It was inevitable. Eventually we were all going to make the shift to digital distribution and do away with the unnecessary retail, but I never thought it would happen so quickly.

So now it seems that Steam has pretty much all the publishers under their digital distribution belt. I guess I want to be mad, but I can’t seem to be. It’s a great service that doesn’t add any malware other than tying the program to Steam, which is dandy. You can still launch games straight and you don’t have to be connected to the internet to play.

I’m trying to think of ways that this upsets me, but it doesn’t. We won’t have anymore of EA’s intrusive nonsense, and we’ll probably have more deals.

My God . . .

What a glorious occasion!

I don’t have to go into a store anymore to try to haggle a game away from a clerk who’s unfortunately stuck trying to sell me everything at the counter because his brick and mortar location is losing large bills to the recession.

It’s . . . it’s so beautiful!

Alright, I think I feel better now. The important thing here is that this should essentially eliminate the excuse of “we pirate games so that we don’t have to deal with DRM bullshit,” since it seems that now buying a game is as easy as pirating it.

Or more accurately, he said that today’s DRM strategies are “just dumb.”

Yes, in today’s world where draconian measures are being taken to make sure that the local consumer is dissuaded from getting an illegal copy of this or that latest game, Valve’s own Gabe Newell has given his opinion. It’s not the ICE BURN he’s been famous for (his cracks about the Sony PS3 probably still makes Kaz Hirai wince every now and then) but it’s the truth. His complete statement:

Left 4 Dead is developed entirely by Valve. Steam revenue for our games is not shared with third parties. Around the world we have a number of distribution partners to handle retail distribution of our games (i.e. make discs and boxes). EA is one of those partners.

As far as DRM goes, most DRM strategies are just dumb. The goal should be to create greater value for customers through service value (make it easy for me to play my games whenever and wherever I want to), not by decreasing the value of a product (maybe I’ll be able to play my game and maybe I won’t).

We really really discourage other developers and publishes from using the broken DRM offerings, and in general there is a groundswell to abandon those approaches.

One can remember the furor raised with the PC version of Bioshock installing Securom stealthily onto the rigs it was being played on. And then there’s the Mass Effect PC version debacle, where users had to get their licenses re-verified online for them to keep playing. Oh, and who can forget SPORE?

Yes, we know that piracy is a problem and that it cuts into your profits. But never assume that everyone is going to pirate your game – there are people willing to pay good money for it, and Valve’s electronic distribution system (namelyl Steam) is a step in the right direction. You know what else is good, developers? Making sure that our money is worth it. Don’t give us a broken game, give us a good solid game for starters. Then give us extras (an artbook, an exclusive freebie, doesn’t have to be something expensive but something nice and awesome would do). If people see that the retail version of the game has lots of security bullshit then naturally they’ll opt to get the illegal copy. That’s how people are. Don’t think about changing them, instead think about how to deal with it instead.

Hopefully this sends a message out to all developers. Gamers won’t pirate your game if you don’t give them reason to, or you give them enough incentives to purchase the retail version.