Impossible (to beat) DRM

[Dommyboy]

The Russians need to have a go at creating a Crack-Impossible DRM. They're bastards when it comes to protection systems.

 

[Jinxey]

Theft is theft.
Period.

If the Romans must burn down Rome to stop its sacking, then so be it, but lets not pretend that the Romans (Game Industry) are the villains here.

They have a product, an expensive to make product, that they choose to sell at whatever price they set. The consumer, has the power to decide if it is worth playing (BUYING). If it is not, then the consumer does not buy it and the company makes decisions about lowering prices, etc.

Instead we have a culture of "I'm going to steal it because by some twisted logic I deserve to play it for free, everyone else is stealing it, and its easily accessible.. oh and they don't WANT me to steal it so it makes it even better to steal it."

People who pirate games are not innocent, and in fact, are mostly responsible for DRM. If people didn't pirate, DRM would not be needed. In fact, the cost of games would probably be much lower, by argument.

But alas, there is no honor in the digital age. And so we will have increasing levels of DRM and anti-pirate technology until they finally find a formula that works, no matter how inconvenient. Of course, then people will say "Well I just won't buy or play video games then" but essentially, what they are saying is "If I can't have it free, I don't want it", which is what they should have been saying all along BEFORE they decided to hit the "torrentz".

Stop STEALING.
It hurts everyone in the end.

Quoted For Truth.

 

[HyenaThePirate]

Yes, I see what you mean, and I moslty agree. Except on one point. The romans (as you called then) have tried burning down Rome several time now, but it seems the attackers are using firerepelants or something, cause it's just not working. So maybe they should try covering Rome in chocolate-chip cookies or other incentives instead? Get the carrot instead of the whip as it were? Start using DLC for more than just what it is today? maybe as an incentive for people to actually buy the game instead?

So essentially, what you are advocating is that the industry adopt a policy of "Rewarding bad behavior".. In essence, they should stop trying to protect their product from piracy and instead concentrate on incentivizing purchases?

Other than the fact that it pretty much requires the companies to go the extra inch to convince people to play a product they already obviously want to play since they have no problem stealing it (it's not like anyone pirates sucky games), but essentially the entire theory of "Let the pirates have their way, the people who want to pay will pay" is flawed from the very start. Why? Because of two simple words:

HUMAN
NATURE

Nobody is going to pay for something they can get for free. Why should they, unless there are severe repercussions for stealing? If you have two wells, one with regular, everyday water for free, and a well with purified spring water that you sell at a dollar a bottle, which do you think people will opt for by a majority? Sure, you may sell a good many bottles of the pure water, but ultimately, by nature, most people are just going to go for the free water provided its not contaminated... simply because it is FREE.

You can offer a free booth babe with every purchase and you will still have large portions of the gaming populace downloading away if you remove all DRM or anti-pirate measures.

What needs to be combated however is not necessarily the ABILITY to pirate, but the MENTALITY that piracy is acceptable behavior. Ever wonder why those somali pirates keep risking life and limb to hijack corporate ocean vessels? Because the payoff is much too tempting to ignore.. some of those companies have paid ransoms in the millions of dollars to secure their vessels back. Yet, one nation does not suffer its ships being hijacked with frequency... China. Why? Because they have an absolute zero tolerance for piracy and retaliate with overwhelming, unforgiving force. Which do you suppose is the greater deterrent?

In order for gaming companies to stop piracy they need to find out a way to discourage people from the practice of it to begin with. Part of that might be re-accessing their pricing structure, part of it might be adding benefits and incentives for players to purchase their titles, and part of it might be out and out draconian protective measures. Its the ultimate "Tower Defense" game for them, but as this article points out, the time, money, and resources are decidedly on their side. Sooner or later they will figure out the perfect formula and bring Piracy to its proverbial knees.

What Arkham Asylum did was a step in the right direction, what Assassin's creed did was way to the extreme, but in between the two lies the Holy Grail of anti-pirate protection and in the increasing arms race between Industry and Pirates, I believe the Industry is on the doorstep to a total, final solution.

Of course, how much damage it does to us, the gamers who purchase our games legally and honestly will suffer in the process, but I don't blame the industry... I put ALL blame squarely where it belongs: at the feet of the pirates and pirate "apologists" who make excuses for people stealing. It is THEY who force the hand of the industry and cause the rest of us to endure the issues we've had with DRM.

