> After all, Gaben’s primary product is essentially a DRM platform (one of the first online DRM platforms for that matter!), evidently he believes he can’t comp

> After all, Gaben’s primary product is essentially a DRM platform (one of the first online DRM platforms for that matter!), evidently he believes he can’t compete with piracy on service quality alone. Steam DRM is entirely optional and not required to put the game on Steam. DRM is game developer choice, steam is just giving a (shitty, easily breakable) option. > Take Cyberpunk 2077 or The Witcher 3. You can buy a DRM free copy from GoG pretty easily… yet the torrents for it are still quite active from what I can see. Well, some people won't start paying even if they have means. And some will not have enough money to ever say "okay I will actually buy game instead of putting it towards updating my rig". Question is really how many of those would be converted vs. just not play the game, especially now where there is plenty of F2P stuff, or insane value bundles or sales.