I feel like the Steam Deck is the best proof of Gabe Newell's quote that "piracy is a service issue."

They could have easily crammed the Steam Deck full of stuff to make it hard to use for piracy - locking down everything, making it usable only to play games you legitimately own, force you to go through who knows what hoops in order to play games on it. That’s what Nintendo or Apple or most other companies do.

But they didn’t, because they realized they didn’t have to. It’s 100% possible to put pirated games on the Steam Deck - in fact, it’s as easy as it could reasonably be. You copy it over, you wire it up to Steam, if it’s a non-Linux game you set it up with Proton or whatever else you want to use to run it, bam. You can now run it in Steam just as easily as a normal Steam game (usually.) If you want something similar to cloud saves you can even set up SyncThing for that.

But all of that is a lot of work, and after all that you still don’t have automatic updates, and some games won’t run this way for one reason or another even though they’ll run if you own them (usually, I assume, because of Steam Deck specific tweaks or install stuff that are only used when you’re running them on the Deck via the normal method.) Some of this you can work around but it’s even more hoops.

Whereas if you own a game it’s just push a button and play. They made legitimately owning a game more convenient than piracy, and they did it without relying on DRM or anything that restricts or annoys legitimate users at all - even if a game has a DRM-free GOG version, owning it on Steam will still make it easier to play on the Steam Deck.

Rin,

I only run legit games on my handheld Linux computer. You’re right, a user like me could most certainly install games some other way but there’s no point putting in all this effort since I can just joink it from my years old steam account and be very happy in the process.

AphoticDev,
@AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

It’s built on Linux. Specifically Arch Linux. So no, there’s nothing they could have done to lock it down to prevent piracy. Not even if they wanted to.

MetaSynapse,

Sure there is, they could have not built it on Arch Linux

Galli,

Android is built on linux yet it is increasingly locked down and many phones are extremely difficult to get root access on.

So Valve could have followed the phone ecosystem path and pushed as much of the feature set as proprietary code as possible (binary blob drivers, proton proprietary instead of bsd), replaced pacman with a valve controlled package manager & repos, setup selinux to give users no power to do anything and made the deck only able to secure boot steamOS signed by Valve. Technical users may be able to jail break such a device but the majority would not be inclined to.

Valve’s wisdom here is in realizing that the majority are going to buy their games anyway but if you don’t lock the device down then most of the technical users will also buy most of their games whereas if you have to go out of your way to jail break a device to install something fun then that device basically becomes a piracy only device from that point on.

mp3,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

And instead of doubling-down in denial, they embraced the openness.

EatYouWell,

Tell me you don’t know how to administer Linux without telling me you don’t know how to administer Linux.

AphoticDev,
@AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I don’t administer Linux, I use Linux. Unless you’re conflating being an end user with being an administrator, in which case I would say that’s a rather pretentious way to put it. Nobody walks around saying they administer Windows because they have a laptop. It sounds stupid.

EatYouWell,

Right, so you don’t know what you’re talking about and shouldn’t speak authoritatively on the subject.

I drive a car every day, but that doesn’t mean I can speak authoritatively on how its transmission works.

But, I am a senior SecOps engineer (like a systems engineer but also a cyber security expert) working mostly with Linux, and I can authoritatively say that you’re mistaken about Valve’s ability to block piracy in Linux.

neshura,
@neshura@bookwormstory.social avatar

The point is just using it gives you no experience to talk about how easy it is to lock down an OS, administering one does. EatYouWell is absolutely right in calling out that you don’t administer linux, as you say yourself: you don’t, you use it. And that difference shows in the falsehood of your comment: it is possible to lock down Linux to levels like a PS5 and anyone administering Linux would know that from their knowledge of the underlying components.

Rossel,

There’s a lot they could have done, locking down Linux isn’t that hard. Just look at Chrome OS, it’s based on Gentoo, yet it’s locked down completely. All they had.to do is lock the BIOS, enable secure boot and disable root access, and then it’s pretty much a locked system.

520,

It’s built on Linux.

