SecuROM was a flashpoint of controversy particularly in the launches of BioShock, Mass Effect and Spore, limiting the number of times these titles could be installed and forcing players to routinely connect to the internet for authentication. Publishers started using the anti-piracy software in earnest around 2007, when physical discs and midnight GameStop release parties were all the rage. Players weren't so agreeable when it came to SecuROM, the granddaddy of DRM.

In a digital-first ecosystem, it's just easier this way. Every major gaming platform today relies on DRM, with companies like Valve, Epic Games, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo owning players' libraries in some form. That's because, over time, we got used to DRM. You can disable notifications at any time in your settings menu. A feature that would've made headlines in 2010 is often relegated to a single sentence at the base of the inverted pyramid, or not mentioned at all. In heated Twitter threads and editorials about the newest and most controversial gaming platforms around, the DRM-free bit of NVIDIA's news seemed to barely register with fans. When you buy a game via GeForce Now, you get to keep it, regardless of whether the service itself remains live - a promise that its competitors, Google Stadia and Microsoft's xCloud, can't make. NVIDIA launched GeForce Now, the first and only cloud gaming platform to operate on a 'DRM-free' basis. The response from fans was so vicious that Microsoft abandoned its strategy and rebuilt the Xbox One without DRM just months before its launch date.įast forward to February 2020. Variations of this system persisted throughout the early 2010s, when Microsoft attempted to release the Xbox One with built-in DRM checks. In the 2000s, major PC video game publishers began adding software to their discs that limited the number of times these games could be installed, tracking and verifying players in new, conspicuous ways. The phrase alone, or just its abbreviation, DRM, once had the power to spark scathing editorials and spawn furious debates in online forums worldwide.

Drm Free Xbox 360 Games List