The DRM Effect

[Sean Sands]

The DRM Effect

Some will care, some won?t, and, to be perfectly fair, most will never even realize that anything controversial is happening. Still, the continued tightening of the noose around big-budget PC titles brings questions about the platform?s long-term viability back into stark contrast against the comparatively hassle-free experience of consoles.

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[Skrapt]

We need more systems like Steam, that reduce the chance of piracy (so that even if people get titles before release they are blocked by steam) and have better anti cheat system in place and universal patching, but Steam unlike most other programs actually gives you the feeling you own what you've bought, instead of it belonging to Valve, since all the game data is on your computer, you can play offline and you can download and install your own games on as many PC's as you want with the same account.

 

[Pingrash]

since all the game data is on your computer, you can play offline and you can download and install your own games on as many PC's as you want with the same account.

The only flaw with that is you can only have one copy playing in an online match at a time. But I don't mind. It's still good for LAN parties.

Putting DRM on games will cause sales on that game to plumet below hell and into whatever abyss is below it. If anything it'll encourage piracy even more because people don't want to put up with continually validating games and not being able to install them on more than one machine.

What Ea and Bioware were proposing was way over the top. At least they woke up to this and scraped it.

 

[sammyfreak]

I guess they were testing waters to find what is acceptable to the gaming community and can prevent piracy, this obviously wasent the awnser.

 

[fl3sh]

It's all a little silly. The games are going to be pirated regardless of whether the DRM is there or not. It's been mentioned before: if anything, this is another reason TO pirate the software. At least you don't have to deal with the bullshit.

Furthermore, you can look at companies such as the makers of Sins of a Solar Empire to find great games without all the garbage.

I just don't get these companies.

 

[Cousin_IT]

Glad to see theyve reconsidered the DRM. I accept that Publishers/Developers want to combat piracy; but the demands of Ea's DRM system were frankly too much to humour in the name of progress.

I agree that,no matter how many Develeopers abandon the PC, it will always be a gaming platform. For starters RTS' & City sims suck horrendously on consoles compared to the mouse/keyboard combination of the PC. I dont see major publishers like EA abandoning the PC either since games like The Sims still sell through the roof even without invasive DRM systems protecting it from "the pirates."

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

I love how in one of the links on the right it's got a link to an article that says "Starforce must die!"

 

[Nugoo]

Has anyone else noticed how well this works out for the DRM companies? They sell their product as a solution to piracy, when, in fact, it causes causes more piracy; then they get to say, "Wow, that piracy's pretty bad. You'd better buy even more of our stuff," I'm beginning to suspect the real villain is neither EA nor the pirates, but SecuROM.

 

[Anniko]

We need more systems like Steam, that reduce the chance of piracy (so that even if people get titles before release they are blocked by steam) and have better anti cheat system in place and universal patching, but Steam unlike most other programs actually gives you the feeling you own what you've bought, instead of it belonging to Valve, since all the game data is on your computer, you can play offline and you can download and install your own games on as many PC's as you want with the same account.

Steam doesn't reduce the chances of piracy, every single game on Steam is on a torrent site somewhere. It provides an interface to easily and quickly buy games.

That said, I don't think you own the games on Steam at all, as evidenced by the fiasco with the Orange Box being imported into America at cheap prices and Valve subsequently disabling the game for those people who imported it, all completely legitimately.

http://consumerist.com/consumer/drm/valve-deactivating-customers-who-bought-orange-box-internationally-314690.php

I was prepared to buy Mass Effect, collectors edition if they had one, but after hearing this online activation BS, I'm not going to. I don't care if it's only authenticating when I install it, I'm not buying it. I had to put up with that crap once before with Bioshock.

I bought the game on launch day and tried to install it, nope, "Servers were busy". I try the next day, nope, "Servers have started smoking". I try again, 3 days after launch, once again, nope, "Servers have caught fire". The only good thing that could've come from that, is their office burning down and the people who decided it would be a good idea burning along with it. Alas, that didn't happen.

Okay, I eventually got it installed, played through, finished it, lackluster as it was (rail shooter, mentally retarded version of System Shock 2). Fast forward to 4 months later and I'm having the strange urge to shoot myself for wanting to play Bioshock again. I don't like guns except as engineering marvels so I decided to try and install it. No can do, turns out, they've taken down their activation servers. I have a $100AUD coaster here. All because of online authentication.

Damnit, that went on for awhile. Now, excuse me while I go play System Shock 2 from my disc image that I made awhile ago from my original SS2 disc.

 

[Girlysprite]

I wonder...Im sure everyone got at least one copied game, now or in the past. Has there ever been a moment wher you tried to copy a game or download it illegally, and it was such a hassle that you thought 'nah fuck that, I'll buy it'.

I can tell you, I never had such a moment. Actually, I had it the way around. A long time ago I played might & magic and daggerfall from pirated disks. I thought those games were so great that I bought original copies. Same goes for my sister; she played copied versions of harry potter games and disney games, and later she bought orginals.

I see pirated copies as a sort of extended tryout/demo. If a game is really great, I buy it. If not, it saved me the money.

