Gabe Newell Calls DRM ‘Dumb’; Says Goal Should Be To Create ‘Greater Value’

Posted by Tony Cardone in Games on Dec 2nd, 2008 | View Comments

I love Valve. So much, in fact, that I’d love to work there when I become of that intelligence and age. The extremely successful videogame producer just gets it. Firstly, their games are just awesome. You cannot call yourself a gamer and not have played Half-Life or Counter-Strike. Secondly, their business smarts will keep them on par with the best developers for a long time to come. Thirdly, Steam is the future of digital distribution on the PC.

A fellow gamer emailed Gabe Newell, the co-founder of Valve, with his concerns about their ties to Electronic Arts. More specifically, he wanted to know if the legendary SecuROM found on other EA games such as Spore would end up on our copies of Left 4 Dead. Knowing that EA only handles distribution of the game, not content, I already knew that there was literally no chance of any of EA’s spyware ending up on L4D. When I went to the page to see if Mr. Newell had responded, a large grin spread across my face. Here’s what he said:

As far as DRM goes, most DRM strategies are just dumb. The goal should be to create greater value for customers through service value (make it easy for me to play my games whenever and wherever I want to), not by decreasing the value of a product (maybe I’ll be able to play my game and maybe I won’t).

Thank you, Gabe. It’s as simple as that. Other developers/publishers have adopted this philosophy in addition to Valve (Stardock, most notably) and are enjoying extremely high sentiment and sales. Those dollars that I just spent on Left 4 Dead are definitely in the right hands. You keep producing those same high-caliber games that you have in the past, and gamers such as myself won’t have any hesitation paying for your game. Despite the initial problems with Steam authentication when their servers were down, I have been able to play my games when I want to play them where I want to play them. The only good DRM is consumer friendly DRM, and that’s exactly what Steam does.

Read the original posting at ih8evilstuff.