In case you’ve been too busy with real life to sift through press releases, both Valve and Stardock have announced new anti-piracy technology this week. Both companies were noticeably wary of calling their new technology “DRM.” In fact, both companies made special efforts to differentiate their technology from DRM–Valve claimed their new technology “Makes DRM Obsolete” and Stardock said their technology “throws GOO on DRM.”
Valve’s announcement came just one day prior to the FTC’s DRM Town Hall at the University of Washington School of Law and was mentioned during at least one of the panels. The decidedly vague press release stated in part:
Headlining the new [Steamworks] feature set is the Custom Executable Generation (CEG) technology that compliments the already existing anti-piracy solution offered in Steamworks. A customer friendly approach to anti-piracy, CEG makes unique copies of games for each user allowing them to access the application on multiple machines without install limits and without having to install root kits on their PC.
The new features also include support for in-game downloadable content (DLC) and matchmaking. The in-game DLC support allows developers to deliver new content as they choose (paid or free) from inside the game itself, allowing users to make immediate purchases and experience the new content in the same game session. The Steamworks matchmaking now includes the robust lobby system shipped and tested in Left 4 Dead.
Stardock’s announcement was made during the FTC Town Hall and, while somewhat similar to Valve’s announcement, Stardock’s “GOO” technology presents some very compelling differences:
The new technology, known as Game Object Obfuscation (Goo), is a tool that allows developers to encapsulate their game executable into a container that includes the original executable plus Impulse Reactor, Stardock’s virtual platform, into a single encrypted file.
When a player runs the game for the first time, the Goo’d program lets the user enter in their email address and serial number which associates their game to that person as opposed to a piece of hardware like most activation systems do. Once validated, the game never needs to connect to the Internet again.
Goo has a number of unique advantages that developer Stardock believes both gamers and developers will appreciate:
1. There is no third-party client required. This means a developer can use this as a universal solution since it is not tied to any particular digital distributor.
2. It paves the way to letting users validate their game on any digital distribution service that supports that game. One common concern of gamers is if the company they purchased a game from exits the market, their game library may disappear too. Games that use Goo would be able to be validated anywhere.
3. It opens the door to gamers being able to resell their games because users can voluntarily disable their game access and transfer their license ownership to another user.* * *
Because Goo ties the game to a user’s account instead of the hardware, gamers can install their game to multiple computers without hassle.
Continue reading for some (not so) brief commentary and links to the full press releases.
When I first read Valve’s announcement, I was certainly interested in the technology. While scant on details, it seems that CEG will remove two of the largest consumer concerns with current DRM technology: installation limits and buggy root kits. However, three of my main concerns with DRM technology were left unaddressed: information privacy, “first sale” rights, and the inoperability of software following abandonment of authentication servers.
While many PC gamers are aware of the access and resale limitations imposed by DRM, most don’t give any thought to information privacy implications. As part of my research for a forthcoming paper on DRM and privacy, I’ve become increasingly shocked at the amount of information that is often collected by DRM software and the myriad of companies that are privy to this information. Fortunately, Stardock saw fit to address all of my concerns to some extent with their GOO technology.
First, GOO’s compatibility with both boxed software as well as all existing digital distribution platforms is attractive because it provides consumers with the ability to validate their software on any number of servers in the event that their particular retailer goes out of business or shuts down its authentication servers.
Second, GOO has the ability to allow software resale, which is typically prevented by current DRM technology. While I’m excited about this development, I’m interested to see how it works in practice. Stardock touts the feature, but does not seem to say that it will be universal; my best guess is that this secondary market feature will be left to individual developers to activate. I also think it’s prudent to point out that the technology allows gamers to “transfer their license ownership,” which all but confirms that this technology will in no way work toward eliminating the (in my opinion) legal fiction that consumer software transactions are licenses rather than sales.
Finally, I like that GOO creates a protection scheme where “[o]nce validated, the game never needs to connect to the Internet again.” While studies have shown the some offline DRM still connects to the Internet to transfer usage statistics, the fact that “Goo’d” games do not require an Internet connection will allow gamers to block Internet communication through computer firewalls for all but a limit number of possible multiplayer servers.
Press releases:
