Valve's DRM was inspired by an exec's nephew, who 'used a $500 check I'd sent him for school expenses and bought himself a CD-ROM replicator ... "And Mike [Harrington, Valve co-founder] ...

After her GDC session, Harrington noted that she and her ex-husband have a different recollection about how Valve's DRM came to be. "Mike thinks that we were going to do it anyway.

Newell and Mike Harrington, both former Microsoft employees, founded the studio in 1996 to develop Half-Life, one of the most influential titles in the first-person shooter genre.

But years before that, with the 1998 launch of the original Half-Life, Valve cofounder and then-CMO Monica Harrington said she was inspired to take DRM more seriously by her nephew's reaction to ...