You pay for the license to play the game, which has been stated many times in this thread. That is how it works, you do not own the game. I don't see how I can make this fact any clearer. And I'm not even referring to Steam there.
If you think I'm suggesting by "owning the game" that a purchaser has the right to do with it whatever they want you are incorrect. I realize that a user has limited rights of distribution and transcription. Laws prohibiting plagiarism, and copyright infringement are of course necessary.
But pointing out that purchasers only purchase the right to play and or mod for personal use of the code (as well as other sundry uses) not for rights to copy and redistribute, does not address the central point that Steam interferes with users ability and right to play the game by requiring a non-essential and extraneous networking arrangement.
Serial activation keys are DRM? Perhaps technically they strive toward a similar goal: limiting use to the purchaser and presenting an obstacle to duplication and redistribution. But in my expeirence the term is not generally used to refer to that form of security.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management#Technologies
I'd be interested if you can source something referring to activation serial keys as an example of "DRM."
Steam is sending the data to an authorized party (by accepting the EULA you accept VALVe as an authorized party) and is not interfering with normal computer functions by design.
Oh yes, I understand that the user has "agreed" to Valve as an authorized party. Technically, the agreement is authorized. I'm not arguing that Valve and other DRM firms do not have the lawyers to position their practices so that they appear to be legal.
I'm suggesting that the very idea of forcing a user to agree to allow a third party to require networking is an infringement on fair use. I realize that as of yet, legal interpretations based on precedent allow them to get away with this. But eventually, a case will come their way which brings the legal interpretation back into the favor of the consumer. Which is why I will not buy games that use Steam, Ubisoft games, etc.
It certainly doesn't stop me or the hundreds of thousands of people playing games on Steam right now. (Concurrent Steam Users: 1,457,532). If it was malware, it would be preventing so many people from playing games everyone would have stopped using it years ago.
Illogical and ill-founded. Tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of personal computers globally have malware of various natures on them, and their users keep running those machines for years, often unaware that basic functions of their machine are being interfered with, and frequently interpreting the lags, crashes, glitches, etc., that result from the malware as a 'normal part of the mysterious world of computers.' Malware does not equate with "OS crashing, hard-disk erasing cataclysm" although obviously some of the most malicious forms that those nutjob hackers dream up might try to accomplish such cataclysmic effects. Malware is simply malicious code which_interferes_ with normal computer use. From this standpoint, AOL, Skype, Norton, and various other widespread applications that people "agree" to put on their machines are malware. The difference is when one patron of a product requires a consumer to deal with another patron of a client, whose business practice involves requiring the user to install and use a piece of code that prevents use of the purchased product if the 3rd party application is not used, i.e., if you do not maintain your Steam account.
You say "you have heard of people" not updating or logging on for years; well I have heard of people experience auto-updates at alarmingly high frequencies.
Interfering will not necesarily lead all users to desist with patronizing the service provider that is the source of the malware, let alone if they are even able to make the connection between the interference in their use of their machine and the application that was installed that is causing it.
