DRM Systems and the Publishers Who Love Them

[Plurralbles]

I foresee that DRM will cause a crash in mainstream, big publisher Computer gaming. It'll get to the point where there will be so many people pirating or just not buying, that they'll stop making them. Then we'll be stuck with pay-to-play-by-the-month or micro transacting in any good pc game or be stuck with what people who think they can make games in their basements flash games.

And then PC people will rise up and hack the consoles because they can't get their daily hacking fix on the PC via that DRM, and then the console market will crash.

And it'll be back to square one for the Video Game industry.

Worst case scenario. 0 Hour.

I kind of want DRM to make pc gaming crash. A rejuvenation is what this industry needs.

 

[Odjin]

Steam is a perfect example of how a DRM platform SHOULD work: Unobtrusive, reliable, versatile and with a ton of benefits.

I corrected this for you:

Steam is a perfect example of how a DRM platform SHOULD NOT work: Obtrusive, unreliable and with a ton of bugs/problems.

How can any sane man on this earth love steam? Seriously... you must be sick... or understand nothing of computers at all... <.=.<

 

[fix-the-spade]

No, it's nothing to do with the used game market. I don't think piracy has anything to do with it now, even publisher's board rooms can't be that stupid, in fact I think they're much smarter than that.

It's all to do with the new game market.

Unfortunately, publishers have noticed that players on Xbox live (and PSN) can be forced to abandon games extremely quickly after their release, then moved on to the next 'in' title. This is so extreme that one of the biggest hitters in online console gaming ever, Halo 2, is getting it's online support cut along with every other Xbox title this year before it's sixth birthday. Some take it to even greater extremes, Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence's online mode was little more than a £40, five month beta test to MGS4.

By effectively rendering the game useless, players have no choice but to buy newer games (or pirate). Having seen that model work and work consistently for a few years now, the major publishers are desperately searching for a way to force this system into the PC market, which hangs onto games all but indefinately.

All of these systems, IWnet, EA's... whatever it is, Ubisoft's save server, even Steam, hand control of your ability to play the game over to the publisher. Because of this they get to dictate when you stop playing.
Piracy happens to make an extremely useful scapegoat. It gives them a catch all excuse that has the added effect of making them appear to be the victims, punitive measures to combat player control don't make good PR to the mass media. Punitive measures to combat piracy sounds downright necessary.

There's nothing to stop them, there's umpteen clauses saying they can cut support at any time with no explanation and you signed up by installing the game.

It's a problem that's probably going to get much, much worse. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see DRM that dictates when and/or where you can play the game soon.

 

[mrverbal]

it befuddles me that companies don't realise how counteractive these kinds of DRM are.

The more restrictive their DRM is, the more likely I am to pirate their game.

Just Steam? No risk. Online activation as well? Completely fucking stupid (I mean, what do they think steam is, exactly?) but I'll go there.

But this? I'm sorry, but I'll find a program some wiz has written to convince the game I am connected. There is just no real risk I'll bother trying to live with this DRM.

And if I'm going to take the risk of using a hack to ignore the DRM, the step to downloading the game and being a pirate is very small.

Bad DRM forces players to become pirates. It's not some 'information wants to be free/I can't be fucked paying for it' bullshit either. I download/pirate *very* little these days; it's not worth the bother, I can afford anything I want etc.

But when your DRM is MORE BOTHER than pirating the game, what the fuck do you expect people to do? As a previous poster noted, this DRM is *marginally* less annoying than the game coming with a butt plug with a heat sensor and a USB cable that switches the game off if the plug isn't in; at least there is a market segment that would enjoy that.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Wait, they already made patches for the games? I now love steam even more.

Even if they haven't , Steam can be cracked. If Valve were to ever go bust just watching the various clan league forums would soon tell you what you needed to keep playing.

Which is probably where Steam's major success lies. It's relatively easy to hack, but for what you would gain (and lose) it's not worth it for all but the obsessive.

 

[Flying Dagger]

2011

Ubisoft would like to announce our new service to the customer! Ubisoft games will now be [small](exclusively)[/small] available at our new Ubisoft gaming centers. Just buy the game from a store and you'll be able to install and play the game [small](only)[/small] at our centres [small](for a limited subscription fee)[/small].

[small]Blood tests, DNA checks, and photo ID will be required for entry to the facility. All customers must be accompanied by a Ubisoft 'helper' at all times whilst on site.[/small]

I would so work there.

