4 ms·
> Steam's DRM is why I've bought more games than I've pirated. Steam's DRM has nothing to do with why individuals buy games on Steam. Steam offsets the net neg
by mavrc 13y ago
> Steam's DRM is why I've bought more games than I've pirated.
Steam's DRM has nothing to do with why individuals buy games on Steam. Steam offsets the net negative of DRM by bundling in a number of very attractive value-adds, like the ability to reinstall your games on any system without media, keeping all your games up to date for you, syncs settings and such (for Steamworks games) and provides an attractive platform for communicating between friends/arranging games and such. Not to mention that they have great sales. (For me, the first one is the killer feature. I hate playing the install + patch game.)
Now, they could easily provide all of those things without adding any DRM at all, but they don't, presumably because neither they nor their customers (which, make no mistake, are primarily the companies who distribute games through their platform) want it enough to cause it to come to pass.
I mean, I love Steam, it's incredibly handy and has singlehandedly transformed the way I consume games. But let's not pretend it's something it's not.
- CJefferson 13y agoThere is at least one game I would have pirated, but could not find a functional pirated copy of, so I bought it on steam. If steam had no DRM I am confident it would have been much easier for me to pirate it (I would have copied it from the friend who suggested it to me).
- andyhmltn 13y agoIMO DRM has nothing to do with piracy in a lot of people (at least who I've spoken to.) It's more about convenience. I went to pirate a film last year. Mind you, it was a film I had purchased but I didn't have it on holiday with me so I thought about just downloading it on a torrent site. But then I noticed YouTube offered the same movie for £2.50 rental, streamed on a fast connection in HD 1080p. That is what stopped me pirating it. Not because I couldn't find it, but because I found an option that was more convenient than waiting 8 hours for a download. That's what Steam does really well. Why would I bother pirating that game, when I can pay a pretty small fee and have it ready to play within half an hour tops?
- CJefferson 13y agoIs it possible that you (and people you have spoken to) have more disposable income to buy entertainment than they have time to consume that entertainment? People above that line are happy to spend more money to save even small amounts of time. People below that line often want to pirate, to allow them to spend their money on other things.
- andyhmltn 13y agoPossibly, although I wouldn't say it mattered. £2.50 can hardly be classed as a huge amount of money. The benefit of paying that amount vs waiting a few days and getting a version that's below in terms of quality is pretty obvious.