← Back to context

Comment by mnahkies

4 days ago

When I brought half life 2 there was a lag of about 2-4 years before I could play it for the first time - I didn't read the fine print, and on a dial up connection I couldn't get past the steam client updating in a reasonable amount of time, mind you I was able to download much larger Linux ISOs over time frames of a month+ through resumable downloads.

Not really an issue these days but it certainly was back in the day

10 comments

mnahkies

Reply
autoexec  4 days ago

Steam's DRM is still an issue today and it means that you have to get cracked copies of most of the games you paid for in your library if you expect to ever own them. I spent some months without an internet connection only to find the steam games I'd been playing offline just fine suddenly refused to launch until I allowed steam to phone home to grant me permission to play the games I paid for. Steam could go out of business at any time and all your games would simply stop working.

  • mnahkies  4 days ago

    I'm aware, and I'm choosing GOG when I can now, though even then I see phoning home (or attempts to) happening (opensnitch is useful for that https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch) - I've paid for some titles 2-3x over which is frustrating, admittedly I don't have the physical media from the first time which is on me, but it's frustrating seeing single player games wanting to phone home

    • autoexec  4 days ago

      Is the GOG client the thing phoning home? I've refused to install it so far and I've just been downloading the installers directly.

      1 reply →

  • galleywest200  4 days ago

    Steam's DRM is entirely optional. It is up to the game publishers to use it.

    • jchw  4 days ago

      AFAIK Steam really has three things you could consider part of the DRM strategy.

      - The Steamworks DRM, which is a lightweight EXE packer. Seems about as simple as UPX. Presumably it goes and checks that you own the app ID via Steam RPC on startup.

      - Checking that the user owns the app ID via the API. A simple check that's pretty simple to bypass using a Steam emulator.

      - And then finally the ticketing system, which allows third-party servers to validate that a user owns a given game according to Steam.

      Of them the ticketing system is the most serious: it's something you can't really bypass easily. However, it also is only applicable to things that require servers. I know in Valve's own games, its only something that comes up with game servers, and I don't even know if it's forced on in their dedicated server. It seems like a stronger version of dedicated servers that used to have CD key checks.

      DRM is DRM, and these mechanisms impact your ability to use things the way that you should be able to. That I would never deny. However, I will say that because it's relatively lightweight, for software that sticks to just what Steam offers and doesn't try to get creative, they're mostly only going to prevent casual piracy, and I think the main purpose of these mechanisms is mostly to just clear the technical bar for being a copy protection mechanism by law. When it comes to preserving these games beyond the end of the Steam service, it probably won't be a big deal, and it will actually be third-party DRM options like Denuvo and SecuROM that are harder to deal with and could potentially pose a threat for preservation and keeping access to games you own.

      So while I don't really like Steam DRM, severity matters. If "no DRM" was just simply not on the table, I'd take Steam-native DRM as a good second choice. It is still a problem that it is technically illegal to break those locks to just be able to use something you bought with your own cash, but I think that's something we need to fix in the law, and I think we can, and honestly, despite the direction things are going, I do believe we will. Just a shame that I'm less sure I'll live to see the day at this point.

      2 replies →