So what? Orbis (the PlayStation OS) is built on FreeBSD, but there's still anti piracy on the PS5.

So no, there’s nothing they could have done to lock it down to prevent piracy.

They could have:

  • locked the machine to SteamOS only
  • allowed only the Steam UI
  • encrypted the SSD using a TPM chip to prevent messing with the OS.
  • disallow applications that expose the underlying UI
  • have an Apple esque signing policy when it comes to system binaries
  • not allow custom shortcuts.
  • much more

Believe me, if they wanted to try, they could have.

AphoticDev,
@AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

You got me there. Doing stuff like that on other platforms like the Switch totally prevented piracy, so I suppose it’s a good thing they didn’t do it on a system that thousands of devs know down to the kernel without having to reverse engineer.

Zorque,

You said prevent, not eliminate. There's tens of thousands of ways to prevent piracy. They are not infallible, but they are preventatives.

There is nothing on this earth that will eliminate piracy.

Where would you like to move the goalposts now?

AnonTwo, (edited )

That's not moving goalposts, you're just arguing semantics. People generally think of eliminate when they say prevent in this kind of conversation....

If anything if they went "prevention" and not "eliminate" like in your sense...it would be even dumber because it would just make the steamdeck a more restrictive x86-processor computer compared to the systems people were already comparing it to up until it's release

Imagine how it would've gone down if people were saying "Of course you can do that, it's a PC" if people responded with "Yeah, except it's 10x harder to do things you could normally do on PC". They wanted it to be close to how a PC is, it was part of the advertising campaign.

AphoticDev,
@AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Anytime you’re reduced to arguing semantics, it’s not even an argument worth engaging in. So I’m not going to bother responding further to you.

conciselyverbose,

Nintendo is incompetent.

PS5 and Xbox both control what runs on their systems perfectly fine.

Rossel,

Nintendo was super competent with the Switch, their kernel is actually ridiculously secure. I’m pretty sure if Nvidia hadn’t messed up, we would still be scratching our heads with the Switch.

520, (edited )

If you think that the goal of anti piracy measures is to be an impenetrable barrier, you've completely misunderstood the assignment.

The idea isn't to be literally impossible, but to be so hard to do that even the moderate tech heads won't bother.

The likes of Nintendo don't care if 12 people are pirating their games, what they want to prevent is situations line the PlayStation Portable, where almost everyone was cracking that fucker wide open and there was a shit ton of piracy.

neshura,
@neshura@bookwormstory.social avatar

actually making linux usable with the deck controls was probably more work than locking the users out of the desktop mode even

apotheotic,

They could have not built it on arch linux. They made decisions that were pro-consumer and thus they did not need to make decisions that were anti piracy

conciselyverbose,

They could have not given you root access and forced you to install your own OS for it to manage things that aren't on Steam. They could have locked the bootloader and refused to install anything they didn't sign.

Neither would violate the license provided they made the source available.

squaresinger,

And if you want both piracy and the convenience of Steam, there are always key resellers.

InterSynth,
@InterSynth@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Yeah, precisely because piracy is a service issue, Turkey and Argentina are going to turn to piracy again, after Valve fucked them over.

Thordros,
@Thordros@hexbear.net avatar

You can hardly blame Valve for a country’s currency collapsing.

Marzepansion, (edited )

I’m a game dev, so my perspective on this can be biased, but my honest opinion is if games are too expensive for you to buy, go pirate them. That’s exactly the situation places like Argentina are in now. Let us westerners subsidize the cost of development until your country gets back on track and you are able to buy more than just staple goods (40% of Argentina is considered living in poverty or worse).

This goes for people in poverty anywhere in the world tbh even in the West. Piracy doesn’t really move the needle much (but do try to support indie devs if you can)

Facebones,

Also, a lot of devs ask that you just pirate VS buying from Grey markets like G2A. It’s a PITA dealing with charge backs and shit.

AnonTwo, (edited )

...?