 

[Arachnid]

Argh! It's not "copyright protection", it's "copy protection" or better, "copy prevention"! Their copyright is not in danger, and does not need protecting (and cannot be protected through technological measures anyway).

I expected better from a professional publication.

 

[man-man]

wonder...Im sure everyone got at least one copied game, now or in the past. Has there ever been a moment wher you tried to copy a game or download it illegally, and it was such a hassle that you thought 'nah fuck that, I'll buy it'.
Actually yes, I tried to get TF2 from torrents and could only find a version in Russian (I hadn't seen the game in English so didn't know where to go to connect to a server, but I'm guessing it wouldn't have been able to play on most of them)

Bought it from Steam, and all was good.

 

[unangbangkay]

Thank God at least SOME people have a view of PC gaming that isn't restricted to "OH NOES SUPER-DEVS LEAVIN WE'RE DOOMED". There are hundreds of developers and titles that can and will happen. There's no question that the environment has changed. It's no longer an easy or even wise decision to be PC-exclusive, and the market for mainboard-breaking super-games like Crysis was limited to begin with.

But there are many titles that, unless consoles come with a keyboard and mouse, are never going to be quite as good or quite as executable as on a PC. Niche titles like point-and-click adventures, hentai games (heh) and high-end tactical/strategic releases have always worked better on the PC platform (with some exceptions of course).

People wailed and rended their garments that the emergence of the Wii, with its remote and mouse-like systems would spell doom for the PC dominance of the RTS and "complicated" wRPG market, but that simply hasn't happened. The Wii's family-friendly focus and the fact that its control was never as precise or useful as advertised proved it.

And to hand off an example of a game that just wouldn't be right without a PC, I hold up Lexis Numerique and The Adventure Company's "The Experiment" aka "Experience 112". It's perhaps one of the most immersive and interesting gameplay concepts I've seen since Introversion's Uplink. VOYEURAN GAEM anyone?

 

[Crusnik]

Honestly, Steam is a fantastic solution. It had a lot of problems at the start, but ultimately turned into the model for digital distribution. And if you're just going to pirate the games anyway, you may as well buy them and then just use a crack to log on with the same account for LAN parties.

 

[Wolfdale]

The DRM solution is probably not going to go away, as its being used as a permanent solution for many a company at this point (take Apple and their iTunes-based iPod marketing). Personally, I dislike it, because I don't want to have to have a bloody internet connection available at all times just to play goddamn music. At that point, I'd rather go back to the CD-buying era back at the local music shop just to avoid all the pissing around.

Once upon a time I was an avid Counter-Strike player, and that later mellowed out as I began to find the game repetitive, but I digress. The primary issue (for me) was the release of Steam, and the ending of the World Opponent Network (WON). I found it unsettling that Steam would give companies some kind of reach into my PC, but mainly centered around needing internet for a single-player game! You couldn't play Half-Life without authenticating? (Unless you were lucky and still had the old disk.)

At this point, I don't mind Steam particularly, but only in the instances of exclusively Multi-player games (Counter-Strike, CS:S, TF2, etc), which need to connect anyway so they may as well authenticate the bastard as I do so. And I suppose that it's not that big of a deal in the cases of games with online distribution such as the whole Orange Box, which then it is also understandable. Now that Steam's offline mode actually works, I find there to be less of a problem with it.

I suppose the point of this long, caffeine-fueled, sleep-lacking rant is to say this: Single-player games should NEVER require authentication, but I fail to see where multi-exclusive games really have an issue there.
-WD

 

[DaDude9211]

First off, I doubt people won't notice it. Everyone that doesn't have internet will immediately notice it, or people on vacations with their laptops. Hopefully some companies won't use it, then the other companies can be effectively boycotted.

Second off, I laugh at the idea that they think that method will stop crackers for more then a couple months tops. They'll just figure out a way to erase the part of the software that checks to see if it has checked within 10 days, or find a way to edit the time left to ten thousand days without checking, or set it up so that THEIR computer is the one that the game talks too instead of the actual main server. I'm disgusted they're underestimating the intelligence of determined crackers.

 

[Cousin_IT]

The DRM solution is probably not going to go away, as its being used as a permanent solution for many a company at this point (take Apple and their iTunes-based iPod marketing). Personally, I dislike it, because I don't want to have to have a bloody internet connection available at all times just to play goddamn music. At that point, I'd rather go back to the CD-buying era back at the local music shop just to avoid all the pissing around.

Do it anyway. I have yet to buy a single song off Itunes etc & have maybe downloaded 10 illegally (most of which ive subsequently bought legally) . Everything else I buy in good old fashioned CD form, then usually copy those songs onto my Mp3player (no I-pod for me thankyou).

 

[Arbre]

A famous senator once said:

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

 

[sharp_as_a_cork]

Second off, I laugh at the idea that they think that method will stop crackers for more then a couple months tops.

With the current game revenue model being what it is (mostly first week/months hit sales, waning down to very little), that's all they want to do. If they prevent day-0 piracy, as it's called, the payoff may be big enough for them not to care about the games being "eventually" cracked (or perhaps legitimate customers choking on the DRM).