It used to be that there wasn't even Steam and everyone could just start their games without having to log into any third-party systems at all. When everyone practically fell down on their knees praising Steam for adding DRM to their games, it was a forgone conclusion that other companies were going to jump on the bandwagon.
Before Steam, you had a bunch of CD cases and CDs laying around, or you had websites like Direct2Drive, where you would
hope that the game you wanted to play was still available a few years later, or in the case of CDs, you hoped that you didn't lose the installation CDs.
Then you had things like Spore's DRM where you were only permitted to install the game 3 times and then that was it, if you changed computers a 4th time... you were out of luck.
When Steam entered the picture, Steam gave us a standard DRM and required the app to run, but look at all the awesome things Steam does. It gives us a three-click purchase & install system, auto-updating system, an in-game messaging system that does not require you to alt-tab out of games (it even works on many Non-Steam games!) and now they've more recently updated Steam to add even more functionality, such as Big Picture Mode (which basically turns your PC into a Console) and Player Reviews (you can mouse over a game to get an x% of who thought the game was good vs who thought it was bad and/or read reviews as to why).
Are you truly trying to tell me that we were better off before Steam? Was going to a Brick&Mortar and having 30, 40, 50 CDs laying around better than one program that could be installed on any computer, capable of re-downloading the same game an infinite amount of times? Everybody likes to cry about "OH NO, IT'S GOT DRM!!!!!!!"
The DRM is non-invasive (unless the developer of the game enforces another layer of DRM, like uPlay), you buy, download, and play. The only minor thing is you need Steam to be running to play, but....so? What's your point? It has 99.9% uptime, and it will usually allow you to play offline (though sometimes Cloud Saves aren't available during offline play, but you can opt out of Cloud Saves per-game if you only play on one computer).
Yes, Steam has DRM and it started out as a DRM Platform, but it has become so much more. The DRM is powerful and it is very difficult to "hack" most games (unless the developers expressly program it otherwise) gotten from Steam.... but yet Steam gives us so much more than just DRM.
Steam enforces DRM, but yet makes the whole experience of buying, updating, and playing the game as flawless as can be.
It doesn't shove ads in your face, except for 1 popup window that spawns when you exit a game, and the front store page that loads when you first boot Steam up (you can always click on Library to exit it at any time).
I honestly don't see what's so wrong and evil about Steam, to be honest. It ensures that developers get their money (though Valve does take a cut, but the developers agree to this), and it is a huge force behind what makes indie games possible, but yet gives us so many benefits to using it.
In fact, I keep forgetting that Steam is a DRM platform because I more view it as my "One-Stop Game Shop". Other than EA (whose games I wouldn't touch with a 50ft pole anyways), nearly any game for PC can be found there (except for extremely old stuff) and it maintains and launches all of my games (except emulators lol), and allows me to chat with several of my friends.
The Fact it is DRM.... I don't even notice whatsoever. That's what we call "non-invasive DRM". If I had a choice to download a game from The Pirate Bay or buy it on Steam...... I'd buy it on Steam because 1). It's legal, 2). It's easier, and 3). It's more convenient. That's the best way to combat piracy -- make it more convenient to get the game legitimately than to pirate it. TPB you have to deal with broken downloads, no seeds, horrible download speeds and cracks/keygens that can have malware in them. Steam, you just click click install play.
That is literally what HTML5 and the video element have done. Unfortunetly, now the special snowflake syndrom has moved to the video players as the new place where compainies can buck the standards and try be different or force stupid features, such as auto-play. Maybe if we fight for another 15 years (how long it took to get HTML5 after XHTML) video players will get standardized or, just as likely, the mobile world, where every company has to have their own operating system and every website has to have its own app, will completely kill off the open web all together.
The only way to combat this is to boycott services that refuse to play nice with everybody else, but then apparently we can't ask people to do that, because most people just don't care enough.
I won't be one of the ones giving Amazon any money or viewership myself, but I'm just 1 out of millions. I bet if enough people complained/boycotted, then maybe Amazon would drop their crap and join the rest of the people using the standards.
But if video playing is standard in HTML5... then why aren't more websites using it? Youtube for example still uses flash, doesn't it? Or did they somehow switch and I never noticed the switch? lol.
But then I've other gripes with Youtube... I hate how long it takes to load anything on Youtube and how it can hang your browser for 5-10 seconds at a time anytime you try to scroll a page or click on anything...
to watch prime, since I already have paid for subscriptions to various seasons of shows (I don't have cable and like on-demand video), so it's my main source of TV that is not on Hulu.
