GeForce Now is not only a game-streaming service, but it allows players to actually download games and play them locally. In cloud gaming, Google Stadia allows players to purchase any titles they want, but they're only accessible through the app, with a valid subscription and internet connection.Īnd then there's NVIDIA. The Epic Games Store doesn't have an overarching DRM policy, but many of its games, including Fortnite, require the client to launch. Microsoft and Sony each offer subscription packages - Xbox Game Pass and PS Now - that allow users to purchase and play games, though these titles are only available as long as the subscription is active. Steam offers the clearest example of how DRM quietly infiltrated modern gaming systems, though it's not the only storefront to operate in this way. Valve is too big to fail.Īs someone who entered college at the height of the Great Recession, that phrase still sends shivers down my spine. It's the studio behind Half-Life, Portal, Dota 2, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike. It's the multibillion-dollar corporation led by benevolent nerd king Gabe Newell. It's the company that made DRM palatable in the 2000s. Generally, users are OK with this threat - after all, it's Valve. As it stands, if Steam shut down today, everyone's libraries would become instantly unplayable. Even in offline mode, players still need to connect with the Steam client to launch any of their games. Despite determined competitors like GOG (a longstanding DRM-free gaming hub) and the Epic Games Store, it's the undisputed leader in digital distribution. Players bought into this online-first system entirely, and today, Steam has 1 billion registered users and 90 million monthly active players. Instead of picking up discs and typing out long CD keys, Steam offered one-click access to a massive lineup of new releases and old classics. More importantly, Steam made buying games easy. The storefront was initially designed to streamline the patch process for games like Counter-Strike, and also make it easier for Valve to implement anti-piracy and anti-cheat measures. Spore publisher EA faced a class-action lawsuit over the game's SecuROM features. EA, 2K, Ubisoft and other publishers tweaked their anti-piracy systems in response to mobs of criticism. Players called SecuROM punitive and hostile, and wondered why they needed an internet connection to play these games offline. Ubisoft's approach to DRM routinely broke the games it was built to protect and the response from players was unanimously negative. By 2010, Ubisoft was pushing always-on DRM for games including Assassin's Creed 2 and Splinter-Cell: Conviction, requiring players to maintain a constant internet connection, even for offline play. SecuROM was a flashpoint of controversy particularly in the launches of BioShock, Mass Effect and Spore, limiting the number of times these titles could be installed and forcing players to routinely connect to the internet for authentication. Publishers started using the anti-piracy software in earnest around 2007, when physical discs and midnight GameStop release parties were all the rage. Players weren't so agreeable when it came to SecuROM, the granddaddy of DRM. In a digital-first ecosystem, it's just easier this way. Every major gaming platform today relies on DRM, with companies like Valve, Epic Games, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo owning players' libraries in some form. That's because, over time, we got used to DRM. A feature that would've made headlines in 2010 is often relegated to a single sentence at the base of the inverted pyramid, or not mentioned at all. In heated Twitter threads and editorials about the newest and most controversial gaming platforms around, the DRM-free bit of NVIDIA's news seemed to barely register with fans. When you buy a game via GeForce Now, you get to keep it, regardless of whether the service itself remains live - a promise that its competitors, Google Stadia and Microsoft's xCloud, can't make. NVIDIA launched GeForce Now, the first and only cloud gaming platform to operate on a "DRM-free" basis. The response from fans was so vicious that Microsoft abandoned its strategy and rebuilt the Xbox One without DRM just months before its launch date.įast forward to February 2020. Variations of this system persisted throughout the early 2010s, when Microsoft attempted to release the Xbox One with built-in DRM checks. In the 2000s, major PC video game publishers began adding software to their discs that limited the number of times these games could be installed, tracking and verifying players in new, conspicuous ways. The phrase alone, or just its abbreviation, DRM, once had the power to spark scathing editorials and spawn furious debates in online forums worldwide.
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