DRM Systems and the Publishers Who Love Them

[Geamo]

[sub]This post is coming after i've just done a ton of revision on the Vietnam War, so you can tell[/sub]

As the sub-note says, the whole messy DRM situation is just like the Vietnam War; the developers (army) are trying to root out and defeat the pirates, but the pirates look identical to normal, legit customers.

These new steps in DRM are the equivilant of Operation Rolling Thunder; bombing the hell out of everything. Problem is that the pirates have already got Hazmat suits and have bolted. Leaving the normal customers to take the fire.

 

[Irridium]

Well, for the Mass Efefct 2 and Dragon Age DLC thing, I have Mass Effect 2 on the 360. I have all the DLC. I can play it online or offline, connect to the internet or disconnect, while playing, and everything will be fine. Nothing gets currupted.

As for Dragon Age, I have it on PC. I bought it from a store, have all the DLC, and its the same with Mass Effect. I can start it and play it whenever, and nothing gets currupted.

As for the rest of the article, it does suck. But most gamers are so damn stupid they'll ***** for a few months, forget, and move on.

I know, it sucks, but thats whats going to fucking happen.

Gd damn I hate DRM...

 

[Aurora219]

I can't wait for Assassin's Creed 2 on the PC. Someone's going to get a hold of it, pirate it, remove the online requirement and leave it on the torrent sites. And you know what? Just to prove a point, I'd probably download it (even if I never actually ended up playing it).

What's the score now?

Pirates: 4,305,412,694
DRM: 0

Ah.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

This is why I stopped buying videogames* that require DRM. Because when I get fucked, I prefer there be mutual consent.

[sub]*Please note that, in a completely hypothetical situation, buying does not equate to playing, and playing does not equate to buying. Especially if you go out of your way to deliberately anger the consumers. [/sub]

 

[Triggerhappy938]

There was a time when one of the biggest deterrents to piracy is that the legal copy of a game ran better, smoother, and more reliably than any pirated copy could. When did the world get turned upside down?

 

[jasoncyrus]

There was a time when one of the biggest deterrents to piracy is that the legal copy of a game ran better, smoother, and more reliably than any pirated copy could. When did the world get turned upside down?

When sacked game designers (probably not true but would be awesome if it was) started realising they could fuck over their old studios by taking out the DRM from the exe files and taught others how to do it.

 

[aaron552]

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.

IMO, copy protection actually does next to nothing against piracy. The DRM/Copy Protection is usually cracked within 24 hours of the game's release, sometimes weeks before release. I fail to see how you can say that copy protection reduces piracy in the face of that.

In addition, I counter your World of Goo example with Sins of a Solar Empire. No Copy Protection or DRM, extremely successful.

I'd also like to add that I bought both of those games.

 

[admiraljustin]

I was against steam for a long time, but after giving it another try a few years ago I discovered that it had a thriving community, did not prevent me from accessing my games like I feared it would, and included base social network functionality.

And cheap games. Weekend Deals FTW.

 

[matrix3509]

How about they implement a system where you pay $100 for the software and then $60 for a license to connect to their servers to activate the game, and then $50 extra for a permission to actually play the game. Every time you want to play the game you have to pay $50 for a new permission to play it, because every permission you buy will expire once you exit the game.

 

[TheEggplant]

I can't access my Burnout: Paradise DLC on PS3 without logging into an EA account. They haven't changed at all.
And it is all about the second-hand market. As others have said they will be bringing this system to consoles. Bet on it.

 

[Therumancer]

Steam is obnoxious, however I will say that I have used it more than I thought I would because unlike other digital services, Steam also greatly reduces their prices in exchange for the hassle and inconveinence. Pretty much everything they have goes on sale periodically, and if you want to wait a little while what's new now will eventually be on their service for $5-$10 while selling for much higher prices elsewhere.

Given the price reduction I'm willing to tolerate the limitations.

Of course in doing so I remain wary simply because I am reminded of Wal*Mart, basically they lower the prices until the competition is gone, and then raise them to the regular level or slightly higher when you have no other choice.

