DRM is Over

[Something Amyss]

Oh God, I can hear it now. The cries of #notallDRM and those demanding ethics in DRM journalism. I mean, he said DRM is over, and what else can it mean but that DRM is literally over?

Okay, a more serious note for a moment. DRM is like Batman. Yes, that was serious. Batman often operates by making sure his image is bigger than the man. Batman uses the superstition of criminals to keep them in place in a way no amount of kung fu and Batarangs can.

DRM is the same, but for securing shareholders. Shareholders are dumb panicky animals who can break a big company. And yes, whether we like it or not, when they have that kind of power, they get appeased. So, in deference to the magical thinking of the guys who have the companies by the short hairs, we get DRM. I don't know if the higher ups think it works, but I don't think it matters. The people with influence demand something, and are in a position to walk and take their ball. It doesn't matter if DRM is Batman or Darkwing Duck. The power is in the belief. It has become more than a program to them.

And I know some people are wondering why they matter and we don't. Well, the consumer has proved time and again that we are more than happy to be little more than wallets on legs, little money-conveying devices. We pre-order, we rage. We see bullshots, we rage. We discover DRM, we rage. We see bad games, we rage. We see DLC, we rage. And then we do it all again, lather, rinse repeat. The consumer acts like an addict, so there isn't even a conflict. We'll keep buying with DRM. Investors won't keep investing without it.

And that's how we gave up our power in the equation for a series of quick hits. Wait, this was a Batman comparison. Something something Batman, something something night.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Hopefully the poor sales for the games with newest DRM will show them that DRM is pointless. But I doubt it....

 

[Veylon]

Though to be fair, that course was BS from what I hear anyway. They needed to learn about Drum Memory and Casettes as storage formats...and the programming was done using Visual Basic.

Oh God Why?

Okay, I can understand that you need to know such things existed, once upon a time. As in, they can be briefly mentioned in the foreword to "Introduction to Computers". Casettes are still sometimes used to back up massive data files and then salted away in abandoned salt mines so that companies can resurrect their databases after Armageddon hits.

But those things shouldn't go together. The "DRM is good" side should only be acknowledged as an exercise in creative thinking or (again) letting students know it's out there, not something that aspiring hands-on programmers should be told is a valid point of view.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Always Online DRM such as Steam and Origin are probably the better way to go. uPlay doesn't count because it actively prevents you from playing games, just like (bad) DRM.

I wonder, how much do they pay for the DRM to ensure the first few healthy week(s) of sales?

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Stupid but yet "learned" people believing DRM works is pretty much the answer. I too had a college professor (marketing) trying to teach me how the reported piracy numbers equal an equivalent number of lost sales.

He had also written in his coursebook how companies would find answers to piracy through DRM solutions. Even though he wasn't completely positive about these things he wholly believed they would offer perfect protection in the end.

What do you do when you know better than a guy like that but he asks you questions about it on your exam? You shut up your inner protest and give the coursebook answer. Luckily I didn't get that particular question however.

The problem is that guys like that belong to the marketing and PR world and keep running circles inside that world, ultimately reaching the same conclusions over and over. It's not unreasonable to see how most major shareholders and big companies keep being informed by their own little inner circles where the same stories keep running loops. In fact, all the news points towards the top brass in most sectors being utterly detached from reality.

 

[gamegod25]

The problem is they are that willfully ignorant and in complete denial that DRM is ultimately useless. How many times have you seen someone demand to use only brand name products or even one specific brand because they KNOW it's better even if the generic stuff is exactly the same? They don't care if there is no proof that the stuff works better because they KNOW it is and that's all that matter. These companies have drunk the DRM kool-aid and will keep using it till we pry it from their cold, dead hands. They have their fingers in their ears and humming as loud as they can to drown out anyone who might suggest otherwise.

