Online Activation Is a Ripoff
- Thread starter Shamus Young
- Start date
Yeah so? When you are able to get back online you'll get those updates. I don't see any problem with Steam.samsonguy920 said:
Steam is very simple, how do you hate it, Yeah the disc days wre great,but what if you accidentaly hurt your disc, oops no more game for you.. With steam you dont have to worry about the disc, infact there is little you do have to worry about, they put in the patches automatically if you have it in your settings, they give you news on things to come, it's really a win-win we get tons of awesome, and they get our money without being a jerk.GamesB2 said:
I like Steam, for the reason that I have it installed in multiple computers of mine (Desktop for best graphics etc, Laptop for schoolwork). I find the availability of free demos and the ability to get games is quick and helpful.
But it's shit like DRM that has made me deter from buying games that I would have bought, such as Spore and Mass Effect. Makes me wish I had a console.
But it's shit like DRM that has made me deter from buying games that I would have bought, such as Spore and Mass Effect. Makes me wish I had a console.
Well firstly I take good care of my discs so I never had that problem and I see what's good about steam, but i've had so many bad experiences with it,whaleswiththumbs said:
It refused to read my empire total war disc meaning I had to download the whole game from steam servers (which took the mick)
The older games it offers for download are normally more than you would pay in a shop.
I find it just gets in the way, and if it doesn't want to work for me i cant play any games on there until it decides to be nice again.
The online activation service doesn't work until the day the game is out, minor issue but still annoyed me.
And its mainly there to stop pirating games, but it doesn't work, i've already seen cracks out for the majority of the games that steam is required for.
IMO steam is just more annoying than helpful, thank you sims 3 for not using steam.
I gotta admit, Online Activation sounded like a good idea - "No invasive software installed in the background!" - but that quickly changed when I read this article.Shamus Young said:
This is really a paradox. People who straight up pirate get the game hassle-free, while the legitimate customers - the people paying for their development - get treated like pirates.
As for the suggestions, the article that made me a member of this fine community is still, in my opinion, the best: Keeping the Pirates at Bay [http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20011017/dodd_01.htm]. However, the real lesson in that article that you can't stop piracy, but every moment you delay the inevitable will net you the profits that your company sorely needs. And this method was invented more than 8 years ago!
Well maybe you do take care of them, what happens when one of them ACCIDENTALY(You apparently missed that word the first time..) gets destroyed, well your out some money...GamesB2 said:
Steam has screwed me over once or twice, but it's not lkike my gaming world has ende... ahh fuck it I'm tired of argueing with an idiot.
Although this kind of weirds me out:
Like a pirate has come to talk about an article on how pirates hurt the world...
Really, no need to call me an idiot, I was explaining why I don't like it, and the activation thing annoyed me because I pre-ordered empire total war, got it sent a day early then couldn't play it. And i understand the ->accidentally<- but none of my discs have ever been damaged to the point where i needed to buy a new one.whaleswiththumbs said:
So, no need to flame me just because you don't see my point of view.
that is why i haven't bought a game in like 6 years. Also cracked and hacked games don't have such retardations, therefdore it will stay the same until the industry changes, also choosing only one path is not wise and causes more trouble han it solves. games need to be both disc and steam.
Hmm, yep. Because after downloading a 6 gig game from the internet, It would obviously be such a huge inconvenience to them ... or not. Piracy is way more inconvenient than buying it, assuming you are willing to pay the cash, so you have no argument there.Shamus Young said:
Considering the small minority of people who don't have internet or can't borrow internet for a few minutes, this method of protection is far superior to the CD in disk drive method for the following reasons.
1. Swapping CD's is very annoying compared to the install and store the CD for potential need to reinstall method. If you play a few different games a day you will be forever switching and switching back. With the activation method, once it's installed you can forget about it.
