How a nephew’s CD burner inspired early Valve to embrace DRM

In a post-talk interview with PC Gamer, Harrington noted that her ex-husband remembers the authentication scheme being in place before they discovered their nephew’s newfound love of CD copying. Regardless, Monica said their nephew’s experience definitely cemented a new understanding of how everyday players saw game piracy.

“He was 19 years old. He wasn’t thinking about things like companies, business models, or anything like that,” Harrington told PC Gamer. “He wasn’t thinking about intellectual property. He later apologized profoundly, and I said, ‘Oh my God, you have no idea how valuable that was.'”

Unfortunately for Valve, the CD key system used in Half-Life DRM was pretty easy to bypass if you knew the right code to use (as our own forum members circa 2001 can attest). Still, it’s easy to see how the extra layer of protection Valve put on Half-Life helped inspire Steam’s somewhat more robust DRM system for Half-Life 2 years later.

The rest of Harrington’s GDC talk includes a lot more insider information about the early days of Valve, including a discussion of how rights issues with retail publisher Sierra almost caused Valve to abandon Half-Life 2 in the middle of development. VentureBeat has an incredibly detailed write-up of the talk in its entirety, which serves as a great follow-up to Harrington’s own lengthy blog post remembrances from last summer.