And digital copy protection is certainly DRM, since it prevents me from making a copy of something that I own for my own use. Blu-Ray copy protection, for example, prevents me from ripping my own Blu-Ray disks onto my media server so that I don't have to put the disks in the drive all the time to watch them.

You're being obtuse and disingenuous. Let me make the implicit explicit. All(*) copy protection IN SOFTWARE is DRM.

If the software attempts to tell me when, where or how(**) to run it, it has DRM. Period. What you don't seem to be grasping is that copy protection makes the media(*) (or manual) the proxy for the license.

(*) The one exception is if the disk is somehow copy protected (corrupt file system, weak sector, whatever) yet the software never checks for that, it always installs and runs. Bad sector that stops an image being made = copy protection that's not DRM. SecuROM = DRM. Filecheck on that disk = DRM.

(**) Compatibility checks excluded, although these can cause almost as many problems as DRM

I am doing nothing of the sort... and you really need to stop reading your thesaurus at night.

Copy protection is an entity unto itself, separate and discrete from DRM, its that simple. Sure if you put all kinds of clauses and exceptions into your personal definition of copy protection, you can make it sound like DRM, but the simple fact is, copy protection and DRM serve two completely different purposes and always have. No amount of rationalization can change that.

The EULA generally has a paragraph about legal/illegal copies, and copy protection is used to enforce that, so I suppose that means copy protection is DRM.

Of course Steam is DRM, there should be no question there.

However, it's also a lot more beyond DRM and it's also one of the only online-based DRM systems that I have confidence in being maintained well into the future.

The big publishers seem to switch DRM systems every six months and I don't have much confidence in them maintaining activation servers for their old games X years from now when they switch to whatever the new DRM on the block is. Their DRM solutions also do not add any value for consumers.

Steam obviously provides values beyond the DRM, and because their entire store and Valve's own games are tied into the same system, I have confidence that Steam will be maintained as long as their business is viable - and they don't seem to be in danger of disappearing any time soon.

It's absolutely DRM, but it's also probably the most consumer friendly form of DRM available.

Why do people say this so much? If you mean it doesn't get in your way much, I guess I might agree, but it's the worst kind of DRM, the kind that can turn off every game that has it, all at once.

There are much worse forms of DRM. The Ubisoft drm, for one, and especially TAGES. I absolutely detest it. It's the only drm that is bad enough for me to not buy the game at all.

I'm wary of any digital distribution that has to send you a code for you to get the game to work. I've been prevented from playing a game before because of a system like that. Steam, in comparison, has a 100% success rate for me-60 games now. On top of it, I like the software platform and the sales that come along with it.

You've probably seen this comic strip. It's hilarious, but I'm not worried about something like it actually happening:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/8518-Critical-Miss-Children-of-Steam-1

I've no problem with Steam continuing to be so dominant as long as it provides the same level. Hopefully, it inspires other places to up their game as well.

Of course, it must be mentioned that GoG has the best approach of all when it comes to DRM.

Worse is a terribly subjective term. I'm not trying to rekindle this flamewar. I get that Steam works flawlessly for a large number of people, I'm not trying to debate that. All I'm pointing out is that it's a bit more insidious in some ways than even Ubisoft's always connected DRM. It's simply a statement that requires someone to take a step back and look at it.

I'm 100% aware, for example, I could loose all my Arcade titles from XBox Live (though in all fairness they actually have a 100% working offline mode that doesn't expire until your hardware kicks it, which is ironically better than Steam). For me I rarely buy anything that's not already cheap as hell, I'm not willing to potentially lose down the road, and that is worth the price pretty much in the immediate term.

So why do I have a double standard (because I know it is one)? Well, I'll tell you:) It is because my console was always a closed platform with stupid restrictions. I will never support moving that bullshit onto the PC, the last free platform, and Valve/Steam pioneered it. I'm especially fond of pointing out their shortcomings for this reason, alone (and possibly unfairly so, I don't know).

I haven't followed this thread, so I hope I'm not retreading arguments here. It just seems that so much of your distrust seems rooted in harms that haven't occurred, and seem very likely to actually take place how you're describing. In practical terms, I'm just not seeing how Steam is having such a negative effect. There's a much bigger chance (for me) that I'll lose the little slips of paper for the physical codes for my games than that Steam will somehow go belly up and everyone loses everything-sorry, just not buying it. There are plenty of mods with Steam games, and I think they're pretty friendly to the community.

Now, if you want to criticize Valve, I'd definitely start by looking at their 18 dollar hats in TF2. It does reveal some worrying trends, and I think they're certainly open for criticism there. The worst sort of danger I foresee from Steam, is the potential for large-scale goofs like the mass bans in MW2 last year. Still, Valve clearly recognizes how significant it was, and I think their response to their mistake was appropriate.

I think you're missing out on a pretty good thing with Steam-I'm a very frugal gamer too (I almost never buy more than 2-3 full priced games per year). In fact, I only rarely pay more than $15 for a game, and most of my purchases on Steam were heavily on sale.

PS, if you're looking for a great deal, the Thief collection is $15 from places like Amazon..

Yes, as I pointed out in another thread (and was told that no one gave a shit), imagine their mistake had only wrongly affected 10-50 gamers? Those people were treated with derision and disbelief not only by the community but by Valve staff when they asked for support and complained on the forums.

If Valve doesn't like you, because say you exercised your chargeback rights maybe, you can lose all your games. You may only have a couple titles from them per year, but many have 1000s and have some bullshit belief in an universal unlock.

And like I said before, we didn't have all this on PC before Valve.

OK, those are legitimate fears, and I think I understand what you're saying about Steam. Am I correct in assuming you're not so much worried about Steam collapsing, but rather the system somehow royally screwing a very unfortunate minority of helpless users? A large scale disaster would be hard to ignore, but a small group could get swept under the rug. I think it's fair to demand a certain offline guarantee that you'll always have access to your game.

Still, it's all conditional on a some pretty big assumptions. Again, given my experience with Steam, it's hard not to be supportive of them.

I think Steam is screwing a small minority of unheard people constantly. Whether doomsday will happen remains to be seen, but I will say this, some of my games, that I still play sometimes, have working media that is over 15 years old. I consider many of these classics, is it reasonable to assume the Steam auth servers will still be there in 15 years?

I kind of have the opposite worry; how many of my games will still work or not be misplaced in 15 years? Most, probably, but a digital backup seems more reliable.

I've got huge boxes of game still, just mark them clearly, buy some plastic tubs to store them in from Walmart if you're really worried. Most disc imaging software will make a digital copy as well if you'd like to keep that too (the opposite is less possible outside an open service like GOG).

I haven't pulled out a rotted CD or DVD yet, though one day it will probably happen. Now my old C64 games, I have most of the disks, I'm sure they're all toast though.

I used to lose my games all the time like that. I've scratched up many game discs too over the years to the point of being unreadable, mainly because of constant CD swapping (yet another reason I like cracks - they prolong the life of my discs).

I still like physical copies though - there's something nice about owning the box, the manual, and whatever else it happens to come with.