2. Considering Cd's are constantly being swapped, they will get lost if you aren't very organised, and face it, most of us aren't. Once the Cd is lost, that's it, you can't even play the game let alone reinstall it. With online activation, you can put the disc in a safe place and not it have constantly moved around and lost. This keeps the disc in a place you know where it is, and actually preserves it. I find it disappointing you do not even acknowledge the positives of online activation.
3. Online activation is screwing over the incredibly small minority or people who don't have any access (not even for a minute or two) to internet in the same way that releasing games with alright graphics is screwing over people with poor computers. Ie, it's providing an overwhelming positive experience with a few downsides to a small group of people. The reason you find people disagreeing with you is because, just as people want better graphics, people want a better system of protection than cd's.
4. I know from experience that online activation is harder to crack than a no-cd. This means more pirates won't be bothered and if you will believe all those pinning blame on piracy for poor sales, more people buying games, and more industry growth which is good for everybody.
5. You spent much of your article complaining about how great the threat of losing the game forever is. The chance of this is minute however. For this to happen you would need to have lost your install somehow (probably wouldn't happen before you finished it once or twice anyway) and the servers have gone down (which would give the company a reputation of this, which would decrease sales which the company would go out of its way to avoid) and didn't issue a patch before the servers were down (which would only happen if the company bankrupted) you could always download it which if it isn't legal it should be. The chances of the above happening are much less likely than losing/scratching a cd since you are always swapping them around.
What's all this about not being able to play it at your free will that seems so prevalent throughout your article. You seem to be integrating your hatred of games that require constant online (which is bullshit I agree with you) with something that is entirely different. Maybe I'm missing something but it seems to me your argument is unbased and rather one-sided. A reply would be nice.
If you owned a store and made every customer go through anal probing upon leaving, don't be surprised when people stop coming into your store. The alternative doesn't mean you have to leave the store unattended and trust people to put the money in the cash register on their way out.
I'm no marketing expert, but I fail to understand the increasing vehemence in the way companies are attempting to "prevent piracy".
Companies treat pirates as a potential consumer base. This makes sense, to an extent. After all, pirates obviously want to play your game, so they might be inclined to actually paying for it. However, we don't know the cut between people who pirate games and those who would buy them: it could be that among the people who pirate a game only 5% would have purchased it otherwise, and it could be 95%. Stopping pirates does not automatically translate into more sales - the connection is there, but it's not even tangible.
What's worse, DRM methods are becoming more and more invasive to the consumer. What's meant to function as disincentive to pirates - equivalent to, for example, security cameras a store - becomes a disincentive to consumers - equivalent to the anal probing.
So not only that extreme DRM offers no incentive to purchase a game, it actually creates a disincentive, all for the sake of a goal that has only a questionable effect on the consumer base.
As a potential consumer and a game enthusiast, I feel that I am in my right to call companies out on their shenanigans. To be honest, this online activation for SC2 is a new revelation for me and might prevent me from purchasing the game altogether.
I'm no marketing expert, but I fail to understand the increasing vehemence in the way companies are attempting to "prevent piracy".
Companies treat pirates as a potential consumer base. This makes sense, to an extent. After all, pirates obviously want to play your game, so they might be inclined to actually paying for it. However, we don't know the cut between people who pirate games and those who would buy them: it could be that among the people who pirate a game only 5% would have purchased it otherwise, and it could be 95%. Stopping pirates does not automatically translate into more sales - the connection is there, but it's not even tangible.
What's worse, DRM methods are becoming more and more invasive to the consumer. What's meant to function as disincentive to pirates - equivalent to, for example, security cameras a store - becomes a disincentive to consumers - equivalent to the anal probing.
So not only that extreme DRM offers no incentive to purchase a game, it actually creates a disincentive, all for the sake of a goal that has only a questionable effect on the consumer base.
As a potential consumer and a game enthusiast, I feel that I am in my right to call companies out on their shenanigans. To be honest, this online activation for SC2 is a new revelation for me and might prevent me from purchasing the game altogether.