I don't think Valve is quite that "evil" but I see the potential for it. If companies like 2k Games and such had half a brain, and these services coordinated like every other aspect of the gaming industry seems to, they could pretty much drive Brick and Mortar stores out of business within 5 years and leave the customers totally at the mercy of their most ruthless price hike/copy protection combos.

So, in short I use Steam when the prices are low enough, however I think the entire digital thing is a nightmare waiting to happen.

I'd like to see the goverment ban DRM and most intrusive copy protection in general. Perhaps if we somehow had socialized internet a case could be made for the online activation stuff since anyone with a computer would thus be guaranteed to be able to go online with it. This is however not currently the case.

 

[Salonista]

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.

IMO, copy protection actually does next to nothing against piracy. The DRM/Copy Protection is usually cracked within 24 hours of the game's release, sometimes weeks before release. I fail to see how you can say that copy protection reduces piracy in the face of that.

In addition, I counter your World of Goo example with Sins of a Solar Empire. No Copy Protection or DRM, extremely successful.

I'd also like to add that I bought both of those games.

I'd also like to add that Spore, with all its DRM idiocy, was pirated to literal hell and back.

Souplex, you should check out 2DBoy's website for the rundown on piracy numbers from the devs themselves. Their conclusions were basically "yep, got pirated a bunch, just like other games that do include DRM, but we still sold a lot too, 'cause we didn't bother our customers with it".

I bought WoG for PC and Wii.

 

[ilion]

How about making the games cheaper.

 

[ilion]

for any platform.

 

[heyheysg]

This is forcing customers into two corners

1) Don't play PC games, go to console, where the profit margin is higher?
2) Or pirate PC games and prove they're right.

Either way no one wins

 

[Quesa]

I was not a fan of Steam, but I've grown accustomed to it; all of my most recent purchases have been Steam games: Borderlands, Dragon Age, GTA IV, Batman: AA, ME2.. I did get Empire: TW from D2D for some odd reason, which was pointless, hah.

I was outraged at the Spore DRM system, and since I wanted to play Spore, I decided to take out my fury on the rest of the EA catalog (except for BioWare products). I am no where near as excited about AC2 as I was for Spore, so simply boycotting Ubisoft products is going to be easy.

I am loathe to write off these foolish publishers, in the end it's as harmful to my beloved platform as pirating the game, but a sin of inaction is preferable to either sin of action.

 

[Caradinist]

Well, then it's pretty clear they have no idea how to handle the situation (or they simple don't give a shit), and they still believe this prevents piracy more than cause it.

I admit, i bought Spore. I read about the DRM deal days after installing, and to this day i find the concept of the game basically locking up after more than three installments have been made to a system appalling (Or so i've heard, the limit has been reached, stopped playing Spore in December 2008 anyways.)

What really pissed me off was the Heroes of Might and Magic 5 beta that was available through Gamespy. I was offered a key and everything, and the installation snuck in "SecuROM". Good thing they got rid of it when they launched their product.

I had to remove that son of a *****. Just what exactly did they want to accomplish putting it on an Open Beta?

 

[docsamurai]

You want to know where it's going next?
Ok a realistic plausible solutions while still being markedly worse.
The retail box will no longer contain a disc of any sort but instead a code for download.
You will then have to download their proprietary installer, register for their system and register your game before you can even download the game much less install it.
There will be a highly restrictive install limit.
The installer will have a built in timer that will delete itself after a set number of hours so you can't transfer the installer to another computer.
And the system will be unable to tell if you completed your download or not so if your download is interrupted and you don't get the game it will still count against your install limit.
Essentially your only option will be to download and install the game while using a fast, stable internet connection and then install it immediately.
You will effectively be SOL if you have any one of the thousands of common errors that games are wont to have during install.
Did I mention that the game will be buggy and that they will charge for patches that they will label DRM?

 

[Terramax]

Shamus, thanks for letting me know about the Assassin's Creed 2 DRM. That news completely passed me buy. I won't be buying it now, as my internet is finicky and I doubt I'll ever be able to complete it if I have to be online 100%.