 

[Dhatz]

on topic(in case you skip article and go straight to the comments): fuck whatcha hurd(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3KoUvx-4Pc&feature=related), because the DRM has been fully breached.

 

[Riven Armor]

[snip]
What Arkham Asylum did was a step in the right direction, what Assassin's creed did was way to the extreme, but in between the two lies the Holy Grail of anti-pirate protection and in the increasing arms race between Industry and Pirates, I believe the Industry is on the doorstep to a total, final solution.

Of course, how much damage it does to us, the gamers who purchase our games legally and honestly will suffer in the process, but I don't blame the industry... I put ALL blame squarely where it belongs: at the feet of the pirates and pirate "apologists" who make excuses for people stealing. It is THEY who force the hand of the industry and cause the rest of us to endure the issues we've had with DRM.

Not sure what makes you think the industry is onto something with a hypothetical moderate anti-piracy mechanism. The subculture will always be a problem. I don't think it'll stop growing either. Corporations are made of people who make fallible products, and there will always be more people on the outside beating down the protection measures. It's easier to tear something down than to build it up.

In any case, I don't mean to come out in favor of the act of stealing games. But if piracy were to go away tomorrow the industry wouldn't stop overpricing games or installing DRMs. Piracy is a necessary evil that safeguards even legitimate gamers from the excesses of the big corporations. Nobody's all bad, but nobody is incapable of wrongdoing either.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Fine, but there's an elephant in the room.

That assumes hackers are just a bunch of amateurs sitting at home doing it for fun/the challenge/som perverse sense of duty. That there is no money to be made selling advertising space on sites mirroring cracked games.

If 90% of PC players really are pirates, that's tens of millions of hits every time a new game comes out, that's a lot of bandwidth and potentially a lot of money. As in more than enough to be cracking games professionally.

I sincerely think that not matter how dumb, complicated or plain intrusive DRM gets there will be people sat down coding the crack however long it takes, there's money to be made.

It has nothing to do with the perception (or indeed the assumption) that people actually doing the cracking are amatures (other than the simple fact that they may not actually be paid to make these cracks which would indeed qualify them as an amature no matter their skill level). It is a question of making the process of cracking time consuming.

It works the same way in other fields, such as any nation's intelligence community. Secrets are generally only important for a limited period of time. Knowing where a military unit will be in a week loses all value the moment they arrive. In a community where frighteningly skilled professionals with nearly unlimited resources work day and night in an attempt to uncover any of a number of secrets, keeping something secret forever is just shy of impossible, so instead they just do their best to ensure it takes as long as possible to uncover.

Take encryption for example - without the proper information, most forms of encryption can be reversed with a relatively simple mathematical process and a LOT of brute force. Very strong encryption ensures that so long as the collector does not have access to those critical bits of information the decryption process takes a very long time to run on very powerful computers. While I will admit that there often turn out to be better ways around the problem, it often takes years of work by very clever people to work out.

Almost all the sales a game is ever going to make take place in the first month of it's release - keeping DRM working for even this span of time is a major victory, especially when you consider just how quickly DRM is generally cracked. The longer you keep a game uncracked, the greater the potential number of would be pirates that will break down and buy the game (or so the logic goes).

That said, while I agree that effective DRM is possible, agressive DRM in any form has often ensured I have problems simply running a game I legally purchased. For example, there was a time where I could not play any game that utalized starforce DRM technology. After two attempts where I purchased a product I was unable to enjoy, I gave up buying games that used the technology altogether.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

But if piracy were to go away tomorrow the industry wouldn't stop overpricing games or installing DRMs. Piracy is a necessary evil that safeguards even legitimate gamers from the excesses of the big corporations.

No, piracy is not a necessary safeguard. That safeguard is the market itself. Piracy does not serve a good any greater than the desire people have to enjoy a product without paying for it. They can have any number of excuses for their activity but at the end of the day this is not a heroic act worthy of Robin Hood or somesuch. You want to send a message to a company? Don't buy their product. Don't play their product. Don't talk about their product. All piracy demonstrates to the people investing millions in these products is that there are untold numbers of people who are willing to play a game but not willing to pay for it. This is where the assumption that piracy results in lost sales lies. After all, if someone desperately wants to play these games, if no cracked version materializes at least some portion of the pirate population would almost certainly purchase it.

