Valve Takes on Piracy With Free, Pre-Packaged Game Publishing Tools

Heartless Gamer writes "Valve is rocking the boat in a big way, especially for PC gaming piracy. They have just announced the release of a complete collection of publisher tools, called Steamworks. They're making it available to developers and publishers completely free. Valve notes that beyond simply making the product available to consumers some of the tools can integrate copy protection, social networking services, or even server browsing features into a developing game."

Valve and piracy

[Brian Gordon (987471)]

They don't really have anything to worry about- their madly popular titles are all multiplayer so piracy is impossible and "cracked" servers are rarely of any quality..

Re:Valve and piracy

[Brian Gordon (987471)]

Oh, also they're the only game publisher that actually charges a reasonable price for games, and the steam platform is fast and I love steamcommunity. Steam is really the first digital RIGHTS management system instead of digital restrictions management.. they provide so many top-quality services at the mere input of your password on any computer in the country that I'd rather have the DRMed version than the CD version. This is what the music industry should be somehow doing..

Re:Valve and piracy

[MvD_Moscow (738107)]

Yeah, I have to agree with you on that one. Using steam is actually better than buying a DVD. You can access your whole game library just by logging onto steam. No need to to care a HD with all the image/patch/no-CD data. Automatic updates, near instant access as soon as you pay for the game.

Though some parts of steam still need some work. The 'Favorite Servers' options in CS:S is kind of buggy and it doesn't always remember your favorites. The steam game store can also at times feel slightly slow, they need to make use of more AJAX with less reloading and new windows and stuff. They also need to improve their screenshots section. More screenshots and higher resolution.

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[bigstrat2003 (1058574)]

Oh, also they're the only game publisher that actually charges a reasonable price for games...

Uh, not really. Valve charges about the same price any other publisher would charge. Half-Life 2 was $50 when it was released, and the price has come down since then due to age... just like would happen at any publisher. Not to mention that Valve has some shining examples of unreasonably high pricing, like charging $20 for Portal, which is all of a 2- or 3-hour game.

Re:Valve and piracy

[p0tat03 (985078)]

I find Valve's pricing to be very reasonable. I bought the Deus Ex collection for $30, a better deal than I would've gotten at any other store, and the ability to find old titles certainly beats rummaging around the bargain bin at EB.

$20 for Portal is iffy, I agree, but consider that you get TF2, Portal, HL2, Ep1, and Ep2 for $50, it's a fricking steal. Even if you've already played all the singleplayer Half-Life games, TF2 + Portal combined is IMHO easily worth $50, particularly TF2.

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[bigstrat2003 (1058574)]

Except I'm not talking about the Orange Box here. The Orange Box is a great value (unless you only want one of the games), but that's not Portal. Portal's pricing has nothing to do with the pricing of the Orange Box, they're separate prices to be considered separately.

Re:Valve and piracy

[urbanriot (924981)]

I spend more than $20 for a round of drinks when I'm out at night... $20 for the wonderful enjoyment that Portal gave me, a game I'll never forget, was well worth it. $20 is f-all.

$20 for Portal is iffy, I agree, but consider that you get TF2, Portal, HL2, Ep1, and Ep2 for $50, it's a fricking steal. Even if you've already played all the singleplayer Half-Life games, TF2 + Portal combined is IMHO easily worth $50, particularly TF2.

Re:Valve and piracy

[Brian Gordon (987471)]

Do you still think Portal's price is unfair when it's part of Orange Box? Counter-Strike: Source and TF2 are both worth a full $50 but they've always retailed at $20 and $30. Episode 2 is worth eh $20. So portal's free per valve's pricing, and TF2 is disounted the entire price of portal for what I would pay for it!

Re:Valve and piracy

[ThinkingInBinary (899485)]

Do you still think Portal's price is unfair when it's part of Orange Box?

Hell, I thought Portal's price was fair when packaged alone! I normally expect to pay something like $50 for a really big game, so $20 for Portal, which is shorter than most games but quite excellent, was a good deal.

Re:Valve and piracy

[enderjsv (1128541)]

I agree. When some other companies are charging 50 bucks or more for utter crap games that make better coasters than pasttimes, I'm more than willing to pay 20 dollars for something of quality. LENGTH != QUALITY.

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[bigstrat2003 (1058574)]

I'm not talking about Portal as part of the Orange Box. I'm talking about the price of Portal, downloaded separately on Steam, which is a completely different issue.

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[brandonY (575282)]

Wait...you judge a game based on how long your initial play-through of the single-player game takes?

The initial playthrough of Nethack takes roughly 10 seconds. By your system, it's one of the worst games ever.

