FRUSTRATION.

Gaming isn't all fun and games.  (Get it?)

Buying and playing games used to be a lot easier.  Or at least that's my memory of it.  My earlier experiences involved console gaming, starting with the NES.  I also had experiences with the Genesis, Game Boy, and even a Game Gear.  Consoles being what they are, it was never super complex of a process to acquire a game.  Go to most any store, plunk down some cash.  Playing it was even easier: plug game into console, turn on said console.  As I got older, I found myself desiring a bit more out of my gaming experiences, so I starting splitting time between consoles and PC gaming.  Definitely more complex and involving, PC gaming tended to give richer experiences that consoles couldn't really emulate.  The drawback is that they can sometimes take some extra maintenance and effort to make them work optimally.

The Internet changed a lot of things, few more dramatically than games.  Consoles were suddenly able to handle such things as online multiplayer games and patches, which then evolved into downloadable content and even entire games delivered via the internet.  PC gaming evolved around the same lines, though slightly ahead of consoles in terms of online features.  Then publishers conjured something interesting: online DRM.  This is basically part of the software that "checks in" with a server owned and controlled by said publisher.  This is mainly used as a way to make sure that the software that's being used has been genuinely bought and paid for, and is otherwise un-molested.  It started with simple, one-time checks upon installation, moved on into installation limits, and finally, into the current era: always-on DRM.  Granted, few companies use it, the big two being Ubisoft and Blizzard, currently.  Ubisoft puts it (or did, rather, it's difficult to tell) into almost all of their PC games, most notably the extremely popular Assassin's Creed series.  Blizzard had an account system in place (similar to Steam) until Diablo 3, where it was implemented to justify the existence of their auction houses.

Here's a couple of recent examples of why this system doesn't work, from personal experience:

Ubisoft: Steam's annual summer sale is in full swing, conveniently falling just after my birthday.  One of the games that I hadn't owned yet that I'd been hoping to grab was one of the first to go on sale: Assassin's Creed Revelations.  I nabbed it, installed it, and started it up.  Ubisoft games require what's known as a UPlay account; an Ubisoft specific account that ties the game you buy to the account, forever linking them so all one has to do in order to play one of their games on just about any computer is log in.  With fresh installs, it does a single check to Ubisoft's servers to verify the game key that you entered upon installation.  Only I couldn't log in.  At all.  I figured I had forgotten my password, so I went to Ubisoft's website to log in there, possibly reset my password.  But the password I had worked fine on the site.  I thought it was a software issue so I ran some integrity tests.  All clear.  Then I hit the support forums.  Turns out that the sudden increase in activity had pretty much knocked out Ubisoft's authentication servers.  A few hundred thousand players couldn't log in and activate their games, which meant they couldn't play the games they had recently bought, or previously bought, or any Ubisoft game at all that was tied to that account.  A couple days later, the server was back up, but the rage put forth by the community (and myself as well) is another reminder of the flaws behind such forms of DRM.  Basically, if one demands or requires that their DRM is "always on," that company is responsible for having those servers being "always on."

Blizzard: This is the one that really pisses me off.  For my aforementioned birthday, I was given a copy of Diablo 3.  Good times.  Like all most current Blizzard games, these require a battle.net account, which I have had for a good long while.  These accounts are set up pretty straightforwardly (email address/password) with an "additional security" option being an "authenticator," a little keychain device that syncs up with Blizzard's servers, outputting a code that you enter upon logging into a game.  I went into the game to log in, and was kicked back, with a "login / password are not correct" message.  Considering I had logged in with the same credentials the day before, this was a ridiculous lie.  So I went to Blizzard's site to log in.  Same result.  Happening to have my e-mail open at the time, I found a message from Blizzard saying that the e-mail address associated with my account had been changed by request.  I clicked the suggested link that would bring me to a "I call bullshit" section of the site.  There is, however, a problem.  Whoever got into my account had changed everything about it.  Name.  E-mail.  Security questions.  Password.  All gone.  The account was still active, but it had been scrubbed clean of all traces of... well, me.  This being the case, the online methods of "calling bullshit" are completely invalidated.  My only recourse is to call Blizzard's support directly (which, due to scheduling, I won't be able to do until Thursday) and I have a good idea of what they're going to say: "You really need to get an Authenticator."  Here's the thing, Blizzard: No I Fucking Don't.  I don't put my information onto your site so I can keep track of it.  Once it's on your site, that's your job now.  I shouldn't need to buy a stupid little keychain to keep my info secure; that's your responsibility.  I know that Blizzard gets hacked and phished a lot, but I'm more careful than most folks; I'm 99% sure this is not something that's my fault.  I'm hoping this can get resolved soon, but this really shakes my faith in Blizzard as a developer.

So, ranty rant rant.  Basically, I want games to be on Steam.  Is that too much to ask?  Their security is super tight, it's unobtrusive, and the client is a joy to use.  WHY, GAMING, WHY.