Valve bleats, ignores elephant in the room

Gabe Newell from Valve: Newell believes that if Apple makes a move on the living room before the PC industry gets a foothold, then the Cupertino manufacturer can “shut out the open-source creativity” possible with the Steam platform. Valve’s DRM system makes Apple look like a saint. I love Valve games but Steam is a … Continue reading “Valve bleats, ignores elephant in the room”

Gabe Newell from Valve:

Newell believes that if Apple makes a move on the living room before the PC industry gets a foothold, then the Cupertino manufacturer can “shut out the open-source creativity” possible with the Steam platform.

Valve’s DRM system makes Apple look like a saint. I love Valve games but Steam is a closed, DRM-heavy, anti-consumer stick. And on Mac it’s sluggish and buggy as hell too.

Waffle about open source creativity if you want, Gabe, but when your system means my account can only be used to play one of the 50 games I have bought from you at a time (meaning I can’t log in elsewhere and let my son play one of my other legally purchased games, then you look like the king of Digital Restrictions Management.

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0 thoughts on “Valve bleats, ignores elephant in the room”

  1. I still honestly don’t get your hatred for Valve.

    Yes, you can only play one game on one account at any one time, but isn’t that what EULA’s usually dictated before the advent of digital distribution? Isn’t that the same for all consoles, for example?

    Yes, the paradigm has shifted, allowing Valve (and the publishers who insist upon it) to ensure you comply with the EULA. Just because you remember being able to ‘beat’ the license agreement it doesn’t make Valve the king of DRM. It simply means that you’re operating within the terms provided.

    You may be able to allow your son to log in to your Apple account and play a game on another iOS device, but don’t forget that you’re always playing that game on Apple hardware, and Apple has a significant markup on each piece of hardware.

    Whereas, with Steam, you can play on Mac, Windows or Linux platforms – Hardware sales of which neither Valve, publishers, or indeed the developers are profiting from.

    Using one system Apple always wins, and developers may arguably lose out; Using the other system, Valve merely insists you honour the license agreement.

  2. Ignoring the walled garden of Apple, which is permissive in this respect. If I buy five games from GAME for PS3 or XBOX, I pay my money and I can play them on any of these devices, even concurrently. I can play X-COM on the XBOX in the living room and my son can play Dishonored on the XBOX in his bedroom.

    On STEAM, I buy 5 games and I can only play them one at a time. My son can’t play any of them because they’re on my account and I’m using my account.

    And it’s not hatred for Valve. My hatred is for hypocrisy.

  3. I’ve never actually owned an Xbox, but I imagine you could not play those games concurrently had they been bought on the Xbox’s own digital distribution platform, Xbox Live.

    It makes more sense when you think of a Steam account as a virtual machine, comparable to a hardware device…Comparable to the Xbox itself.

    It’s just the way the industry is going, and all things considered, the Valve system distributes wealth much more evenly than the Apple and Xbox systems…if you compare distribution paradigms appropriately.

    1. Which is exactly illustrative of the apologists who refuse to acknowledge that Steam DRM is actually much more heinous than anything Apple, Microsoft or even Sony have dreamt up. It’s the most anti-consumer DRM I have ever seen.

      Just because you like Valve, it doesn’t mean they’re not hypocrites. And it doesn’t mean that you’re not

      1. grading on a curve
      2. a hypocrite

      Accept it and move on. Newell is a millionaire, he doesn’t need your help. I buy stuff from Apple, Sony, Microsoft, Valve and Google. But I’m aware what I’m buying. And owning 50 games on Steam and not being able to let my son play a game I own because it’s on my account (and being un-used) is simply unfair.

      1. I’m a hypocritical apologist? Wow…

        All I’m saying is that if we were to re-approach this question in a decade, when we’re no longer shipping atoms to ship bits, and all the physical distribution stores have closed (like Game, but fer realz this time), that I believe that criticisms of Valve will no longer apply because all content will be associated with an account.

        1. Based on observed behaviour? Fraid so.

          Physical media is dying already and yet when you compare Apple/Google to Valve, Valve look like dinosaurs. But, somehow, according to your playbook, they’re the good guys.

          1. I didn’t say they were the good guys…Rather that considering whole picture, not just an end-user perspective – Publisher pressure to enforce EULAs, and the fact that Apple/Google/Microsoft make money off their platforms through hardware sales or other avenues – The Steam DRM strategy what the production-side of the industry demands from them.

            If they are the worst DRM you’ve come across you’ve obviously never used Ubisoft’s Uplay or EA’s Origin.

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