But wait, perhaps you mean you judge a game based on how long it takes to reach a successful ending. In Nethack, you can walk up the staircase to freedom. Successful end. By your system, Nethack's one of the worst games ever.

But wait, maybe Nethack IS one of the worst games ever and your system is

Re:Valve and piracy

[RonnyJ (651856)]

How can I sell my DRM'd Steam games though? I might not actually get around to selling any of my old games, but I feel I should have the right to.

You mention that the music industry should be doing similar, but this is the equivalent of being unable to buy or sell second-hand audio CDs.

Is there any particular reason why you should...

[patio11 (857072)]

... have that right? Aside from, "Well, it used to be that I got my media on a physical artifact, and we have always been able to sell physical artifacts."

From an econ view, if you're buying your game on a physical artifact, you're buying both the utility of the product with an implied option to sell. The option to sell costs you money -- this is precisely why a game you can finish in 8 hours on the XBox360/PS3/whatever (provide your favorite example, I don't own either system) costs $70 and a Portal, whi

Re:The particular reason:

[wolrahnaes (632574)]

The page you link to appears to say otherwise. The Adobe case listed shows that the EULA doesn't apply until you actually agree to it (presumably by installing it) but the next case after that seems to have the clear result that once you have entered in to the license agreement the publisher can limit your rights as outlined in the license.

Given that Steam (and pretty much every other online digital content store I've ever seen) requires you to agree to the EULA before you can even get an account, you can't claim any of the excuses you could against physical EULAs.

IANAL and such

Re:Valve and piracy

[ahoehn (301327)]

Exactly. With Valve games on Steam, you can:

1. Play your games on as many computers as you like, downloading them as many times as you want.
2. Install them on a friend's computer, and just like lending a book, your friend can use it any time that you're not.
3. Receive automatic content updates
4. Often chose to buy games individually or as a package.
5. Back up your downloaded copies of games
6. With HL2 Engine based games, even play them in Linux with Wine.

While I suppose you don't "own" physical copies of Steam games, I have enough rights that I never notice the downside.

The music and movie industries could learn a thing or six from Valve. I've never even thought of pirating a Valve game because they're so convenient and affordable to purchase.

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[Sparr0 (451780)]

7. Forget to perform some witchery when closing steam before disconnecting from the internet for a while, and find yourself unable to play any steam games until you can get back on the internet days or weeks later.

Re:Valve and piracy

[Kreigaffe (765218)]

I hope you read this because I'm blowing my chance of modding something, and for once a subject that actually interests me has coincided with mod points..

You are obviously doing something wrong. Steam is open, you disconnect from the internet? Close steam, restart steam, click the "Start in Offline mode" button. OR, simply open the Games menu, go to File, and down to the "Go Offline" option. ... it's really not hard. You can use steam and never ever connect to the internet and still play any of the single-player games with no problems whatsoever.

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[deadpool42 (1144515)]

Have you actually tried playing anything after doing that? If you want to actually play offline, you need to enable offline mode, run the game you want to play so it updates (even though when I tried it with TF2 it downloaded nothing, but still wouldn't play until you ran it first in online mode), and then it will be available in offline mode.

Regardless of difficulty, it's pretty ridiculous that you have to prepare for an Internet outage.

Re:Valve and piracy

[Sparr0 (451780)]

I always read replies, so thanks... But perhaps Steam has changed since I gave up on it. When I last used it, if you disconnected from the internet before going into offline mode then you could not play any games (for lack of "Authentication") until you got back online, even SP games.

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[Spikeles (972972)]

Ah, you forgot they give you the right NOT to transfer your account to someone else, they give you the right NOT to re-sell your game, they give you the right NOT to complain if a publisher charges too much (eg, Call of Duty 4 for Aussies ), they give you the right NOT to loan your game, they give you the right NOT to complain when they delete your thread from the forums... Yes.. seems they give you lots of RIGHTS..

Re:Valve and piracy

[badboy_tw2002 (524611)]

I'm actually pretty curious why they don't let you transfer rights to someone else - its not like you couldn't do it anyways. There's no limit on the number of accounts you could create, so you could:

a) Create a new account for each game
b) Buy the game with that account
c) Play game until you're bored
d) Sell account on ebay

I'm sure they have rules against this, but I'll bet it happens anyways. I know I did it when steam first launched to give a gift for christmas. I just created my brother an account, bought the game, and gave him the login. Now they have gift giving, and they let you transfer HL2 to someone else when you bought orange box, so I say "why not let me loan out the rights to one of my games to someone else?" I can't play it while they have the rights, and I can take the rights back when they're done. They could have a "transfer for good" or "let my friend borrow it" program. Its going to happen anyways, so why not enforce it and stop people complaining once and for all. They only hurt paying customers otherwise, because if your friend doesn't borrow it from you and doesn't want to pay for it, well, we know where they're going next.