 

[DanDeFool]

Some people suggest that the systems based around online activation aren't really there to fight piracy, but are instead intended to kill the second-hand PC game market. That sounds plausible enough, except the used PC market is pretty much dead already. Retailers no longer deal with them.

Almost true, but you must remember that second-hand games are quite easily had, and for affordable prices, on Amazon.com and eBay. Granted, that's about the only places you can find them, but still.

Oh yeah, and I agree with Seamus about DRM. It's like kicking your obedient golden retriever puppy after hearing on the news about how some jerk's pit bull mauled an eight year-old girl.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Maybe Ubisoft is a few months from going down in flames and decided on the rarely used method of; If I die I am taking you all with me!

The companies surely must know by now that DRM isn't worth the paper the code can be printed on.

 

[the1ultimate]

It's nice to be reminded of the special way each of these companies treats their customers.

 

[johnman]

I had a pirate copy of Far Cry 2 on day one, I was just about to go out and buy it, but thank god a friend told me it was bollocks and gave me a copy to try out for myself.

I still think Steam is by far the best system. I have never had any issues with it and the offers you get on there are jsut crazy. Empire Total and two unit packs for under £20? Yes please

How can any sane man on this earth love steam? Seriously... you must be sick... or understand nothing of computers at all... <.=.<

I used steam since its inception, as have pretty much all my family and friends. I have heard of absolutly zero issues with it, and seen none either.
And how the hell is it obtrusive? You get a box telling you abou updates and a box saying what the latest release/offer is on startup, that is all.

 

[Geoffrey42]

How can any sane man on this earth love steam? Seriously... you must be sick... or understand nothing of computers at all... <.=.<

Maybe because it has done nothing for me but work perfectly. And as mentioned, it has provided me numerous bonuses in trade for my compliance with their schemes. The mere fact that I was able to back-up my Steam files from my XP machine, build a brand-new computer with Win7 on it, and restore the Steam files, then have access back for all my Steam games after some incredibly mild-updating. In the next 10 days, I will have to replace my Win7 beta install with the retail version that I've been putting off (I bought Win7 through the Best Buy pre-order, but the beta is so stable I haven't really felt like going through a re-install). It will take me longer to install and configure one game off of CD/DVD media than it will to install and configure every single game I have ever purchased through Steam (20 of which I currently have installed for playing).

Maybe I'm just a lucky minority, but anecdotal evidence would suggest instead that you're allowing your idealism to get in the way of a not-so-bad reality. Even if you don't want to use the service on principled grounds, fine, but it really shouldn't be so hard to see why the rest of us aren't that bothered by it.

 

[Jared]

Steam is a perfect example of how a DRM platform SHOULD work: Unobtrusive, reliable, versatile and with a ton of benefits.

Call me cynical, but I think that your idea of how ubisoft's future products are going to look might actually come true. And that you have to travel to an ubisoft establishment and show that note in order to be allowed to play your game there.

Definetly. Alot of people could take tips from Steam!

 

[Callate]

The very small ray of sunshine is that almost no one seems to be working with StarForce any more. DRM that actually forced me, the freaking end user, to download a driver update for my game's copy protection- because the combination of StarForce out of the box and Zone Alarm firewall was causing a hard crash and reboot.

(I won't even bother getting into the various other ways the folks behind StarForce have generally behaved like a bunch of thugs- the information is all there for the price of a quick search with the engine of your choice.)

Still... Ugh. I suppose in a sense we have Microsoft to thank for all of this. Once it got into people's minds that you could make a typical end user phone in (literally or metaphorically) in order to prove that they had the right to use the software they had purchased, every smaller software company started to covet that degree of control.

Or you could go higher and look at the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, when we got big into the kind of language that insists you're buying a revokable license when you thought you were buying a disk with some software on it.

I know, LET'S BOYCOTT EVERYTHING!... Dammit, I honestly don't know. Virtually no one on either the business or the government end of things seems to give a flying fuck about the diminishing rights of consumers in the face of ever more draconian IP law, or how ridiculous those laws tend to look in the face of how people actually use software. What is it going to take to get some pushback that those in power would actually heed? I don't even think throttling the gasping PC game industry to its final demise would be sufficient to get the point across; it already seems, half the time, like the bigger companies are looking for an excuse to neglect the PC.

