Valve boss lets off steam about DRM

PRESIDENT OF VALVE SOFTWARE Gabe Newell has said that he thinks the DRM on computer games is "just dumb".

In email correspondence with a fan, Newell wrote that "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 publishers from using the broken DRM offerings, and in general there is a groundswell to abandon those approaches."

Recent PC games - including Spore, Bioshock and Mass Effect - have caused outrage among gamers for refusing to work across multiple machines, even when uninstalled.

For its part, Valve managed to work its way around the DRM problem by going the whole hog and creating its own gaming distribution service. Games purchased on the Steam system are tied to a single login, but that login can be used across multiple machines - making it easy for gamers to switch and upgrade components, but killing piracy, since the login is also tied to friends' lists and personal details gamers are unlikely to want to share.

As more and more publishers sign up to Steam - Newell distributes games from scores of other companies through his service - the future of PC games might not just be DRM-less, it might be entirely disc-less.

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