- Valve’s founding member recently explained how the company squashed growing consumer-level piracy with its DRM.
- She said her nephew followed a CD-ROM copying exploit to copy a game for friends, which led to Valve adding a DRM.
- Piracy was a major risk for the business, so the company added the DRM authentication system on Steam to register game copies.
It’s no surprise that Valve holds a huge monopoly over PC gaming with Steam, the largest hub for gamers on the platform. However, things were certainly not as smooth in the early days of business since piracy was a growing concern for the company.
Valve’s founding member, Monica Harrington, explains how her nephew’s antics to pirate a game for friends led to Valve taking the issue seriously enough to implement a strong DRM on Steam.
Why it matters: The story highlights how small problems can often lead to large solutions, which, in Valve’s case, led to an industry-wide DRM for Steam.
As reported by PC Gamer, Monica spoke during the GDC event and said that her nephew bought a CD-ROM replicator to copy and share games with his friends. This piracy exploit put Valve’s ‘entire business model at risk,’ so the company implemented a robust DRM.
My own nephew […] bought himself a CD-ROM replicator, so he sent me a lovely thank you note essentially saying how happy he was to copy and share games.
This authentication system requires customers to validate and register their copies with Valve, rendering the exploit invalid. The DRM was so successful for the company that the vulnerability was solved overnight.
Because of gamers like my nephew, we implemented an authentication scheme.
Mike Harrington, Valve co-founder, even messaged gamers who complained their copies stopped working because of the DRM, only to discover that none of them had bought the games.
Monica does argue that Valve would likely add a DRM later anyway, but her nephew’s antics sped up the process and led to a huge decline in consumer-level piracy.
Do you think Valve’s implementation of the DRM would have taken more time without this incident? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, or join the discussion on the Tech4Gamers forum.
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Shameer Sarfaraz has previously worked for eXputer as a Senior News Writer for several years. Now with Tech4Gamers, he loves to devotedly keep up with the latest gaming and entertainment industries. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and years of experience reporting on games. Besides his passion for breaking news stories, Shahmeer loves spending his leisure time farming away in Stardew Valley. VGC, IGN, GameSpot, Game Rant, TheGamer, GamingBolt, The Verge, NME, Metro, Dot Esports, GameByte, Kotaku Australia, PC Gamer, and more have cited his articles.
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