Using the excuse that piracy acts as a check against offensive DRM results in nothing more than the escalation we've seen. If people weren't pirating games, DRM would not be an issue. People pirate games and thus DRM was introduced. Pirates continued their nefarious activity and the strength of the DRM increased.

The bottom line is simple: the actions of pirates is in no way helpful to the industry. It is they who ensure the steady escalation of the DRM race. They perpetuate it, and claim to do so in order to stop it. The pirates are the villians here in every sense, because it is their action that forces the "evil corporation" to apply increasingly stern measures to protect a property that took hundreds of man years and millions of dollars to develop.

 

[Riven Armor]

But if piracy were to go away tomorrow the industry wouldn't stop overpricing games or installing DRMs. Piracy is a necessary evil that safeguards even legitimate gamers from the excesses of the big corporations.

No, piracy is not a necessary safeguard. That safeguard is the market itself. Piracy does not serve a good any greater than the desire people have to enjoy a product without paying for it. They can have any number of excuses for their activity but at the end of the day this is not a heroic act worthy of Robin Hood or somesuch. You want to send a message to a company? Don't buy their product. Don't play their product. Don't talk about their product. All piracy demonstrates to the people investing millions in these products is that there are untold numbers of people who are willing to play a game but not willing to pay for it. This is where the assumption that piracy results in lost sales lies. After all, if someone desperately wants to play these games, if no cracked version materializes at least some portion of the pirate population would almost certainly purchase it.

Piracy is not heroic, yes, at the very least because it serves the tendency of the consumer base to have their cake and eat it too (stick it to the company but enjoy the game regardless), but what I did not mention in my other post was that it helps the legitimate consumer in their particular quest to enjoy the game without having to deal with the infantile protests of the industry. For example, if I wanted to get the PC AC2 (I do not), I would buy it and install the crack. Also, if I want to play BFME2 without the CD (I have the legal copy), I swap in the cracked launcher.

I'll admit that if I really wanted the games industry to quit this garbage I'd boycott the game, but frankly I don't think that behavior will have an effect in this day and age.

Using the excuse that piracy acts as a check against offensive DRM results in nothing more than the escalation we've seen. If people weren't pirating games, DRM would not be an issue. People pirate games and thus DRM was introduced. Pirates continued their nefarious activity and the strength of the DRM increased.

Do you believe that the DRM we see today would disappear if piracy ceased to be an issue? I disagree.

The bottom line is simple: the actions of pirates is in no way helpful to the industry. It is they who ensure the steady escalation of the DRM race. They perpetuate it, and claim to do so in order to stop it. The pirates are the villians here in every sense, because it is their action that forces the "evil corporation" to apply increasingly stern measures to protect a property that took hundreds of man years and millions of dollars to develop.

I'll admit that. The pirates are, well, pirates. They can be helpful though.

 

[geldonyetich]

Unfortunately, because the pirates managed to make the game "playable except for certain content" early on, I imagine most pirates were quite content to play this reduced version of the game in the meanwhile, so the actual impact on sales is going to be that much harder to find.

Regarding the idea of the impossible (to beat) DRM, we're probably going to end up cloud gaming in the long run. Cloud gaming meaning you play through a gaming portal that does not actually allow you to store a copy of the game on your computer - think gaming via remote control. Probably to the extent that they won't even trust the client to store a byte of memory related to the game, instead they get to play via a streaming video of the game.

 

[HyenaThePirate]

[snip]
What Arkham Asylum did was a step in the right direction, what Assassin's creed did was way to the extreme, but in between the two lies the Holy Grail of anti-pirate protection and in the increasing arms race between Industry and Pirates, I believe the Industry is on the doorstep to a total, final solution.

Of course, how much damage it does to us, the gamers who purchase our games legally and honestly will suffer in the process, but I don't blame the industry... I put ALL blame squarely where it belongs: at the feet of the pirates and pirate "apologists" who make excuses for people stealing. It is THEY who force the hand of the industry and cause the rest of us to endure the issues we've had with DRM.

Not sure what makes you think the industry is onto something with a hypothetical moderate anti-piracy mechanism. The subculture will always be a problem. I don't think it'll stop growing either. Corporations are made of people who make fallible products, and there will always be more people on the outside beating down the protection measures. It's easier to tear something down than to build it up.