Care to actually back some of that up? Simply saying "I'm right, and you're wrong" does not make for a good argument.Markness said:
This goes back to a point the article made about how we, the consumers, are being pitted against each other in whom its better to punish. The point isn't in how many people are penalized for the online activation. The point is that legitimate customers ARE being penalized for it period. Whether its one person or a thousand people, you shouldn't be paying for poor treatment.
1. I don't recall reading in the article where it said that swapping CDs is okay. If it does, feel free to point it out (and give a general idea of where it is so I can find it). In either case, the point is that hassle for the customers is, as a general rule, a bad thing.
2. Honestly, your own sloppiness is your own fault. If I lose a shirt, I wouldn't expect the clothing store to replace it just as much as if I lose a game CD I wouldn't expect the game store (or developers) to replace it. Your shit, your responsibility.
3. Again, it goes back to the article's point about customers fighting against customers. As for your point about graphics, if you were a consistent reader of Experienced Points, you'd know that Shamus agrees with you on that part. A few months back he printed an article that pointed a finger at high-end graphics as being one of the prime contributors to the decline in PCs as a popular gaming console due to the high cost of keeping-up with the hardware to run those games. However, it's a moot point for this topic (and article) since it's a completely different issue altogether.
4. Harder or not, all it takes is one person cracking the code open, and it will spread like wildfire from there. It's hard for us to believe the argument that piracy is harder when cracked versions of most games are available on release day, and sometimes before. If it took a few weeks, or even months, then you might have something, but from our perspective, we're seeing the pirates playing games that we're willing to pay for... before we can buy them.
5. So if a car dealership said that there was a slight chance they might have to take your car away from you forever without any form of refund despite how well it runs, you'd still buy from them? It doesn't matter how soon or how late it will be, I've bought the game, so if I want to install it 20 years from now for the sake of nostalgia, I deserve that right as a paying customer. I shouldn't be forced to go looking for some pirated version of the game because the authentication servers are long-since gone.
To be completely honest, he already pre-replied to a lot of your points in the article. Heck, some of what I said above was probably taken ad lib straight from it. You presented little info that wasn't already rebutted in the article, and the points you made which weren't pre-rebutted you gave little back-up info on which to comment.
Hurrah, Shamus, for your quality journalism!
You're too right for my tastes. The consumer is definitely the loser in the scenario of online activation. Steam is a great service in some ways, but any system that takes away the actual game data from being on a person's computer (or access to that data, which produces effectively the same result) is suspect at best, a ripoff at worst.
If only we could see a law moved that would make all game license restrictions void if the game servers go down, allowing cracks and source code manipulation. Now that's something to fight for in the future, if ever there is a politician who has any passion for both video gaming and the good of the consumer.
In the meantime, I'll just say that anyone who agrees should not be a hypocrite. If you're against online activation, do not buy games that require it. Yes, if you do so, your game library might be restricted a little bit of expansion, but in the long term we'll get better treatment from companies. Less money for them is more power for us, and even a little bit less is enough to irritate and inform.
You're too right for my tastes. The consumer is definitely the loser in the scenario of online activation. Steam is a great service in some ways, but any system that takes away the actual game data from being on a person's computer (or access to that data, which produces effectively the same result) is suspect at best, a ripoff at worst.
If only we could see a law moved that would make all game license restrictions void if the game servers go down, allowing cracks and source code manipulation. Now that's something to fight for in the future, if ever there is a politician who has any passion for both video gaming and the good of the consumer.
In the meantime, I'll just say that anyone who agrees should not be a hypocrite. If you're against online activation, do not buy games that require it. Yes, if you do so, your game library might be restricted a little bit of expansion, but in the long term we'll get better treatment from companies. Less money for them is more power for us, and even a little bit less is enough to irritate and inform.
