Well if an online battle.net activation is required that's technically still DRM. Like Steam, as you said. Whether you consider that restrictive or not, its weird to note or require it after you've basically acknowledged that DRM is a futile effort.
Blizzard Says DRM is a "Losing Battle"
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
Next up: Blizzard Says water is "wet"!Andy Chalk said:
I'm glad developers are slowly starting to realize that coming up with more and mpre draconian DRM measures isn't going to do anyone any good, and start to look at alternative ways to combat piracy. It's about time, since it's not exactly something that has only just been discovered.
I honestly think the main problem these guys are going to come up against when they attempt for this 'carrot' steam-esque approach is that steam is already out there. How many people are going to want to put steam on their computer ..... and battle net, and Ubisofts version, Games for microsoft online or whatever that load of crap is, the EA version along with every other company that brings one out?
Basically I think it's going to be difficult to oust steam as a mainstay of the PC gaming experience and companies that are electing that response instead of 'stick' anti-piracy DRM are going to really have to pull something out of the bag for it to be as big a success.
Basically I think it's going to be difficult to oust steam as a mainstay of the PC gaming experience and companies that are electing that response instead of 'stick' anti-piracy DRM are going to really have to pull something out of the bag for it to be as big a success.
It is still going to get cracked and people will STILL be able to play the game without buying it. It doesn't matter what anyone does with it.
DRM is necessary but shouldn't be a hindrance.
They are still going to do a basic form of it. The point they are making is that the DRM shouldn't hinder the player in anyway from playing the game. Not being able to play a single player game because some activation host server is down is complete and utter bullshit. And as soon as they shut the server down, you can never ever play your single player game again. Imagine that since they just shut down all the Halo 2 servers that now no one anywhere can ever even play Halo 2 ever again. That is the kind of DRM that sucks. This DRM is just registering your software with Blizzard and then they unlock it for you, free to do whatever you want with it.3nimac said:
DRM is necessary but shouldn't be a hindrance.
I must have misread this, and the article over on joystiq, but they say you'll still need to login to authenticate your game copy...isn't that still DRM or am I missing something?
In any case it's still ultra-mega-lame they got rid of LAN abilities, and I still don't know if I'm going to buy this game as a result.
In any case it's still ultra-mega-lame they got rid of LAN abilities, and I still don't know if I'm going to buy this game as a result.
The reason I feel safe buying Steam games is 100% of them are available on the pirate bay. Otherwise I would never purchase a piece of software that has to ask someone other than me permission if it can run. I run cracks on all my legitimate software just because the none of the DRM crapware provides any kind of value for me.
Steam isn't bad with the exception of autopatching rather than letting you choose whether or not you want to patch.
Starcraft 2 will not include lan play so that is a no sale. Remember spawn copies in SC1? So you can quickly get your friends playing? Yeah no more of that.
As a casual (couple hours a week gamer) paying for a WoW sub doesn't appeal to me. There are a ton of good free MMOs out there. http://www.ddo.com/ http://www.allods.com/ http://www.freerealms.com/ are all great to hop one, play a couple of hours of quests, then ditch.
That said I am coming back for Cataclysm those bastards. Re-making the old world was the only thing that would pull me back in.
Steam isn't bad with the exception of autopatching rather than letting you choose whether or not you want to patch.
Starcraft 2 will not include lan play so that is a no sale. Remember spawn copies in SC1? So you can quickly get your friends playing? Yeah no more of that.
As a casual (couple hours a week gamer) paying for a WoW sub doesn't appeal to me. There are a ton of good free MMOs out there. http://www.ddo.com/ http://www.allods.com/ http://www.freerealms.com/ are all great to hop one, play a couple of hours of quests, then ditch.
That said I am coming back for Cataclysm those bastards. Re-making the old world was the only thing that would pull me back in.
DRM for me encourages piracy any game where I need an Internet connection to play consider it pirated, yes that goes for all Steam and stupidly DRMed games, oh starcraft II requires you to create a Battle.Net account, I don't want one, I WANT TO PLAY THE DAMN GAME WITHOUT REQUIRING A SODDING INTERNET CONNECTION.
They will probably do the same stupid DRM with Diablo III which is a shame, I was looking forward to that game.
They will probably do the same stupid DRM with Diablo III which is a shame, I was looking forward to that game.
I'm not sure if this is what you were saying, but I don't think you have to be online at all times. The idea is that they hope you will want to. I do believe you have to register the game at least once online but after than it's not mandatory.Irridium said:
They say "it's a losing battle", but they insist on fighting it, by forcing us through Battle.Netacebook (which IS DRM) and removing LAN support.
Result?. Me and my 20 LAN party buddies are not buying StarCraft 2, a game we've been waiting for years. Congrats on the fuckup, Blizzard. You sure do know how to treat PC gamers.
Edit: Andy, Steam DOES let you play offline LAN. Battle.Net doesn't. So B.Net is way worse than Steam, however much you insist on the contrary.
Result?. Me and my 20 LAN party buddies are not buying StarCraft 2, a game we've been waiting for years. Congrats on the fuckup, Blizzard. You sure do know how to treat PC gamers.
Edit: Andy, Steam DOES let you play offline LAN. Battle.Net doesn't. So B.Net is way worse than Steam, however much you insist on the contrary.
From what I understand if your playing single player or locally it connects every now and then to update friends lists and whatnot. If it can't connect, then the game will most likely stop.Eric the Orange said:
I could be wrong, but thats what I've gathered.
EDIT: Never mind. Seems the news post cleared it all up.
He's right, you know. Steam is DRM. The only kind I find acceptable, because it not only has more pro's than con's, but the only con is really the need to have the program running. Considering the fact I can use it to download all my games anywhere, it saves quite a bit of data for quite a few games to the steam cloud, and I've found quite the online community as a result mean that it's so very worth it.
