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."

Re:Valve and piracy

[Brian Gordon]

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..

Insert steam hate

[discord5]

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 penny, Valve will gladly make sure that everything is working 100% of the time.

FWIW, steam does have its benefits, but the amount of problems I've had with steam as a player don't give me much confidence as a developer.

Re:Valve and piracy

[EvanED]

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?

Re:Am I strange?

[Tacvek]

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.

Re:Insert steam hate

[Brian Gordon]

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!

Warning:

[feepness]

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.

Re:Valve and piracy

[badboy_tw2002]

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.

My only concern is...

[Joelfabulous]

There are some issues I have with the service, namely if it ever goes under (doesn't seem likely in the near future, but technology can be picky), what happens to all my purchases? (I only have currently one registered game on there but plan on picking up the Orange Box some time soon.) I don't know that Valve can just unlock the (already) sold products once and for all if they go under or if they'd have to keep running the authentication servers, etc. Also, I don't have any problems with the whole needing to update before I play thing as I've always lived near major metropolitan centres in Canada, but for those people without broadband... Well, I remember 28.8 baud and 56k connections... That can't be much fun. Oh, and you need an internet connection before you can actually run the game. For some people, I can see how that'd be a show stopper. You can't really buy a Steam game used, either. At least the prices are decently fair, particularly when bundled. I almost wonder if they bundle since it increases sales figures / helps them squeeze a few bucks more out of people since the bundles are a far better deal than buying things in singles... That said, it's nice to not have to search for no-cd patches or duplicate my existing copies by working around really crappy copy protection schemes just so I can ensure my legitimately bought and paid for game is still playable five years from now, accidents notwithstanding. It's nice to not have to keep track of CDs and stuff when moving, and that I can wipe it off my hard drive and install it from the net with no consequences. In my mind, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages by a long shot. If you're worried about Valve taking the information they can collect re: your anonymous system statistics or just making a cash grab and running for it, well, they haven't done so thus far, but they could... As it stands, it's a pretty solid service, and they have to pay for the bandwidth / server costs / uptime somehow.

Re:Valve and piracy

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

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 games any more, don't have to ask other people for permission to use my own stuff, etc...

CD imaging software is the sort of Digital Rights Management system that I prefer - one that is focused on managing MY rights rather than someone else's.

You forgot one

[Rob Simpson]

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?

Exactly

[Rob Simpson]

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.