You used the term "owner". I don't subscribe to the notion that an idea can be owned. Once it's out there, it's free for anyone to use. That's the beauty of an idea, there's no scarcity. Physical goods are valuable because they're scarce. Ideas have value because they're not scarce. Copyright and patents are a compromise, giving the person who first documents their thinking of an idea to a short monopoly period where they can control the idea. An incentive to share the idea. But the concept of an idea being locked up with an "owner", potentially never to be seen again for all time is also evil, unfortunately it's where we're heading with neverending copyright.
It depends on context. Intrinsic versus non-intrinsic. I'm in complete agreement when it comes to concepts or ideas. Even the supreme court says that no one can patent a mathmatical formula that can be done by a person without the help of a machine. In my view that extends to books or music that can be shared through normal human interaction.
Where the catch-22 comes is through machine language. When we think of games we think of graphics and sound, be in the real world those images don't exist. They write down a language and we buy a machine to translate. Without the translator, the code is worthless. This is why we "license" software. We as end users can never own something that doesn't technically exist in reality. We pay for the ability for to decode it.
When we buy physical media, we purchase and own the media which is why fair use exists. However, the ability to decode the language on the disc is licensed and thus the quandary. The DMCA has become antiquated in this sense. It only really speaks in terms of physical media. Currently, digital distribution truly is unregulated and horribly overburdended by developer/publisher driven restrictions. The user has virtually no rights.
Again, please don't misunderstand me. I'm in agreement that DRM is horrid. In my opinion, as long as the user is able to reproduce the platform that particular software is designed for, that software should be able to be used in perpetuity.
Declaring something as evil implies malice. However, in this case you would be hard pressed to prove that the intent is to do harm in the sense that you convey. What they do is well meant if completely misguided, but they aren't sitting in a back room trying to think of ways to publish software now for the purpose of f**king everyone over 15 years from now.
Moral philosophy is always a touchy subject because there are many viable answers, of which each could have illicit strong points of view.
It's just weird that you use the term "idea" as if every game made has the same cultural siginificance as the painting of the Sistine Chapel. Some games will eventually attain cultural significance and will be protected by organizations such as the Smithsonian, in spite of DRM. The vast majority of them will end up like any number of direct to video Jean-Claude Van Damme movies....destined to by swallowed by the toilet bowl of time.