In any case, I don't mean to come out in favor of the act of stealing games. But if piracy were to go away tomorrow the industry wouldn't stop overpricing games or installing DRMs. Piracy is a necessary evil that safeguards even legitimate gamers from the excesses of the big corporations. Nobody's all bad, but nobody is incapable of wrongdoing either.

I don't buy any of that... it is the video game equivalent of stockholmes syndrome. Essentially here is your example:

bandits keep raiding your town, so the town council hires body guards. The Bandit raids slow for a bit and the bandits realize they need to find a way to deal with the bodyguards.. so they enlist mercenaries to their "cause". The raiding increases more than before, because with the added mercenaries, the bandits can plunder faster and more efficiently than before. The town decides that the best option is to hire trained gladiators to deal with the mercenarie/bandit coalition. For a time, raiding decreases and the bandits are unable to act with impunity. To deal with the gladiators, the Bandits and Mercenaries beseech the aid of Ninjas. The Ninjas bring with them motorcycles. The motorcycles are cheap and in easy supply so it makes raiding more widespread and easier to do. The addition of ninja masks make banditing anonymous so less bandits are brought to justice. Soon, people in the town discover that motorcycles are cheap to buy and masks keep their identity secret so some of them decide to become bandits as well, due to the fact that in order to hire the bodyguards and gladiators the town had to "raise taxes". The raiding and plundering increases exponentially, spreading like wild fire. Now the town can barely afford to grow it's crops which the bandits want.
So the Town builds a giant wall, and requires identification to pass through the gates, all at great cost, which they are able to afford because the quality of their crops has increased with better farming technology. However the bandit/ninjas quickly discover how to counterfeit the identification required by the town's guards and are able to plunder by tossing the goods over the wall.
The Town having no choice, begins a policy that outlaws all motorcycles and ninja masks.
Everyone who loves motorcycles complains. The Bandits complain and begin raiding more in protest, declaring themselves the victim of an oppressive town that seeks to stifle their love of ninja masks, motorcycles, and crops.


and thus you have an analogy that I believe fits the situation perfectly, and points out, correctly, that pirates (like the ninja mask wearing, motorcycle loving Bandits) are NOT victims in this situation. They are the bad guys. You can not blame the Town for taking increasingly extreme measures to deal with the Bandits.

Piracy EXPLODED when pc's became affordable to the absolute mainstream, when hard drive technology exploded, and when broadband speed became a staple of nearly all serious internet users. Piracy became an issue when 10 year olds discovered how easy it was to torrent and when cracking groups made cracks easier and easier for the layman to use.

Thing is, the gaming industry will be just fine in the end, even if they DO go to the extreme with DRM... because sooner or later, people will get USED to it, they always do. Legitimate game owners and people who pay for their games aren't going to suddenly STOP buying games and go back to playing board games. If anything will suffer, perhaps it will be PC gaming, but with consoles increasingly blurring the line, gamers will be able to avoid a large portion of trouble by simply buying a console.

So essentially, if you love PC gaming, if it is your platform of choice, you have a vested interest in BUYING pc games and supporting those companies, while condemning piracy in all its forms. Because otherwise, the only two choices you will soon have are draconian DRM practices.. or the complete death of PC gaming entirely.
You choose.

 

[RelexCryo]

Experienced Points: Impossible (to beat) DRM

Congratulations, Ubisoft, on making DRM so awful that it might eventually work.

Read Full Article

Excellent article.

 

[RelexCryo]

[snip]
What Arkham Asylum did was a step in the right direction, what Assassin's creed did was way to the extreme, but in between the two lies the Holy Grail of anti-pirate protection and in the increasing arms race between Industry and Pirates, I believe the Industry is on the doorstep to a total, final solution.

Of course, how much damage it does to us, the gamers who purchase our games legally and honestly will suffer in the process, but I don't blame the industry... I put ALL blame squarely where it belongs: at the feet of the pirates and pirate "apologists" who make excuses for people stealing. It is THEY who force the hand of the industry and cause the rest of us to endure the issues we've had with DRM.

Not sure what makes you think the industry is onto something with a hypothetical moderate anti-piracy mechanism. The subculture will always be a problem. I don't think it'll stop growing either. Corporations are made of people who make fallible products, and there will always be more people on the outside beating down the protection measures. It's easier to tear something down than to build it up.

