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How a Nephew's CD Burner Inspired Early Valve To Embrace DRM
Monday March 24, 2025. 08:40 PM , from Slashdot
Valve's early anti-piracy efforts, which eventually led to the Steam platform, were sparked by co-founder Monica Harrington's nephew using her money to buy a CD burner for copying games, she revealed at last week's Game Developers Conference. Harrington said her nephew's 'lovely thank you note' about sharing games with friends represented a 'generational shift' in piracy attitudes that could 'put our entire business model at risk.'
Half-Life subsequently launched with CD key verification in 1998. When players complained about authentication failures, co-founder Mike Harrington discovered 'none of them had actually bought the game,' confirming the system worked. Although easily bypassed, this early protection influenced Steam's more robust DRM implemented with Half-Life 2 in 2004, which became the industry standard for PC game distribution. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/24/1939209/how-a-nephews-cd-burner-inspired-early-valve-to-embrace-...
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