Perhaps our one real hope is the quiet renaissance in smaller developers. The big creative teams that make A-list games are getting screwed no matter what they do. They're pressured by the marketing department, they're pressured by the accounting department, they're pressured by the fans, and it's just a matter of course that very few games are going to both such awesome blockbusters and such stunning, free-thinking achievements of sheer unmitigated art that everyone will be happy and even the hardcore pirates willingly lay down their cash in awe and fear that such grandeur might perish from the face of the Earth. It's in the Braids and the World of Goos and even the Galactic Civilizations that we might find groups with the flexibility to try to reach out to the consumers without having to reach through a barbed-wire fence of paranoia and spin.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I'll tell you where it'll go from here:

They'll install spyware that they won't tell you about, it'll be part of the game so you can't uninstall it without uninstalling the game, and it'll constantly be monitoring your computer use, so that if you ever go to a website that the company has blacklisted (such as PirateBay, or something with "hacker" in the title), then the game will notify the company and any and all games you have already bought from that specfic company will be considered stolen property, and you will be locked out of those games forever, even after uninstalling and reinstalling.

And they won't tell you why it happened.

THAT's the only way I can see things getting worse...

haha.... wow, I didn't think anyone could come up with an idea worse then my "anal probing DRM" idea, but damn, that's it.

That's a rootkit right? I'm pretty sure they're illegal.

That didn't stop Sony.... [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_CD_copy_protection_scandal]

 

[JerichoEscapes]

Well, first off, as far as I can tell, this whole Ubisoft debacle seems to be based off a single reviewer. There could be another explanation. In fact, I assume this is the case, since no executive could POSSIBLY be so staggeringly stupid.

Also, Steam is win of all kinds. The acceptability of it's DRM is bought and paid-for by its other features. Also Valve.

Finally, I think you drastically overestimate the average PC gamers willingness to care about DRM stuff, unfortunately.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Ah Steam. I find it rather ironic that it works best for me when it's not connected to the internet. Sure, I bet there's only a limited offline time you can play before checking in with the server, but if it means jumping into a game in a few seconds as opposed to waiting half a minute (only to be told the game isn't available) I'll take it.

 

[Whispering Death]

I want to say that I hate DRM but I love Steam!

Steam is amazing. I have all my friends for those games on my friends list. But, even better, I CAN DOWNLOAD THE GAMES ANYTIME ANYWHERE FOR ETERNITY! No more keeping track of disks that can get lost/scratched/lose their CD-keys/etc.

I go out of my way to buy the Steam version of games these days.

Is it DRM? Certainly. But, guess what, I don't notice and if it's invisible to me, what do I care?

Every publisher right now should just accept Steam.

 

[Souplex]

You keep on talking about how copy protection encourages pirates, however on the other extreme you have World of Goo, which was pirated something like 95%. Without copy protection developers might be dealing with the same stuff as 2d boy.

 

[jasoncyrus]

Alas Shamus for once you are behind in the news. EA aswell are following the same line as Ubisoft and forcing players of the upcoming C&C 4 to have a constant internet connecion to play aswell. Looks like EA still havn't learned from the Spore incident.

Personally I'm all for the DRM funcions from Arkum Asylum (not all of them mind you) Specifically the one where it gimped batman. If they did that particular tidbit in all games and simply refused to answer any questions of that particular glich then it would make pirates question wtf is wrong for a while longer.

 

[TitsMcGee1804]

look, i know DRM sucks, and its really badly executed in a way that is not beneficial to the consumer, and their hard earned cash

but change the record! i feel that whenever I read one of your articles about DRM, i have heard it all before

that said, you always make it clear that DRM doesnt 'have' to suck, there are ways of preventing piracy without degrading legit consumers, so credit to you for not just saying OMG ALL DRM SUXXXXXXXXX!!!!!!!!!!1

Its never REALLY got in the way of my gaming so long as I have legitimately bought a game, i played mass effect, bioshock, spore, every game you mention and each one has been...not perfect with regards to DRM, it is a pain, but each one has been like 30 seconds of time out my life

I do disagree with the whole 'you get 5 installs of this game'....errrr, no, i bought the game, i can install it as many times as I like, it would be like saying, you paid full price for a cinema ticket, but you have to leave 20 mins before the end...its not the way modern consuming works...you pay for something, its yours, but it doesnt seem to apply to the gaming industry...what if the game doesnt work and you need a re-install?

but has anyone ever honestly had to install a game more than 5 times on 5 different computers?