No they couldn't, it's fucking Linux. They'd have to tie the controller drivers hostage to "lock it down", and at that point they'd hit so many hiccups with legitimate users.

Like they'd have to pull so many things from Linux (in particular Proton) to "DRM-ify" the steamdeck.

And as I think someone else just posted, some of the stuff they'd need to lock-down aren't even things Valve has control over. Like I said Proton but Valve doesn't own proton.

neshura,
@neshura@bookwormstory.social avatar

you do realize it is absolutely possible to lock down a Linux install? Every Android device essentially is just that and their bootloaders are only unlockable because they were forced to by EU law. Steam absolutely had the option to make a Linux based DRM shitfest, in some ways it would have been easier even, they just chose not to

EatYouWell,

You probably shouldn’t talk authoritatively on a topic you clearly know nothing about.

Source: I’m a senior systems engineer.

AnonTwo,

And if you're going to flaunt your title you should probably actually...you know...say something that pertains to that knowledge you have.

This just seems like blind fanboyism. As great as the steamdeck is there's no reason to act like it's doing things it's not actually doing. It was designed the way it was because it had to be, there doesn't need to be anything whimsical about it.

EatYouWell,

Buddy, a very large part of my job is locking down Linux as much as possible while still allowing it to do it’s job. I can confidently say that not locking things down was a decision that was made, not a restraint of the system they used.

I’m not saying that they didn’t lock it down to allow piracy, which is actually a really dumb take. They probably did it to allow moding and allow it to be used as a desktop.

greybeard, (edited )

They may have done a poor job of explains thing, but they are right. Secure boot is a system that every manufactured computer in the last 5+ years has support. The only reason you can install anything but Windows on most PCs is because the manufacturer let you, but they could take it away in an instant by requiring secure boot and only allowing Microsoft’s signatures to boot an OS. Valve could have done the same thing if they chose. That’s basically how the XBox works these days, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the PlayStation is the same, since it is x64 as well.

squaresinger,

I did post an exact description a bit higher above, but you focussed on the one detail that really doesn’t matter in this equation (ARM vs x86, even though it’s exactly the same in that regard, and there are also x86 Android devices) and neither read nor understood the rest of my answer.

And you used that missing knowledge on your side to invalidate my answer without even understanding what it was about.

And you could, very big revelation, also just google before posting nonsense.

u/EatYouWell responded exactly the right way.

Eikichi,
@Eikichi@lemmy.ml avatar

Ok so you just think this is fanboyism, your Right and you are maybe right but… You don’t have to make false arguments to say this…

They could have put energy, to mitigate piracy and being in the same state as android devices, where not every user root it to put on it lineageos for example.

They designed it, soft and hardware, and they did no effort at all on this side.

You can see on this, a sign as OP, or you can don’t mind about it and think steam just didn’t put effort on it by lack of time or resources maybe.

But don’t say false things to make your point true.

squaresinger,

Tieing down a Linux installation is actually pretty easy.

  • Lock the BIOS down so that it can only boot a Valve-signed OS
  • Remove root access on the OS
  • chown root:root on anything you don’t want the users to touch

It’s pretty much the same as Android device vendors are doing.

AnonTwo,

The...arm-based systems that use a different kind of BIOS?

If even Apple isn't doing it on x86, I don't see why Valve would start.

justJanne,

Microsoft actually locked down the BIOS on several Windows 10 S devices to prevent users from installing non-MS OSes with enforced MS-only secure boot.

squaresinger, (edited )

Have you heard of Android running on x86?

I had an x86 Android tablet and that was exactly as locked-down as an ARM Android device.

But anyhow: I can lock down a x86 laptop or PC the way I was describing within a very short time.

So again:

  • Put a password on the BIOS
  • Set Secure Boot on
  • Wipe all Secure Boot keys and put your own in there
  • Encrypt the disk so that you can’t just plop the drive into another PC and modify its content
  • Set the root user to “Can only login with private key” and don’t give the key to the customers
  • Remove all users from sudoers
  • Use chown root:root and chmod 700 on anything you don’t want the user to touch

And if a company was doing this to their products (e.g. the Steam Deck), they’d replace the first 3 steps with a custom BIOS which just doesn’t let you change anything in regards to Secure Boot and Secure Boot keys. That way, removing the BIOS battery won’t help.

