It's not a technical bug, but it's a deliberately made flaw - and it illustrates what will happen when after a couple of years they'll turn the servers off (The current list http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0L266ui... shows even games of 2011 disabled already), leaving the game that you "bought" useless.
Digital Restrictions Management = Defective by Design.
Steam also presents a risk, but it's at least actively working to make it less bad for the consumer:
1) You can play most of games offline if you have a flaky connection;
2) They don't have a standard practice of turning off servers to 'obsolete' games, unlike EA. The Steam games are expected to work as long as Steam itself works; but SimCity most likely won't work much longer after the next SimCity is released, as we can see from EA current practices.
EA is also actively working on making things less bad by provisioning more hardware and disabling "non-critical" features.
DRM is DRM. People only get angry when things don't work, with the occasional philosophical argument thrown in to prove a point after the fact.
Steam gets less hate only because their servers have better uptime, but the hate towards EA comes in the form of a philosophical argument about how DRM is fundamentally broken.
Ultimately I think users are pragmatic; if DRM stays out of the way they won't care, and that's by-and-large how Steam is for most people. They also seem to focus on value-add items, such as being able to install (easily!) on multiple computers, operating systems, etc., whereas EA and other companies seem to provide more pain than pleasure. If a company appears to be trying to help people, they'll lovingly hand over their money. If a company seems to be only interested in their wallets, twitter and message boards will not be kind.
Yes. My issue is that the unkindness towards this particular company (EA) comes in the form of a philosophical argument about why DRM is fundamentally broken.
The main difference is that Steam's DRM, if it requires an online connection, only requires it in order to start the game up. Once you are in-game, you aren't booted from the game if you lose your connection while playing. That isn't the case when playing games like SimCity and Diablo 3.
Though, it SimCity's case it seems to be worse as I've heard people losing saves occasionally. I don't remember too many people losing characters when Diablo 3 launched.
On one side, valve's DRM is far less intrusive than EA's and on the other side valves efforts to curb piracy involves a lot more than just slapping DRM on. I remember a large post (interview?) where the gist was:
* Treat all markets equal and release the game at the same time. Not having access to a game that's released elsewhere is a huge driver of piracy.
* Support your games, release follow-up content.
* Actually make the DRM-Service a service: I can buy a game on steam and if there is a mac/windows/linux version, I can actually play all three of them.
It's all give and take. It's annoying that Steam games are DRM protected, but OTOH, I get added benefits. Just taking functionality from the user won't get you far.
People often buy slightly defective products when they're competitive in other features - that doesn't change the fact that any game would be a higher quality, more desireable product if the DRM was removed.
The "defective by design" refers to features unwanted by customer, but intentionally designed by manufacturer.
Examples in the physical world are specific short-lived parts in consumer appliances to reduce their longevity and increase sales - as it's better for manufacturer if a washing machine lasts 5 years but not 10; or new printers being sold with half-full cartridges to facilitate sales of replacements. Quite useful to the producer, but nonetheless despiceable.
That is not true of all Steam games. Some games that rely on Steamworks will fail when they lose connection. Others have no real DRM at all. The executables can be run completely independent of Steam.
Spend a year or more in a local without consistent internet access and Steam's solution is not nearly as rosy. Putting Steam in offline mode requires that your first make an internet connection to cache. Even then after a few days, the cache expires and you have to be able to connect again.
Digital Restrictions Management = Defective by Design.