Steam binds game installations to a specific account where you purchased them;
I don't know what you think Steam is doing in this regard, but if you have some evidence that it writes personal account data into game files to prevent their use elsewhere, then please share it. That would be newsworthy.
you can’t really argue that it doesn’t behave a lot like DRM would, for practical purposes, and for your typical user.
The only similarity to DRM is that the game expects it to be present. If that made it DRM, your graphics driver would also be DRM, as would your OS, your input devices, and your internet provider.
Obviously, these things are not the same. That's why we have different words for them.
Please don’t be disingenuous.
Please don't confuse people by misusing technical terms.
(Or at the very least, have the grace not to complain when someone corrects their usage. Sharing and refining knowledge is how we all learn from each other, after all.)
Steam seems antithetical to all of these. The software in the first place became popular as a form of DRM,
It's annoying when games require Steam in order to run, but let's be clear: it's not DRM.
In most of the cases I've seen, it's nothing more than a library dependency, for features like Steam Input and achievements. Here's a Steam client emulator to satisfy that dependency without Steam being present at all:
Are you saying that the parent poster is giving incorrect information?
Yes. mosiacmango's comment repeated what others had already said (right down to specific words that I used in the original thread and here), and then jumped to this conclusion:
Pretty clear that this is a very old screenshot of what is now a non issue.
Everything about that statement is false. While the circumstances made it seem likely that the screenshot was old, it was not clearly so, and in fact, it turns out the issue is still present. I checked it. A registration email from the test I ran yesterday looked just like the screenshot in question, cleartext password and all.
Given that Larian reported the issue fixed three years ago, it's possible that they fixed it locally and some time later upgraded to a new version of the forum software, thereby overwriting the local fix. Perhaps mosiacmango should have considered that before posting incorrect speculation as if it were fact.
I think the OP of that post would have had a better reception if they had:
Responsibly disclosed what they found, rather than using it to stir up drama on social media.
Mentioned that it's just a web forum account, not connected to game accounts or anything else of value.
Targeted the software vendor (https://www.ubbcentral.com/) instead of picking on one particular customer who used that software.
Refrained from spreading misconceptions and unfounded assumptions about how the technology works.
Responded to the reasonable follow-up questions, such as those that came when readers discovered that the problem was reported fixed three years ago.
People in that thread responded with skepticism and criticism to an irresponsible, misdirected, misleading, alarmist mess of a post. That's hardly surprising.
Analogous to the existing community block functionality, users can also block instances. This means that all content from communities which are hosted there is hidden. Posts from users of blocked instances are still visible in other places.
It read as though you thought picking out one particular case that I didn't address somehow refuted what I wrote. (Which it doesn't, of course, because I wasn't making an exhaustive list.)
I was mostly replying to the top level comment
I see. That was confusing, since the top-level comment wasn't mine, yet you replied to me. Thanks for clarifying.
There are plans to update the forum, including for better security (the main issue with changing the forum software is concern over reliably migrating all of the existing content).
After emailing (admittedly not current best practice), the passwords are hashed and only the hash is stored.
...and later...
The forum has been updated to https, and passwords are no longer being sent by email.
Which raises the question of how old OP's screen shot is.
Also, no, the password would not necessarily still be stored in plain text on their end. The cleartext password used in that email might be only in memory, and discarded after sending the message. Depends on how the UBB forum software implemented it and how Larian's mail servers are set up.
EDIT: I just verified that this behavior has resurfaced since it was originally fixed. OP would do well to responsibly report it, rather than stirring up drama over a web forum account.
it wouldn’t surprise me if the majority of those who like those 2 technologies were 40+, maybe even 50+.
I don't think it should surprise anyone if people with more experience and skills are more comfortable with simple tools than the rest of us. They've had more time to find good workflows for those tools, after all.
It might be more interesting to ask why people prefer any one comms method over another. For example, do they like irc/email because they're old dogs who can't learn new tricks, or because those are open systems that can't be taken over by some greedy corporation?
I don't know what you think Steam is doing in this regard, but if you have some evidence that it writes personal account data into game files to prevent their use elsewhere, then please share it. That would be newsworthy.
The only similarity to DRM is that the game expects it to be present. If that made it DRM, your graphics driver would also be DRM, as would your OS, your input devices, and your internet provider.
Obviously, these things are not the same. That's why we have different words for them.
Please don't confuse people by misusing technical terms.
(Or at the very least, have the grace not to complain when someone corrects their usage. Sharing and refining knowledge is how we all learn from each other, after all.)