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this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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Technology
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They also distribute the largest closed source digital restrictions management system...
So?
Closed source isn't necessarily evil, neither is DRM. It's all in how you implement it.
Valve's launcher/drm are so much less intrusive than their competitors. They've demonstrated more openness to user customization and modding over the years than just about anyone else. If we didn't have Valve, we would have more EA and Epic Games, do you really want that?
DRM isn't evil, it's just it's current implementations and the fact that when the software is abandoned companies don't remove it. There's no end of life plan for their software
Also some forms in the past have been straight up evil.
I'll never forget sending a letter to a dev because I lost their code wheel for a game I owned and they sent a letter back telling me to buy the game again ‡
I'd say that was my first step towards piracy
‡ Before anyone asks: No I don't remember what game it was for or what company I sent it to, that was decades ago.
I'd say in your case piracy was 1000% justified. You bought it, you should be able to play it.
I think piracy is acceptable if one of these two conditions are met:
The main problem is the "No end of life plan" issue
If the software/game/whatever has to call a server to verify itself then when the company goes under or stops supporting it then the software/game/whatever becomes useless without a crack of some kind that may or may not be possible for the layman to implement
Companies need an end of life plan for their products with DRM
Someone actually emailed Valve about this back in 2013. Here's their response: https://i.imgur.com/4sa1Ln6.jpg
It seems like Valve wants us to think they have an EoL plan. With the goodwill they've built over the years, I want to believe them.
I don't get this trend of finding someone identifying legitimate problems with the best available option and trying to have discussion on a discussion website and drowning them with "B-b-but everyone else is worse! If we didn't have [lesser evil] then we would surely have [greater evil]! Why do you want [greater evil]???"
Being closed source and using DRM aren't necessarily problems. In Valve's case, they aren't at all. Valve's DRM doesn't hurt performance, and doesn't stop you from playing their games offline.
Doesn't that depend on game devs?
I mean, I can copy Baldur's Gate on a PC where there's no Steam at all and play it just fine, because the game itself doesn't have any restrictions. If other games have DRMs I don't think it's Steam fault.
If you want to be totally free from DRMs you need to check GOG, if a game is there, it doesn't have DRM, so neither the Steam version will.