In any case, I don't mean to come out in favor of the act of stealing games. But if piracy were to go away tomorrow the industry wouldn't stop overpricing games or installing DRMs. Piracy is a necessary evil that safeguards even legitimate gamers from the excesses of the big corporations. Nobody's all bad, but nobody is incapable of wrongdoing either.

I don't buy any of that... it is the video game equivalent of stockholmes syndrome. Essentially here is your example:

bandits keep raiding your town, so the town council hires body guards. The Bandit raids slow for a bit and the bandits realize they need to find a way to deal with the bodyguards.. so they enlist mercenaries to their "cause". The raiding increases more than before, because with the added mercenaries, the bandits can plunder faster and more efficiently than before. The town decides that the best option is to hire trained gladiators to deal with the mercenarie/bandit coalition. For a time, raiding decreases and the bandits are unable to act with impunity. To deal with the gladiators, the Bandits and Mercenaries beseech the aid of Ninjas. The Ninjas bring with them motorcycles. The motorcycles are cheap and in easy supply so it makes raiding more widespread and easier to do. The addition of ninja masks make banditing anonymous so less bandits are brought to justice. Soon, people in the town discover that motorcycles are cheap to buy and masks keep their identity secret so some of them decide to become bandits as well, due to the fact that in order to hire the bodyguards and gladiators the town had to "raise taxes". The raiding and plundering increases exponentially, spreading like wild fire. Now the town can barely afford to grow it's crops which the bandits want.
So the Town builds a giant wall, and requires identification to pass through the gates, all at great cost, which they are able to afford because the quality of their crops has increased with better farming technology. However the bandit/ninjas quickly discover how to counterfeit the identification required by the town's guards and are able to plunder by tossing the goods over the wall.
The Town having no choice, begins a policy that outlaws all motorcycles and ninja masks.
Everyone who loves motorcycles complains. The Bandits complain and begin raiding more in protest, declaring themselves the victim of an oppressive town that seeks to stifle their love of ninja masks, motorcycles, and crops.


and thus you have an analogy that I believe fits the situation perfectly, and points out, correctly, that pirates (like the ninja mask wearing, motorcycle loving Bandits) are NOT victims in this situation. They are the bad guys. You can not blame the Town for taking increasingly extreme measures to deal with the Bandits.

Piracy EXPLODED when pc's became affordable to the absolute mainstream, when hard drive technology exploded, and when broadband speed became a staple of nearly all serious internet users. Piracy became an issue when 10 year olds discovered how easy it was to torrent and when cracking groups made cracks easier and easier for the layman to use.

Thing is, the gaming industry will be just fine in the end, even if they DO go to the extreme with DRM... because sooner or later, people will get USED to it, they always do. Legitimate game owners and people who pay for their games aren't going to suddenly STOP buying games and go back to playing board games. If anything will suffer, perhaps it will be PC gaming, but with consoles increasingly blurring the line, gamers will be able to avoid a large portion of trouble by simply buying a console.

So essentially, if you love PC gaming, if it is your platform of choice, you have a vested interest in BUYING pc games and supporting those companies, while condemning piracy in all its forms. Because otherwise, the only two choices you will soon have are draconian DRM practices.. or the complete death of PC gaming entirely.
You choose.

This...is a genius article. But my solution would be to arm everyone in town and shoot all bandits on sight.

 

[matt87_50]

actually, I think Ubisoft's DRM may be the one true answer to piracy! not there stupid online server crap. I mean this whole new approach they are taking! make a game so bad and buggy that no one, not even pirates that can get it for free, would ever want to put up with it!

it truly is the one and only solution.

 

[Riven Armor]

[snip]
What Arkham Asylum did was a step in the right direction, what Assassin's creed did was way to the extreme, but in between the two lies the Holy Grail of anti-pirate protection and in the increasing arms race between Industry and Pirates, I believe the Industry is on the doorstep to a total, final solution.

Of course, how much damage it does to us, the gamers who purchase our games legally and honestly will suffer in the process, but I don't blame the industry... I put ALL blame squarely where it belongs: at the feet of the pirates and pirate "apologists" who make excuses for people stealing. It is THEY who force the hand of the industry and cause the rest of us to endure the issues we've had with DRM.

