You’re conflating DRM with software licensing. DRM is digital enforcement of license terms. Steam was by no means the first form of DRM, but it is a DRM platform (though there are some DRM-free titles).
I am not too young to remember Steam being a highly controversial topic because it was basically launched as the DRM for Half-Life 2. The backlash against the normalization of DRM led to the creation of Good Old Games, still the premiere DRM-free vendor on the market.
However, software licenses have been in use since the 70s. The practice of selling actual copies of code as opposed to licenses to use the code was already rare by the 90s. If you bought a CD or floppy disks in a store, you were buying a license to use the code on the disks, but you were explicitly denied the rights to resell or copy it, at least for most commercial products. Most people just never read the very long terms of usage.
While there was a game that had online authentication before Steam, Steam popularized it to make it industry standard.
Copy protection is very different than online authentication that restricts your ownership rights.
. If you bought a CD or floppy disks in a store, you were buying a license to use the code on the disks, but you were explicitly denied the rights to resell
Absolutely untrue! You were denied the right to copy the software. If you bought a CD, you absolutely had the right to resell it.
You’re conflating DRM with software licensing. DRM is digital enforcement of license terms. Steam was by no means the first form of DRM, but it is a DRM platform (though there are some DRM-free titles).
I am not too young to remember Steam being a highly controversial topic because it was basically launched as the DRM for Half-Life 2. The backlash against the normalization of DRM led to the creation of Good Old Games, still the premiere DRM-free vendor on the market.
However, software licenses have been in use since the 70s. The practice of selling actual copies of code as opposed to licenses to use the code was already rare by the 90s. If you bought a CD or floppy disks in a store, you were buying a license to use the code on the disks, but you were explicitly denied the rights to resell or copy it, at least for most commercial products. Most people just never read the very long terms of usage.
While there was a game that had online authentication before Steam, Steam popularized it to make it industry standard.
Copy protection is very different than online authentication that restricts your ownership rights.
Absolutely untrue! You were denied the right to copy the software. If you bought a CD, you absolutely had the right to resell it.