There are countless embedded devices using an x86 PC at their core, where they did exactly that. (E.g. ATMs or medical devices)

Also Chromebooks are exactly that.

And the Playstation 5 does the same thing, only it’s based on FreeBSD.

Rossel, (edited )

It’s not impossible or even hard to lock down Linux. Just look at Chrome OS, it’s Gentoo based, but with the bootloader locked and root access removed, it is pretty much immutable.

And Chromebooks just use off the shelf parts.

Valmond,

Are we getting astroturfed already?

octoblade,

Probably not. Although I can’t buy a Steam Deck in my country, Linux is my daily driver on my gaming PC. In my experience, buying games on steam is genuinely much much easier than piracy on Linux. Even just trying to run Windows games purchased elsewhere (such as GOG) to run in wine is much more difficult than steam. There are no other game stores that are anywhere near as good on Linux.

Valmond,

Fair enough, I completely forgot about bringing games, with forceps 😊, to the Linux platform.

Mea culpa.

I’m probably just a tiny bit itchy after years on Reddit.

code,

ive had great luck with heroic games launcher

DingoBilly,

I disagree. You don’t seem to understand piracy at all.

If you’re going to pirate games, you’ll find a way. I have spent hours sometimes figuring out how to do so, and it’s almost part of the fun.

The only reason I’d look at buying a Steam deck in future is to play pirated games. If I absolutely love a game and developer then sure, I’d buy it if I have the cash but otherwise you may as well pirate it.

The only reason I don’t pirate games IS because of locked down hardware like Playstation Etc. Otherwise, I have pretty much never bought a game on PC.

dangblingus,

Your argument that the Steam deck is emblematic of Gabe’s statement of piracy being a service issue, is somehow reinforced by telling us all of the artificial hoops you have to jump through to pirate on the Steam Deck? That’s just DRM with extra steps.

CylustheVirus,

That’s not what DRM is and pirating has always involved extra steps.

blackstampede,

I didn’t get the impression that those hoops were artificial. They aren’t providing support for it, but that’s different from actively obstructing people.

leviathan3k,

No.

DRM is an artificial obstacle put in place to get in the way of something entirely technologically possible.

The elements discussed here are just the natural steps to perform an action outside of the standard workflow, and are actually of reasonable difficulty. Saying “you are free to do it, but I’m not going to help you” is the exact opposite of DRM.

mp3, (edited )
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

That, and the inflation making most of us broke-ass.

drunkensailor, (edited )
@drunkensailor@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

some games won’t run this way for one reason or another even though they’ll run if you own them (usually, I assume, because of Steam Deck specific tweaks or install stuff that are only used when you’re running them on the Deck via the normal method.)

A lot of this is just easier to do from legit steam setup, not impossible. I don’t usually pirate games (I want to support devs making things playable on Linux when I buy from Steam or making DRM-free stuff when I buy from Gog). But I do have a lot of stuff that I run outside of steam in plain old wine without proton or wine-wrapper tools like lutris. I haven’t come across many games that I have on Gog that you can’t run in wine itself but I will agree that it is sometimes a lot more work. I’m also on a desktop PC using Linux, so not completely the same as a steam deck but runtime-wise it should be pretty darn close.

Katiria24,

I’m excitedly waiting for my OLED to arrive

firecat,

Well that’s completely untrue, the operating system is not open source, steamOS should be open source and Valve refuses to do it.

Your opinion on gaming is irrelevant because Proton is another software and Valve employees don’t contribute to the code, GitHub records show zero activity from them. Some games don’t even work.

Steam Deck/ Valve don’t support piracy, the User Agreement you signed up to obtain Steam Deck says by default it doesn’t support piracy.

They didn’t make games easier to buy. You still need the Client, you still need to sign up, you can’t sue Valve, you will get banned if the key is illegal and obtaining games that’s not American or Europe is super hard.