Not sure what makes you think the industry is onto something with a hypothetical moderate anti-piracy mechanism. The subculture will always be a problem. I don't think it'll stop growing either. Corporations are made of people who make fallible products, and there will always be more people on the outside beating down the protection measures. It's easier to tear something down than to build it up.

In any case, I don't mean to come out in favor of the act of stealing games. But if piracy were to go away tomorrow the industry wouldn't stop overpricing games or installing DRMs. Piracy is a necessary evil that safeguards even legitimate gamers from the excesses of the big corporations. Nobody's all bad, but nobody is incapable of wrongdoing either.

I don't buy any of that... it is the video game equivalent of stockholmes syndrome. Essentially here is your example:

bandits keep raiding your town, so the town council hires body guards. The Bandit raids slow for a bit and the bandits realize they need to find a way to deal with the bodyguards.. so they enlist mercenaries to their "cause". The raiding increases more than before, because with the added mercenaries, the bandits can plunder faster and more efficiently than before. The town decides that the best option is to hire trained gladiators to deal with the mercenarie/bandit coalition. For a time, raiding decreases and the bandits are unable to act with impunity. To deal with the gladiators, the Bandits and Mercenaries beseech the aid of Ninjas. The Ninjas bring with them motorcycles. The motorcycles are cheap and in easy supply so it makes raiding more widespread and easier to do. The addition of ninja masks make banditing anonymous so less bandits are brought to justice. Soon, people in the town discover that motorcycles are cheap to buy and masks keep their identity secret so some of them decide to become bandits as well, due to the fact that in order to hire the bodyguards and gladiators the town had to "raise taxes". The raiding and plundering increases exponentially, spreading like wild fire. Now the town can barely afford to grow it's crops which the bandits want.
So the Town builds a giant wall, and requires identification to pass through the gates, all at great cost, which they are able to afford because the quality of their crops has increased with better farming technology. However the bandit/ninjas quickly discover how to counterfeit the identification required by the town's guards and are able to plunder by tossing the goods over the wall.
The Town having no choice, begins a policy that outlaws all motorcycles and ninja masks.
Everyone who loves motorcycles complains. The Bandits complain and begin raiding more in protest, declaring themselves the victim of an oppressive town that seeks to stifle their love of ninja masks, motorcycles, and crops.


and thus you have an analogy that I believe fits the situation perfectly, and points out, correctly, that pirates (like the ninja mask wearing, motorcycle loving Bandits) are NOT victims in this situation. They are the bad guys. You can not blame the Town for taking increasingly extreme measures to deal with the Bandits.

Piracy EXPLODED when pc's became affordable to the absolute mainstream, when hard drive technology exploded, and when broadband speed became a staple of nearly all serious internet users. Piracy became an issue when 10 year olds discovered how easy it was to torrent and when cracking groups made cracks easier and easier for the layman to use.

Thing is, the gaming industry will be just fine in the end, even if they DO go to the extreme with DRM... because sooner or later, people will get USED to it, they always do. Legitimate game owners and people who pay for their games aren't going to suddenly STOP buying games and go back to playing board games. If anything will suffer, perhaps it will be PC gaming, but with consoles increasingly blurring the line, gamers will be able to avoid a large portion of trouble by simply buying a console.

So essentially, if you love PC gaming, if it is your platform of choice, you have a vested interest in BUYING pc games and supporting those companies, while condemning piracy in all its forms. Because otherwise, the only two choices you will soon have are draconian DRM practices.. or the complete death of PC gaming entirely.
You choose.

If we're comparing this to a town now,

1) The "town" can more than afford to grow its crops, which you admit

2) Once the pirates and ninjas disappear, good luck getting the town board to lower its taxes (see real government)

3) Right on, pirates aren't victims

I guess you've been saying your main thrust is that pirates are solely responsible for the degradation of PC gaming. Okay. But they aren't going to go away, and to the individual, legitimate consumer they still serve a purpose.

About how game companies should respond, you've made a good case that they are well within boundaries of good taste to release more and more stringent DRMs. I disagree since I don't believe pirates hurt them as much as they think, but there's a lot of room for error.

