Valve products have DRM through Steam.

I'm not against Steam entirely. As a content delivery system it's pretty damned convenient. As a front-end for my games it's the same deal. It's nice that my games will auto-update as long as Steam is open. It's also great that I never have to worry about losing or damaging the CDs for the game, or upgrading my computer. I can simply log into my Steam account and so long as I've got sufficient bandwidth I can re-download that sucker anywhere I want. The DRM aspect is pretty non-intrusive. It does worry me that all Steam-enabled games become unusable if I can't connect to the Steam servers, but I'd like to think the Valve folks will be forward looking enough that if they ever take the Steam servers down they'll offer some sort of patch or work-around.

The key part is this:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cynthetiq
If you buy a music, game, book, movie, you own a physical representation of it WITH NO LIMITATION to how or where you use it, it exists for all intrinsic purposes, forever.
When you walk into your favourite game store and buy a copy of the latest game, you're not really buying the CDs (or DVDs, as the case may be). The physical media provide the content delivery, but what your hard earned cash is really getting you is a license. EULAs are more or less restrictive depending on the company and the product, but there has not been one to date that has stated that you may only use the product for x amount of years, and rightly so. There'd be an outcry at that sort of restriction. What these online DRM models do is effectively the same thing. These companies are deciding that you get to use their game only so long as it's profitable for them. And that, frankly, is not what I pay for.
__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame
Martian is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360