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[LurkerXXX (667952)]

Probably because too many more people would start doing it. Then when their friend/ex-roomate, etc doesn't 'give-it-back' when they are supposed to and keeps playing it and locking out the guy who paid for it, he's gonna go complaining to Valve and it's going to increase support costs for them for no real good reason.

So can folks do it already now if they really want to? Yes. Does Valve want encourage it and have to take on extra support for no extra income? I kinda doubt it.

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[badboy_tw2002 (524611)]

Ah, but you have two types of transfers - a "transfer ownership" and a "loan". The ownership gives them the rights for good: they can transfer it to someone else or keep it forever. The loan means you can take it back whenever you want - the other guy is just borrowing it (but even better giving them than the disc or powertools- you can actually get this one back! :)

You forgot one

[Rob Simpson (533360)]

How about the right to be locked out of ALL of your Steam games [consumerist.com] if you dare to buy a game outside of your country?

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[FlyveHest (105693)]

hey give you the right NOT to complain if a publisher charges too much (eg, Call of Duty 4 for Aussies )

Why in the world would you complain to Valve about this? The price in EU is also priced about 18$ above store-price, but this is in not part Valves fault (or, problem for that matter)

If Activision decides that the price point should be this and that, then Valve, as a distributor, really can't (and shouldn't, imho) begin to, its wholly up to the publisher to decide.

If you want, send an e-mail to Activisio

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[asdfghjklqwertyuiop (649296)]

they provide so many top-quality services at the mere input of your password on any computer in the country that I'd rather have the DRMed version than the CD version.

I'll take the CD version any day. I just create an image of it and I don't have to log on to anything, don't have to have an Internet connection, don't have to worry about someone else's servers or connections getting flaky, don't have to worry about the company going out of business or just deciding one day that they don't want me to use my g

Exactly

[Rob Simpson (533360)]

Steam and similar DRM schemes are killing computer gaming for me. I refuse to buy any games that can't be run with a disk image or a crack, so I can play the games I've paid good money for when and where I want to play them. Morrowind and my Collector's Edition of Oblivion run without any hassles. Screw Valve.

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[Pyrion (525584)]

I guess you've never heard of Stardock?

Unlike Steam, I can have SDC running on multiple computers downloading games and updates to games without any of this "you can only log in on one machine" bullshit.

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[gfxguy (98788)]

The most important thing, in that respect, is that you are free to copy your stuff anywhere you want - work, other computers at home, friends computers, wherever; like the old philosophy "it's like a book, you can share it, but only one person can read it at a time," your account can only be logged in from any one location.

So you can make backups, you can transfer to as many computers as you want (I have it on my laptop and several desktops at home) - they still have their rights, and you still have yours.

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[EvanED (569694)]

They don't really have anything to worry about- their madly popular titles are all multiplayer...

You mean "except for Half Life, Half Life 2, Episode 1 and 2, and Portal", don't you?

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[Brian Gordon (987471)]

But who plays HL2 for more than 20 or 30 hours total, ever? That's how much TF2 many people play in a WEEK, and how much CS players play in a day.

Finally!

[PopeGumby (1125507)]

social networking services

After all these years, my dreams of playing as a violent, gun-toting, car-stealing, cop-killing psycopath who uses MySpace to invite all his BFFs to his Sweet-16 party is coming true.

As a longtime XboxLive user, I'd prefer it if they were reducing the amount of social networking in games, rather than increasing it.

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[Brian Gordon (987471)]

Have you seen steam community? Basically you join a group of people that you know from elsewhere on the internet, and any time in game you just open the overlay (hit pagedown) to display your open chat rooms and steam IM windows. You can see what games everyone's playing and can join the same server as them. This is great for games with long respawn like Counter-Strike.. just hit the overlay and spec the rest of the round through the semitransparent chat windows as you chat

Insert steam hate

[discord5 (798235)]

They have just announced the release of a complete collection of publisher tools, called Steamworks

Which will probably mean you'll be forced to deal with steam as an end-user. This is great news for all those who've seen Steam flat out refuse to start their games because the Steam servers were too busy (yes, single player games).

As a developer I'd be extremely wary of this as well, since I've just become dependent on something I have very little control over. I'm pretty sure that when I'm not paying a p

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[Gideon Fubar (833343)]

This is a real problem, though it should be noted that this doesn't happen after a game is signed to play offline.

also, the early implementations of the platform were quite buggy, in both client and network services. Most of these issues are sorted, but not all of them.

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[enderjsv (1128541)]

Leave it to a slashdot poster to find something to complain about with a free development kit. It's free, man. You get what you pay for.