 

[Ugicywapih]

Actually, if anything, I'd say that so long as the success of this Denuvo thing can be attributed to technological advancement rather than lack of interest in the previous titles it was being attached to, it could possibly mean DRM efficiency overall is improving.
The idea, as I see it, could be that as a given class technologically advanced of items enters the market, be it computer hardware, computer programs, vehicles, communication devices or anything of the sort, the invention in its earliest stages may be something that despite a novel idea isn't so complex as to require a large workforce, with many early breakthroughs being made by individuals or independent companies, whereas as the product evolves, its complexity increases and so does the effort and cost required to maintain cutting edge R&D, meaning that manufacturing of established "classes" of technologically advanced products will be dominated by large companies rather than indies and individuals. With this in mind, one could be led to conclude, that despite the inherently asymmetrical relationship between effort inherent in creating DRM and cracking it, as DRM grows more complex and involved, crackers might hit a glass ceiling of sorts, as they are most likely not able to establish a business model necessary to maintain a large, stable workforce and, their activity in itself being illegal, are unable to start official companies or other legal entities, meaning it would be harder for crackers (and possibly impossible, at a level necessary to counter sufficiently advanced DRM industry) to organize themselves.
So, in summary, it seems excusable for one to think, that if software industry allows DRM to feed off of it for long enough, it'll grow to become an efficient watchdog, rather than an ugly parasite.

This, of course, overlooks a number of important facts:
-Crackers, I imagine, are generally quite tech savvy. While lack of financial compensation might be something of an issue, if things escalate far enough, organizing themselves over the net didn't pose much of a problem so far.
-Information exchange is an issue. While tech companies may try to maintain proprietary information, it will sooner or later either leak in some way or other, or the relevant solution will be discovered independently - either by crackers or scientists who will publish their findings for peer review. Also, I imagine at least some crackers aren't quite as meticulous as tech companies about data security, meaning that while each such tech company works in a fairly isolated environment, there will be at least basic information exchange on cracking DRM on a worldwide scale.
-There's still, as the article notes, no proof successful DRM increases sales. It may entice a few people who would have otherwise pirated the game, but it might just as well scare off other customers. And that's because...
-If DRM grows too complex to break, it's got to be really bloody complex. This means it'll most likely end up bigger, more unstable and it'll likely put more of a load on the CPU. I wouldn't be surprised if it was also getting more closely entwined with the program it's supposed to protect, making creation of a DRMless version by the publisher (I think this happened a few times before with publishers trying to get their games on GoG, right? Or am I just imagining things?) increasingly troublesome.
-DRM is, in this light, capable of providing an uncertain return in the future, but the current expenses are very real. Even if a company plans to take advantage of it once, and if, it reaches a point where it's capable of generating profit for the creator of protected content, it makes no sense to implement it right now. The way capitalism works, you do what makes you profit. DRM may make profit in the future but does not do so right now? Fine, let the other guys bother with it, you should release DRM-free games until the extra expenses become financially justifiable.

So, I can justify DRM, I guess, in a way, but not without some effort and it still falls apart upon closer examination. Game publishers' CEOs may not always be very tech savvy, but neither am I (and they probably have better aides), so I must assume they have other reasons for including DRM. As for what those reasons are? I can only wonder...

Illuminati?

Edit: A factor here might be, that for all I know, DRM likely has merit in non-gaming software industry, where software prices are higher, sales are lower, companies are not allowed to take initiative on cracking, at least officially, and most individuals don't care enough to try. So maybe gaming industry is trying to chase the non-gaming software in this case? Darned if I know.

 

[Seneschal]

I think DAI has an additional layer of "soft DRM" that hasn't (yet) been cracked - you must use the default world state if you're playing a pirated copy, since you need Origin to access the Dragon Age Keep (in which you pick choices from DAO and DA2 which could influence your DAI campaign, like who you sided with, what quests you did, whom you romanced, etc.).

So, in essence, DAI had triple protection - Denuvo, Origin, and the Keep. The first two have been soundly defeated in a month, and I don't think the Keep will last much longer; Mass Effect had "save editors" with which you could mod your character's appearance and tick/untick "plot flags" regarding choices from previous ME games. The Keep is pretty much that, except for 300+ plot flags.

