On the issue of Steam VS DRM, I think those who are trying to compare steam to DRM completely failed to grasp what Gabe is saying.
His point isn't that companies should stop trying to control their rights to the media, he is saying that doing that and nothing else decreases the value of the software. By offering steam he recognizes that it does have some limitations (albeit far more reasonable than most DRM).
The point you missed is that it also has benefits as well. The community, friends, and groups enabling you to organize people into tournaments and large games. The ability to backup without hassle, the option to automatically defrag your games, saving game settings/keyboard settings between computers, access to your games on any computer, you can't lose your games, they can't be stolen, they can't be destroyed, patches and updates roll out automatically, reminders to update your drivers when needed, etc...etc...etc....
The entire point he made was that you have to give something back if you're going to take something away. If you just take take take, you're going to piss people off. By telling customers "Hey where going to give you a minor hassle..." you also need to be prepared to follow that up with "and for that inconveniance we're going to give you ____!". It's customer service 101.
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| To Each Man, Responsibility |
