Sony makes bold claim about game ownership • Hacker News Board

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#281

Post by ndriscoll » Fri, Sep 04, 2026, 10:41 PM UTC

dcow wrote: post #266

Timon3 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large number of games on Steam don't use any DRM, you can just copy the files and use them wherever you want. So no, it's not the same.

Let's put the actual numbers in front of people: 1,924 out of 43,179 games, or 4.4%, as of today (according to PCGamingWiki) are DRM free. The vast majority check whether you've purchased the game at runtime. If you stick to only indie games and the one off AA or AAA with no license check on Steam then sure thou-art-holier. I think the argument is more precisely made by saying: on Steam, while the platform supports D…

Except as Valve themselves points out[0],

> The Steam DRM wrapper by itself is not an anti-piracy solution. The Steam DRM wrapper protects against extremely casual piracy... but it is easily removed

And it takes about 2 seconds to find the removal tools on github. So you can treat Steam's DRM as basically non-existent. This is unlike consoles, which require kernel exploits or hardware modifications to bypass.

[0] https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm?l=english

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#282

Post by captainbland » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 1:09 PM UTC

pibaker wrote: post #250

bsimpson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the button becomes License and everyone knows that's the one you click to buy. As much as I empathize with (and even support) the reasoning, I wonder if it would have a tangible effect. Is there anyone who was gonna click "buy" but not "license" (presuming they relabel the button and everything else is the same)?

You are being downvoted but your reasoning is absolutely correct. We nerds on the nerdy techie HN love to believe that people will act correctly if they are properly informed but people have repeatedly demonstrated that they don't care. This kind of regulation that only targets wording and nothing tangible will likely just blend into the background noise of 1000 other legally mandated notices in the fine print that p…

I expect many people would accept clicking "license" instead but it's unfair to assume that people don't value ownership as such or that they won't in the future. It's fair to ensure that people are made fully aware of what they're paying for in a clear way which doesn't conflate it with other forms of possession.

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#283

Post by dcow » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 3:29 AM UTC

ndriscoll wrote: post #281

dcow wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's put the actual numbers in front of people: 1,924 out of 43,179 games, or 4.4%, as of today (according to PCGamingWiki) are DRM free. The vast majority check whether you've purchased the game at runtime. If you stick to only indie games and the one off AA or AAA with no license check on Steam then sure thou-art-holier. I think the argument is more precisely made by saying: on Steam, while the platform supports D…

Except as Valve themselves points out[0], > The Steam DRM wrapper by itself is not an anti-piracy solution. The Steam DRM wrapper protects against extremely casual piracy... but it is easily removed And it takes about 2 seconds to find the removal tools on github. So you can treat Steam's DRM as basically non-existent. This is unlike consoles, which require kernel exploits or hardware modifications to bypass. [0] htt…

So we agree that Valve, Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft all operate platforms that support DRM. Wonderful!

I'm not interesting in bickering over who's DRM is the easiest to remove XD

In the US it's not piracy to make archival backups of digital media that you own in the first place, anyway. Even so, nothing gives you the right to use the software in ways that violate the EULA (except for your rights under the DMCA to create archival copies) regardless of whether you backed up the media with or without the DRM.

To put it plainly your right to create an archival copy does not extend to a right to run the media on unsupported/licensed hardware & software. I think that's an issue that should be solved, we likely agree, but let's not pretend that the situation with Steam is somehow healthy for society whereas with Sony it's not just because the DRM is slightly easier to circumvent.