Still, the Keep doesn't hamper legitimate users - they can experience every facet of DAI without having to play through the previous two games, and even if they don't feel like tinkering with the keep, they can play the default world state. It doesn't affect the game's functionality, it gives a boon to players willing to play around with it, and it serves as an incentive to buy the game instead of pirate it. A much more agreeable DRM scheme, though a bit dependent on BioWare's long-running-RPG-series-with-choices format.

 

[Tarfeather]

3. Publishers know that DRM doesn't work, but they put it there to appease stupid shareholders.

I've never liked this excuse. I can believe there are shareholders who care nothing about what a company does, as long as the stock goes up. But this idea requires us to believe that a majority of stockholders know enough about the games industry to be aware of piracy and DRM, but are then too ignorant to understand why DRM doesn't work? They have to be just smart enough to understand what DRM is but too stupid to comprehend that DRM is a bad idea if the company leadership explained it to them? That is a very specific level of dumb, and I have a hard time believing that a significant percent of shareholders would fall into that narrow band.

This quote made my day. It's just like the fact that most "investors" are probably smart enough to realize that they need skilled workers, but not smart enough to pump large amounts of money into an overally good education system which would produce those skilled workers. Yes, they are a very specific level of dumb.. The kind of dumb where whatever harassment you apply to human beings is irrelevant, but getting a few extra dollars because you managed to harass your customers into buying your game is totally worth it.

 

[hermes]

You kind of answer point 4 with your last paragraph: Why don't developers patch the game to remove DRM? Because, as well as including a DRM solution costs money, time and effort, taking it out also costs time, money and effort for developers. While it might be negligible, why would a company assign resources to patch a game that is no longer giving them money?

And about point 3, while I agree shareholders are not genre savvy enough to know the minutia about DRM, most people involved in the business are genre savvy enough to know piracy is a big problem for PC games. They can push the issue of fighting piracy to the board, and they, in turn, push it to the project managers (or maybe the concern originates from the board, which are often not savvy enough to know the minutia about DRM either). While saying "we know it is unsuccessful, so we will not include any technology whatsoever to prevent even the most basic level of protection from piracy" may sound nice for the clients, it turns all kinds of red flags for people that want some level of protection to their investment, no matter how hard you try to tell them it will be, eventually, futile. Even a thin shield is better than no shield at all...

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Though to be fair, that course was BS from what I hear anyway. They needed to learn about Drum Memory and Casettes as storage formats...and the programming was done using Visual Basic.

Oh God Why?

Okay, I can understand that you need to know such things existed, once upon a time. As in, they can be briefly mentioned in the foreword to "Introduction to Computers". Casettes are still sometimes used to back up massive data files and then salted away in abandoned salt mines so that companies can resurrect their databases after Armageddon hits.

But those things shouldn't go together. The "DRM is good" side should only be acknowledged as an exercise in creative thinking or (again) letting students know it's out there, not something that aspiring hands-on programmers should be told is a valid point of view.

^why AQA are idiots.

All of my friends that actually want to become programmers are doing it solo: self-teaching through online courses and just programming for the sake of programming. The actual course is terrible.

 

[Las7]

Piracy is a big problem for any type of media - sometimes it's overlooked but console games are also heavily pirated and there is a second hand market for games on consoles that also gets overlooked.
The difference is companies can track number of people downloading a torrent, they can't track individuals in none-developed countries who make pirated copies of console games and sell them for a $1 each. Current Gen consoles haven't been jailbroken yet, but I'd bet you that older generation of games of consoles were heavily pirated. I remember seeing thousands upon thousands of pirated copies of games while I was on Holiday in Thailand.
Also piracy is not considered a crime outside of developed countries, it's usually monetizing piracy that's the crime. Example - Pirate Bay(and other similar sites) are making thousand of dollars through ad space but aren't making money out of the actual property itself thus it's difficult to sue a Search Site when literally ten others will pop up if you remove it.

