(Hey everyone following me on IGN. First, I just wanted to say thank you. I also wanted to apologize for not being as active over here as I would have liked. Some real life stuff got in the way, but I’m hoping that I’ll be back when a vengeance and frequent updates very soon. This is the first in a new series I’m going to be running every week or two. My monthly “against the flow” will also return within the next few days)
In We Should Stop, The Head Pirate looks the things we all say and do as gamers, and picks apart the things we all do but really shouldn't be doing.
Nothing New
The only thing new about DRM (which stands for digital rights management) is the “D”. All video games, whether they come on a cartage, a CD, or you download them from the internet, are software and software ownership has always been an inherently tricky thing. When I (read: My Parents) paid $40 for Super Mario Brothers for the NES it sure looked like I was “buying” something. I had a physical copy that came in a nice box and I could trade it, resell it, or do anything I wanted with it. However, unlike my 10-speed BMX bike or my sweet racing car bed, there was something different about my NES cartridge. I didn’t understand it at the time but it was very easy for me to make a copy of the software on the cartridge. Because of this, when Nintendo sold it to me they needed to be clear they were not transferring ownership of the code itself and that I was simply licensing the software for my own personal use. I was expressly forbidden from reproducing it for profit. Simply asking nicely (and having me agree to a mostly non-binding EULA) wasn’t the only tool Nintendo had to keep people from re-selling games however; there was a small chip in the NES that would detect unlicensed or duplicated games and prevent them from running. This is how, way back in 1983, “Rights Management” for video games was born; a physical system that managed the end users right to use the software on NES cartridges, as well as developer’s rights to publish games on the system.
While copying a NES cartage was “easy” the cost of bootleg cartridges and the hardware needed was prohibitive enough that it wasn't much of a problem. That changed significantly when games on the PC started to get popular. Anyone could easily make a copy of a computer game and distribute it on a floppy disk or CD. While the cost of a single copy had gone down, the cost of mass production was still expensive enough to keep large scale pirating limited to organized groups. Then the internet changed everything; now anyone with the time and bandwidth could mass distribute a game with minimal effort. Something needed to be done, but what?
Thief prevention good, rights reductions bad
I’ve never met anyone who complains about how unreasonable it was for a store to expect you to make your way over to the checkout and pay for something. Sure, they could just use the honor system and we could toss money on the floor, but we understand that there are some bad people in the world and this minor step is justified by the retailer trying to protect their investment. This should be just as true for digital video games, and to me is the biggest area where we all get DRM wrong. DRM is not theft prevention. Thief prevention is the idea that you need to take some minor step to prove you've paid for a product at the store, and we all agree it’s pretty reasonable (or at the very least do it every day without much fuss). In the 90s and early 2000s most games had some form of copy protection that required you to use a code wheel or a CD key to verify you had a legal copy. This isn't DRM because it’s not managing your rights to the software but simply checking to see if you bought it.
DRM, as we know it today, started with Sony Music. Beyond trying to stop people from selling illegal copies, they didn't like the idea of someone buying a CD, ripping it to a computer, and leaving the original in the car. They saw a real potential for lost income. In the past, if you had two children who both liked the same artists, you needed to get them each a CD. Game developers loved this line of thinking and set about including software that would limit the number of times a game could be installed, would require an online check, or any number of annoyances to not just ensure the person playing the game had paid for it, but that the digital rights in the EULA were being followed to the letter*. This is the DRM we all know and hate, and with good reason. Instead of trying to prevent some people from stealing, companies had started to assume we were all stealing and they needed to limit our rights in order to mitigate the damage we could do with our ill-gotten products. At its peak we saw games like "Spore" which only offered a single install for any reason. Change your video card, format your PC, or even suffer a hardware melt down and you’re out of luck. You need to go buy a new copy.
Failure to launch
Any time Steam makes its way into a conversation about DRM, the fault is always directed at the launcher. Without it installed you can’t play your Steam games. This looks a lot like DRM: even though an offline mode is offered, you have to be online and install every game first before you can use them without being connected to the internet. But Steam is a digital store front, and being online to buy the game is a requirement. It’s like going up to the counter and paying for your product in a brick and mortar shop and is simply a method of thief prevention. If you need to install the game again, you have to be online again in the same way you need to show a receipt in a physical store. There is no attempt by Steam to limit the number of computers the game is installed on, no activation limit, or anything of the sort. My steam account has active copies of games I only bought once on 7 PCs right now, and I can play them “offline” on all 7 at the same time. Although I’m not doing anything illegal (they are all my PCs and I don’t use them at the same time) this is exactly the type of things DRM exists to prevent. While there are games on Steam that require an online connection, or use 3rd party DRM, Steam itself is not the reason.
So why dose Steam have a launcher at all, and why is it required? Turns out it isn't. Valve offers a DLL to developers that helps them to a number of things, mostly related to updating games and adding supports for the Valve servers and Steam Workshop. It’s an investment on their part; they know an old game is more likely to sell if it is updated to include modern resolutions and supports a game pad, they make more money the more copies that sell, but they know must developers are not going to spend the time and money into coming up with the code themselves. Games that require this code require the launcher**. Games that don’t utilize this code or other online features don’t require the launcher to run.
The final Word
DRM is a very horrible thing, and we all are right to oppose it. We also need to be mindful of the message we send in opposition. While it’s reasonable for us to reject any reduction in the rights we have when buying software, it’s also reasonable for the companies we are buying from to do what they can to prevent theft. Steam is a digital distribution service that does what it can to keep people from stealing games, but does nothing to manage digital rights. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best of two imperfect worlds. By opposing it we are telling the music and gaming industry they are right; we are all thieves, and we want to be able to steal things. We should stop doing that.
*And more so. For the last 10 years EULA have been used increasingly to challenge or force users to forfeit long held rights like the “first sale doctrine” in the US with overwhelming success. While most of the blame is with the music and motion picture industry, game companies are more than happy to take advantage of the latest legal wins.
**They require steam_api.dll to be loaded. Although this is possible to do without the launcher present, for the sake of the average user this is a fair statement.
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