Valve just selling a junk machine with their brand. Nothing special about it.

averyminya,

This seems pretty whack dude. Proton has been heavily contributed to via Valve, if at least only by paying people to work on it. Without Valve proton would be in a much more dire state than it is now. Seriously, just look at its progress just 6 months before the Steam Deck and after its announcement. It’s a night and day difference.

“some games don’t even work” I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. With a library of 1.2k trying to see games that don’t work when they’re “unsupported” I’ve yet to come across any. I’m sure there are but, again, what’s your point? That gaming on Linux still has some games that don’t work?

They don’t officially support piracy. What company does? And does Valve do anything to prevent your cracked Non-Steam game from running? So… Their “lack” of piracy support means nothing because you can still do whatever you want. Ok.

“Didn’t make games easier to buy because you have to create an account”. Alright, have fun redownloading things you’ve purchased with no record. Even indie stores have you make an account dude.

“You will get banned if a key is illegal” lmao, what the fuck is an illegal steam key?? You bought games from a stolen credit card or a region resell and had the key revoked? They don’t ban you. And if you’re talking about being region locked, congratulations, Valve is complying with that government. And if you’re talking about being in the U.S. trying to buy keys from other regions, that is hurting people in the region it’s priced for and you’re a jerk for that.

What the fuck are you talking about?

firecat,

This right here is an example of Steam brand loyalty. Valve employees have nothing to offer Photon, yet you defend them for being Valve. “Lack” of piracy is not an argument, Valve has a company has stolen from companys before you were ever born, their newest crime, stealing patent game controller just shows how little they changed. Risking their entire existence to support an ideal place for games to steal is just a way to get sued by every company.

Lastly, yes you can get banned for illegal keys, do basic research where people got their accounts banned because of publishers who revoked the keys.

averyminya,

Seeing and taking advantage of services and being happy with it when there is consistency is not brand loyalty. Honestly, always putting these messages behind coy insults just detracts from the actual important part of what you’re trying to say, which is to be wary of where you put your trust. That’s a very valid point of view. It’s true, I am probably trading off these services for the potential longevity of my games.

Proton development was going very slowly before it was in Valve’s interest change that for their benefit. That language make you happy? You can tell me to research all you want but that is the truth. Proton development sped up exponentially after 2020. What am I defending? I literally said if only in paying people to work on it. The reality is, Proton is where it is today because it benefits the Steam Deck. The end result is the same for Linux gamers. It’s ridiculous to say that Valve offered nothing to Proton when graphed out there is a very clear rise in development after Valve got more involved.

Stealing patent game controllers, so you side with Corsair and Scuff, notorious patent trolls hoarding designs and actively preventing small controller makers? Awesome, great showing us where you stand there, that’s extremely telling. If you’re talking about other examples - my mistake. Corsair can rot in hell, they have destroyed so many awesome concept controllers with C&Ds. Oh by the way - newest crime? That was in 2015, 8 years ago lmao.

Risking their entire existence to support an ideal place for games to steal is just a way to get sued by every company.

I’m not really sure what you are trying to say. Every company doesn’t support piracy but many go through extreme measures to prevent it. Opt-in developer Steam DRM is laughably trivial and literally is only to suggest buying it to avoid going through the hassle of cloning one git repository. Again, you are saying illegal keys but you’re not saying what that is. I did mention being banned can happen in extremely rare cases, but most examples when you actually look online are the fault of the user for working around pretty obvious things. Such as buying grey market or working around region locks to buy keys at a cheaper price.

Somebody only using Steamless to crack games and putting them in Steam via Non-Steam is at far less risk of getting their account banned than someone working around region locks and buying grey market is, since you are actively feeding into harmful business. Going around region locks hurts those players and grey market risks laundering/stolen credit card keys both of which affect the developers.