The problem is that publishers of intellectual property also forget that piracy is a natural occurrence. Whether it's China coping patented products and making cheaper alternatives, Tomas Edison outright stealing other people's inventions etc. Monetizing and protecting intellectual property will always be a problem and certain people will never pay for something they could get for free. Imagine 3D printers in a few years being capable of creating a variety of devices which you would otherwise have to buy - it's not stealing per say but in the end the actual design of a physical object will be more important than the actual object itself. If you could "download" a car, I would venture to guess that majority of people would "download" the car as opposed to buying it. Those anti pirating ads were always funny - if we could download a bunch of physical objects - obviously we would do it because it's more convenient and likely less expensive.

In developed countries it's more of a problem of distribution and ease of use. There are certain people who won't pay for intellectual property no matter it's cost if it's possible to get it for free. Others simply prefer to be able to purchasing a product as easy as getting a pirated copy of the product. Steam has made a lot of headway in both the way it distributes the content but also being able to price it correctly to make people who otherwise would not buy it actually purchase it. It's why Steam is a DRM that works but if each publisher has it's own Steam type store front - Steam will no longer work because you would have 10-20-100 different types of DRMs that would required to be installed on your gaming computer.
Steam is also a platform that's creating the right type of environment to cultivate long term users of their platform in areas where there is a lot of growth. Right now Russia/Brazil/Philippines/China etc people might not have enough capital to be anywhere near as important for developers as potential markets. But given time economic realities might change, similarly to how World Wide markets have become hugely important in determining the success of Movies. Gaming is a far more expensive hobby but over time with the correct approach these markets will become increasingly important.

 

[ryukage_sama]

Wouldn't a post-launch patch have much the same problem with lacking support years after a game is released? This could work if copies of the game that are sold later already have the updated software, but that would require printing a 2nd edition of the game shortly after its initial release.

 

[shirkbot]

-snip-

Well that's lovely, but then what do you actually propose we do about it? The information is out there, how do we spread it? Because the way I see it we need to either convince more people to actually pay attention to DRM, or try to convince devs to never go on the stock market so they never have to deal with investors that have no idea what they're talking about. There must be something we can do, even if it's small, because things have to start somewhere.

 

[Something Amyss]

Well that's lovely, but then what do you actually propose we do about it?

Since the thigns you suggest are implicit within my post, I'm not sure if you're serious or not with this question.

But the honest answer is I really don't freaking care.

I really want to see the sales data. It's an interesting piece but the no data = no noticeable spike in sales assumption bugs me.

Not sure it matters. In one month, DAI has managed more than half the lifetime sales of DA2. Fifa 15 is about 2 million shy of the 16 million combined units FIFA 14 sold. Now, these numbers come from VG Chartz and don't include sales Data from Steam, but PC ports tend to be treated as an afterthought anyway.

Besides, there are many factors in game sales, anyway. Even if there was a spike, it doesn't mean it has anything to do with DRM.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

It's over, man, DRM is over! Thanks for ruining DRM!

Ahem, anyway... I do believe you may be underestimating how thick these people can be. Why do they keep repeating the same mistakes? Because they are incapable of learning. They have it in their heads that DRM can be perfected to stop piracy and usher in a golden age of pocket-lining, and this 'proof' of the fallacy will go right over their heads.

 

[Ishigami]

I love this article, I would marry it if could.
Still I doubt DRM is going away... if anything it will be more intrusive. Publishers and developers alike want to move away from Video games being a product and make them a service.
A service is after all the ultimate form of DRM and just imagine getting paid not once but on regular basis?

 

[Something Amyss]

I love this article, I would marry it if could.
Still I doubt DRM is going away... if anything it will be more intrusive. Publishers and developers alike want to move away from Video games being a product and make them a service.
A service is after all the ultimate form of DRM and just imagine getting paid not once but on regular basis?

Services are so 1990s. Back in those awful days when greedy consumers selfishly expected companies to actually provide something in exchange for money.