Or just crack them if you ever have to.

Honestly I look at DRM like an OS requirement or disc check or driver package or whatever else. In PC gaming it is incredibly normal for older games to need work of some kind before they will work years later. Luckily we have a dedicate and intelligent community that does this work.

If Steam shuts down someday and Gabe-y boy never released that DRM killing patch he promised then a way to get the game working will be EVERYWHERE on the internet. Anyone who thinks otherwise is silly. And since Steam is dead no one will give a shit that you're "cracking" it.

Worrying about DRM on an open platform is like worrying about a lock on a screen door.

I'll use the OnLive card right here. Streaming gaming will be the only salvation to "PC gaming", so repent now!

Excellent reply, this is what it boils down to

You can argue and send letters, do epetitions and all the rest to the developers, they wont do anything about it. In the time you spend putting all that effort into fighting DRM you could be enjoying a game that you have bought.

Buy DRM free games, and put money in the Double fine kickstarter to ensure a DRM free copy makes headlines. Which it already has done.

Put your money where your mouth is.

1. There is not only one Steam game ("the game"). There are hundreds (thousands?) of Steam games which would need to be cracked individually, and I can assure you all of them will not get a working crack, especially considering cracks are usually version-dependent.

2. ACTA etc. implies that it may not be that easy to get "cracks" in the future as it still is today, or even full pirated games. At least from reliable sources, whatever those may be considering we are talking about pirated software and cracks which are normally used by cyber criminals as vehicles for people to install trojans and keyloggers into their releases.

3. At that point Steam may not give a shit whether games on their service are cracked, but the original IP holders of those games (EA, Ubisoft etc.) certainly do. Most games delivered through the Steam service are not the property of Valve. This point also makes sure that Valve could never release an universal "Steam crack" for all Steam games, even if they had promised such (which they haven't). If such universal Steam crack (for all Steam games) would be technically possible to make anyway, such crack would have been created by the pirate groups already.

4. Did I already mention that downloading cracks and full game releases from p2p networks are a good way to install trojans and keyloggers to your Windows machine?

Eh, the world of goo devs were one a million, since their complaints, I've read nothing but praise for the PC platform from PC focused devs.

Oh and the supposed piracy rate was offsetted by big sales. RPS has an article about it, but it's not in my bookmarks.

All of them were cracked already, practically the same day they were released. It's not like they all have to be cracked when steam goes down, they already are.

But ... but .. I already signed a manifesto against Facebook and Twitter! ;)

1. You shouldn't be buying non-Steamworks games on Steam if you care about DRM. And yes, of course Steamworks games have cracks.

2. Fantasy.

3. Unless the games are still for sale no one gives a shit. And if they are still for sale the DRM will still work or will have been removed.

4. If you're an idiot, sure.

But there are no separate "Steam crack" for most of them, but "cracking" them means you'd have to redownload pirated versions of all your Steam games.

Most probably those pirate releases are the first, initial release versions of the games (v1.0), missing all the bug fixes that have arrived for those games ever since. The pirate groups don't tend to offer support for their releases, as they are mostly competing who offers the first barely playable cracked version of a brand-new game. They are there for the fame, not for support service.

1. See my reply to Phease.

2. Then can you explain why e.g. "the bay" sites (all of them) is pretty much inaccessible from e.g. Finland for common people (who are not adept enough for using "free" proxy servers, Tor networks or whatever)? There was a court order to force local ISPs to block access to them, and I am sure other pirate/crack sites will follow later.

While not necessarily technically completely impossible, it is becoming harder and harder to access such content. That's just the way it goes.

3. The game can be still sold on other services, not the one which died. No one has no obligation to remove the DRM, after all it says in Steam TOS that their service is terminable without a notice. You have no rights whatsoever to "your" Steam games, as has been demonstrated also by those cases where Steam/Origin customers have been denied access to all their games from minor, or even no, TOS offences.

Also as said before, crackers are not there for customer service, but fame. They rather concentrate on new challenges, not cracking some 5-10 years old games just so that little johnny can play again.

4. Considering all the successful DDOS attacks using bot computers all over the world, the world seems to be full of such idiots. Antivirus programs are always lagging behind, they are always spotty in detecting all threats.

MS antiscum measures can't help it if people decide to install software from unreliable sources, like p2p networks. Maybe that is why MS is targetting so that people would install software only from Windows Store, that is the only way to secure it.

Not a rule, though. There are usually patches released for the more popular games.

I don't get the comparison. Those other things are considered evil because they rot brains and make you violent and sexist ,,,,or something

DRM is a necessary concept in the digital age. A sign of progress that has good and bad ways of doing it. My original comparision were inoculations, but they can't be done "wrong in concept". Maybe electronics in cars? They can be very helpful, but are also very restricting...

Put me down for this as well.