 

[HyenaThePirate]

If we're comparing this to a town now,

1) The "town" can more than afford to grow its crops, which you admit

2) Once the pirates and ninjas disappear, good luck getting the town board to lower its taxes (see real government)

3) Right on, pirates aren't victims

I guess you've been saying your main thrust is that pirates are solely responsible for the degradation of PC gaming. Okay. But they aren't going to go away, and to the individual, legitimate consumer they still serve a purpose.

About how game companies should respond, you've made a good case that they are well within boundaries of good taste to release more and more stringent DRMs. I disagree since I don't believe pirates hurt them as much as they think, but there's a lot of room for error.

I don't believe that. I believe in the basic economic principle (which we see in action all the time in the video game world) that supply and demand dictates the price.. Want an example? Take a look at Resonance of Fate.. the game came out barely a month ago.. you can get it for nearly $30 US now. No such price drop for God of War III which came out scarcely afterwards. Drake's Fortune until about 5 months ago was still selling for $49 as late as december, nearly two years after its release. Haze is an even greater example... The game was "on sale" for $29 less than 2 weeks after its release.. why? Because it SUCKED and there was no demand.

What this illustrates is that price IS dictated to a large part by DEMAND. And there are a NUMBER of ways to determine demand and how much of it is being detracted by piracy.

Imagine if God of War III were available on PC at launch with no drm whatsoever. How well do you think sales would have been? Honestly?

You stop piracy, then the supply and demand economic model would be allowed to work properly. WE, the GAMERS would actually have MORE control to determine game prices, by snubbing games that we think are not worth buying, forcing prices to lower and forcing gaming companies to re-examine the price they release games at.

Imagine if Gamers decided that $60 for Final Fantasy XIII was too much and sales were underwhelming the first month of release? I guarantee we would have seen a marked price drop by now. The industry would have taken a good long look at the price of games and made adjustments. It is a process. Or it would allow merchandisers to decide price.. imagine if Walmart could have leeway to sell a game at the price they prefer as well as Target and Gamestop? Then it would force those companies to compete.

In the end, WE, the consumers, win.

 

[mjc0961]

And if Ubisoft is good at anything, it's taking really dumb ideas and running with them.

 

[Riven Armor]

I don't believe that. I believe in the basic economic principle (which we see in action all the time in the video game world) that supply and demand dictates the price.. Want an example? Take a look at Resonance of Fate.. the game came out barely a month ago.. you can get it for nearly $30 US now. No such price drop for God of War III which came out scarcely afterwards. Drake's Fortune until about 5 months ago was still selling for $49 as late as december, nearly two years after its release. Haze is an even greater example... The game was "on sale" for $29 less than 2 weeks after its release.. why? Because it SUCKED and there was no demand.

What this illustrates is that price IS dictated to a large part by DEMAND. And there are a NUMBER of ways to determine demand and how much of it is being detracted by piracy.

Imagine if God of War III were available on PC at launch with no drm whatsoever. How well do you think sales would have been? Honestly?

You stop piracy, then the supply and demand economic model would be allowed to work properly. WE, the GAMERS would actually have MORE control to determine game prices, by snubbing games that we think are not worth buying, forcing prices to lower and forcing gaming companies to re-examine the price they release games at.

Imagine if Gamers decided that $60 for Final Fantasy XIII was too much and sales were underwhelming the first month of release? I guarantee we would have seen a marked price drop by now. The industry would have taken a good long look at the price of games and made adjustments. It is a process. Or it would allow merchandisers to decide price.. imagine if Walmart could have leeway to sell a game at the price they prefer as well as Target and Gamestop? Then it would force those companies to compete.

In the end, WE, the consumers, win.

Well, we are talking about this under an article which partially answers, somewhat, how effective a "good" DRM is.

But here we have a well-reviewed, high-profile, AAA title, with incredibly dense coverage that was ostensibly impossible to pirate for six entire weeks. (Which is when the bulk of sales take place.) If every download was a lost sale, then a piracy-proof game should have somewhere in the ballpark of ten times the usual sales. Assassins Creed 2 should be burning up the PC sales charts, dwarfing the sales numbers for its predecessor. Looking around at the sales charts on VGChartz, it would appear that this is not the case.

By the way, aren't the consoles relatively pirate-free as compared to the PC? Has supply and demand really worked in the intended way there, or is it the dreaded resale market that allows people to play for cheap?