Valve isn’t perfect, I never implied they were. It’s taken a lawsuit (funnily enough, also in 2015) to make them more consumer friendly and yet one suit in Australia affected how they do business worldwide allowing refunds everywhere. Looking to Apple in the EU as an example where one country affects how it does business worldwide I am doubting they will do the same given that they’ve yet to do so for any cases so far.

Look - I don’t disagree that it’s dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket. The idea of Steam Servers going down would be devastating to many and it’s silly to trust a company at face value when they promise you’ll keep access to it if/when that happens. I have Steamless and keep the really important installers backed up for a reason, it’s smart to have just in case. It’s interesting that I’m able to do this at all on Steam, I have not been able to crack my own games for Ubisoft/EA so I can play them offline and without an account.

Who do you trust instead? Do you only pirate to make sure you’ve got the installer forever? Only GOG/itch for DRM free?

Personally I use Steam because I’m under the assumption that if Valve goes under it’s probably because the world is ending and our computers will be useless. Semi-/s

In the meantime what matters to me is being able to play remotely with friends. It has been huge for our friend group and as far as I know, there is no group remote play alternative available? Anywhere? Streaming my games to the living room or on my phone while on the bus - I know moonlight can do this but it never worked well for me. Controller input with SteamAPI also is a massive improvement and for the games I use it with, my Steam Controller is invaluable having mixed mouse and controller inputs. Cloud saves are pretty standard, but including per-game notes is unique and is now. essential. I don’t want to have to set syncthing to every single folder a game decides is a suitable location for saves, and using .txts or my phone notes was annoying. I only manage my emulation saves now.

Don’t even get me started on SteamVR compared to WMR. Great teams at working WMR, very friendly and communicative - very frustrating to actually play in. The quest is a joke.

I use these monthly at minimum, most of them daily. I’m not a fanboy so much as someone who uses a service that isn’t offered elsewhere. I’d be happy to jump ship from Valve if there was something. The main marketed competition is much more awful than Valve and actually has influence on the entire gaming market with Unreal Engine and they very quickly showed how little they care about the user. The other VR options on the market I tried, the Reverb G2 would have been okay if 1) WMR wasn’t a requirement, 2) inside-out camera tracking sucks and 3) inconsistent hardware makes them fragile. Half of what made the VR experience so good was that I was using the Index Knuckles. Got the Index a bit later and despite the lower res it was just such a better experience because I didn’t have to fiddle and tweak to make things work. I got the Steam link (because it was $5) because I was constantly annoyed with moonlight giving me issues - lo and behold the steam link just worked with no issues.

Until there’s a good alternative, I’m happy with my Steam Deck and Index. I’m content risking my library of games if it means that right now I’m able to play Overcooked with my friend in Indonesia, or end my game on PC and pick up where I left off downstairs either via Steam Link or these days the Deck. These are things that I could not do, either at all or as easily, without Steam.

Show me an alternative that has a smidge of what I use from Steam and I’ll start switching over. Playnight and GOG Galaxy aren’t it by a longshot. None from what I can tell exist except for a single self-hosted option that just came to fruition this year, and that’s solely for installers and a very barebones launcher (it was called Crack I think, hilarious, but I think the project has been renamed since then). But go on, keep saying it’s blind brand loyalty, ignore the litany of services that get used that make people see it as a worthwhile option.

mateomaui,

I don’t even own a steamdeck yet but most of my actual purchases are from Steam in preparation for the next big revision. Buy Steam cheap from keyshops, pirate GOG for backup.

KpntAutismus,

that’s why i use spotify, almost all songs i want, great UI, the discovery algorithm is rad, and sharing a playlist for the communal work speaker is easy.

HiddenLayer5,
@HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml avatar

They could have easily crammed the Steam Deck full of stuff to make it hard to use for piracy - locking down everything, making it usable only to play games you legitimately own, force you to go through who knows what hoops in order to play games on it. That’s what Nintendo or Apple or most other companies do.

Doing the absolute bare minimum to not be consumer hostile does not warrant praise. Just because Nintendo or Apple are worse doesn’t mean Valve is heroic for not doing things they really shouldn’t have the right to do anyway.

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