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[Grant_Watson (312705)]

Leave it to a slashdot poster to find something to complain about with a free development kit. It's free, man. You get what you pay for.

And I as an end-user get what the developer pays for. I've avoided Steam and any game that requires it so far; I just wish there were more like me.

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[Brian Gordon (987471)]

I've never had any problems with steam connecting, but if you can't connect to the steam servers just disconnect your network and it'll let you play single player games with no fuss, since I've played HL2 many times without networking. "offline mode" it's called.

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[Goldberg's Pants (139800)]

I've been using Steam for over two years now and have NEVER had a game fail to start. The only problem I had was with Trackmania, and that was entirely down to the games own servers, not Steam.

Steam's benefits far outweigh it's problems IMO. I can buy a game and be playing it within an hour. Within minutes if it's a small game. ("Gish" for example.) No disks to lose, no serial numbers to lose. If I have to reinstall I can just download all my games again rather than having to find disks, installers, license

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[Chyeld (713439)]

I've only once had an issue with Steam's servers. The year Seattle got taken out by storms, their servers were down for a day. That's in all the years that I've played with Steam. One day.

I'm willing to give them that, given that's a better track record than my computer or any of the MMO's I've played, or any other similar platform (i.e. Xbox Live).

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[Brian Gordon (987471)]

You can buy games specifically for someone else, and with the Orange Box valve let you gift your HL2 and/or HL2E1 if you already owned it, but there's no way to transfer games. I think that's literally the only restriction you have on what you can do with the games... they even let you copy your games to discs if you really want a hard copy!

Am I strange?

[cliffiecee (136220)]

I'm against the idea of buying anything on physical media, which I then have to validate/register/"complete the purchase" online.

However, I'm okay with the idea of downloading the very same software (validation being one of the requirements for downloading).

I guess I feel that the "buy then validate" model is a cheat- If I bought it in a store, that should be proof enough. Whereas with downloading, they can do the validation/purchase at the same time.

Re:Am I strange?

[Tacvek (948259)]

I'm against the idea of buying anything on physical media, which I then have to validate/register/"complete the purchase" online.

However, I'm okay with the idea of downloading the very same software (validation being one of the requirements for downloading).

I guess I feel that the "buy then validate" model is a cheat- If I bought it in a store, that should be proof enough. Whereas with downloading, they can do the validation/purchase at the same time.

No you are correct. Note that this whole kit is really a steam integration kit. So the primary purchase method will be online purchase. However, having a physical box sitting on the shelf at Walmart is still great for advertising, and even better for giving as a gift. What I find really weird, is that unlike with Valve's boxed games, the steamworks games will apparently not include the exe file on the CD. The CD will have all the resources, and everything, but the exe itself will need to be downloaded over Steam. The advantage (to the developer) is that the exe downloaded can be watermarked with the name and account information of the downloader, which makes distributing a no-steam crack for the game (which is necessary for widespread piracy) a risky proposition.

Smart one

[obeythefist (719316)]

Because copy protection has never been broken before, making it free will mean that game copying will stop forever. Just like how DRM ceased all music and video copyright infringement.

Warning:

[feepness (543479)]

Steam is great for first party Valve games and older games that have been out for awhile and had their issues sorted out.

It absolutely sucks for newer games which have their own copy protection schemes. See BioShock and Company Of Heroes: Opposing Fronts. I had trouble with Opposing Fronts and had to wait for a runaround before I got my money back, after which they said they would not do another. If you do a chargeback and they disable your account you will lose access to ALL your games.

I like Steam for Valve stuff... but just be careful with untested third party software. You can check there own forums on steampowered.com to see if people are having issues.

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[DingerX (847589)]

They're giving away the tools for DRM, automatic updates, encrypted delivery (unlock at release date), voice comms, community access and server browsing. They are not giving away access to their network.

So, they're giving away the parts of their toolkit that would make all those 3d-party games not suck with Steam.

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[enderjsv (1128541)]

I think he means that they are fighting piracy because they are supplying free tools to independent developers that will aide them in securing their source code. It is a little unclear, though.

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[Brian Gordon (987471)]

Because valve is so ridiculously awesome.. they give away their whole SDK package for making Source games, which has given us tens of thousands of maps and some crazy fun mods like Insurgency and SourceForts. Now they're giving away the tools to not only produce the games, but also deliver them yourself without getting your profits sucked dry by a useless publisher. If you can still pirate games from a company as awesome as Valve, div by zero universe panic

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[snowraver1 (1052510)]

So your telling me that the developers of CoD4 didn't think to validate the client keys agianst a database of valid keys, and flagging accounts that have multiple logins from different IPs? I refuse to believe that.

I don't know what do suggest the mods rate you... hmm. Not troll, (There really should be a -1 wrong), maybe overrated...