Oh, sorry, I didn't mean that the DRM in Steam adds value - but taking Steam as a whole, Steam itself is viewable as a DRM system that adds value (in all the ways that make Steam awesome).
The core DRM in Steam (if we ignore the flakiness of offline mode at least) is clever, consumer-friendly, and unbeatable: You simply do not deliver the executable to users until the game is out (but they can pre-load assets, which can optionally be encrypted to stop any pre-release leaks from them).
That's not to say Steam might be marginally improved without that, but in my day to day it has never caused any problems that wouldn't exist without it - in contrast, CD ROM based DRM such as Securom has caused me several headaches.
It's also worth mentioning that the DRM on Steam is opt-in: While the big publishers see fit to ship extra DRM on top of Steam, many of the games I have installed through Steam will actually run fine if I launch the executable directly, without starting Steam.
The core DRM in Steam (if we ignore the flakiness of offline mode at least) is clever, consumer-friendly, and unbeatable: You simply do not deliver the executable to users until the game is out (but they can pre-load assets, which can optionally be encrypted to stop any pre-release leaks from them).
That's not to say Steam might be marginally improved without that, but in my day to day it has never caused any problems that wouldn't exist without it - in contrast, CD ROM based DRM such as Securom has caused me several headaches.
It's also worth mentioning that the DRM on Steam is opt-in: While the big publishers see fit to ship extra DRM on top of Steam, many of the games I have installed through Steam will actually run fine if I launch the executable directly, without starting Steam.