Think about it. A paying customer drives to the shop, buys it, then brings it back, at which point the only difference between their copy and a pirates copy is that they have to authenticate (which takes what, 30 seconds?). A pirate has to find the torrent etc then download a rather large file. Unless you are paying for a rapidshare account it will take ages to download the links individually or you could use torrents which are rather unreliable. Then they have to extract, unpack, crack, probably find a cd key. Pirate copies generally have more bugs and online multiplayer is almost impossible to work consistantly. It's not as easy as you might believe.WhiteTigerShiro said:
It's not that they are being punished, it's that they don't have access to some games. Of course this a negative of online activation but lets face it, if you don't have internet, you are going to miss out on a lot of things. Since most people do have access to internet at some point (hell, if worst comes to worst - and you really want to play that game, you can go to your local MacDonalds with wi-fi) it's really more of an inconvenience than any real barrier. I personally think the inconvenience of disks is worse.
1. Well, since that seems to be the alternative at this point, I just assumed that he was suggesting we keep the old system. I can't think of any other copy systems that don't use disks and if you are suggesting no drm at all? Even loyal customers would be swayed by an easy borrowing friends cd for the full game forever. The way I see it, if it's not online activation, then it's back to swapping disks.
2. Well you missed my point. I'm not saying that developers should replace lost disks or anything like that but it's a fact that it harder to maintain disks and keep track of disks when they are constantly being swapped around. With online activation you can just keep them all in a draw in case you need to reinstall. Convenient, less swapping more playing and less damage.
3. It's unlikely any new method will have universal support. Every system has flaws. If we only changed technologies when we had a perfect one that disadvantaged no-one, technology would be in a sorry state. When a systems advantages > disadvantages is when you introduce it.
4. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm saying it is not as easy. Even if it only gets a little harder to pirate games, less people will do it. Downloading no-cd was a snap. With this new system, the crackers have to learn and the common downloaders have to learn, or give up.
5. I reckon playing a game in 20 years time is a rather unrealistic goal. A multitude of factors make it harder for your dream to come true. OS's change and games become incompatible, CD's break, cd keys are lost, the chance of the servers being shut down and no patch being issued and you needing to reinstall is small in comparison. For example EA have said they will issue a patch for Red Alert 3 when they shut the servers down. Your analogy is inaccurate btw, as is Shamus's (don't worry, most are) your not borrowing anything, you've got it activated, it's playable forever. You just have to worry if you want to install it again. It's like telling your friend a (minor) password that you'll forget and then worrying about him dying suddenly. Also even if he does die (unlikely) and you need it (also unlikely) you can get your password back by doing a few jobs (ie downloading it from a torrent or something). Your rights as a paying customer only go so far.
About that stuff about in Shamus's article, Bioshock is still a relatively new and popular game and it still has few years left in it to hopefully make a profit. Generally some developers release their games like at least 10 years after release ie command and conquer tiberium sun was released last year I think.
Well I think I have a few worthy arguments that I certainly don't have an answer to. My biggest complaint with the article was that Shamus was complaining about the system without acknowledging the advantages or providing any sort of feasible alternative. Note, no DRM is not a feasible alternative.
Wow, this is a really nice thread, with some really nice discussion, about a really nice article.
Pity noone in the industry will take it on board. Our opinions are sadly irrelevant at this point. If every single registered user on this website, and let's call that a million people to be ludicrously generous, if a million people chose to not buy Starcraft II or Modern Warfare II, ten people for each of us will. Blizzard make their money, their activation scheme is a success, end of story for everyone.
Xombee, two posts above, is dead on.
Besides, I'm more upset at the idea of putting down cash for a PC game without getting a look at the EULA first. Which is how it works. Not to change the topic, but I reckon that's even -less- reasonable.
Pity noone in the industry will take it on board. Our opinions are sadly irrelevant at this point. If every single registered user on this website, and let's call that a million people to be ludicrously generous, if a million people chose to not buy Starcraft II or Modern Warfare II, ten people for each of us will. Blizzard make their money, their activation scheme is a success, end of story for everyone.
Xombee, two posts above, is dead on.
Besides, I'm more upset at the idea of putting down cash for a PC game without getting a look at the EULA first. Which is how it works. Not to change the topic, but I reckon that's even -less- reasonable.