[kankroc]

I think the parent comment was referring to video game piracy before Steam.

It was a mess of custom launchers, DRM, losing the CD/DVD or key so people would turn to piracy to access stuff they already owned.

Fast-forward a few year and most people are fine with Steam as long as it's the unified launcher for doing thing.

[DrBazza]

Pre-Steam also coincided with pre-Internet / online gaming. Having half your software assets lurking on company servers now makes protecting your IP considerably easier.

[jacquesm]

Ok, that's a good point. But video games are rarely created with public funds and in general are not crowdsourced to then be placed behind a paywall. Even Steam has plenty of competition.

If there were a disruption of the world of scientific publishing that would have a parallel in entertainment I would have chosen Spotify over Steam.