PC Gaming: Could The Industry Survive Without DRM?

[DEAD34345]

Yes. In fact I think it would probably do better in the long run. Of the people I personally know who play video games, all of them are pirates to some degree. They also all spend a large portion of their income on video games regardless of that fact, and I don't think that they would spend any more money than they already do if piracy were not an option. For most of them in fact I don't think they could spend much more money on games without sacrificing basic necessities.

There's also the fact that many of my childhood friends, and myself, were only introduced to video games at all through piracy when we were young. I likely wouldn't have had video games at all throughout my childhood if they hadn't been available illegally, my family couldn't afford them, and I therefore wouldn't have grown up into a gamer who spends stupid amounts of money on his hobby as I do today.

Of course all of that is irrelevant anyway, because DRM doesn't stop piracy. Pirates don't have to put up with DRM after-all, only legitimate users do. I've even seen people pirate games in order to avoid bad DRM.

This post isn't meant to be taken as pro-piracy by the way. I'm not endorsing piracy, I make no comment on the morality of it (my opinion is basically that I don't care one way or the other), I just don't see any evidence that it has negative effects on the games industry, and have a bunch of personal experiences that seem to tell me the opposite is true.

DRM on the otherhand, I know has negative effects, on both the consumers and the sellers of games. I honestly don't know why it's used at all, I doubt that games publishers are oblivious enough to think it's helping them by combating piracy as they sometimes claim, but they keep using it so it must be doing something for them.

 

[Bat Vader]

I think it would actually be better off. CD Projekt Red doesn't put any DRM in their games and they have have been doing great. This is what happened when someone admitted to pirating the game.

A bit NSFW

Spoiler

 

[fix-the-spade]

What would happen if we did away with DRM completely? Would everyone just pirate everything? Would people still buy games? What could companies do to make people want to buy their games without DRM?

This has been answered over the years by a number of publishers, piracy numbers don't budge without DRM because DRM has proved totally ineffective.

Never forget that Spore was one of the most pirated games in history and it was chock full of abusive DRM. That was six years ago now and the big publishers still haven't learned anything, for the most part DRM is simply burnt dollars in the internet age.

I think Valve have it about right by calling piracy a service issue rather than a crime issue. Games with difficult, unreliable or intrusive DRM frequently make the list of most pirated for a given year, Ubisoft and EA will no doubt deny that fervently as they cling to their systems. I've used Steam and kept using Steam mostly because it's accessible and convenient,

 

[Windcaler]

DRM does not stop piracy. Everyone knows this and anyone that says otherwise is either lying or largely misinformed. I think the issue surrounding piracy is most people think that each pirated game equals a lost sale which is not true and can no be proven. There are many cases where games were pirated and saw more sales because people got to try the actual game instead of watch a trailer, review, or "verticle slice" that may or may not have been representative of the product.

Usually it only takes a few hours and at most a couple of days to crack DRM. The longest recent crack took about a week and that was for Simcity which required server emulation not the traditional DRM crack.

Bottom line: If DRM went away things would mostly stay the same. People who want to buy games would keep buying games (and DRM wouldnt be getting in the way). People who want to pirate games would continue to pirate games.

 

[sageoftruth]

My go-to method for making wise purchases lately has been TotalBiscuit's "First Impressions", which despite the name, aren't him going in blind, but rather going in after he has played it long enough to give a decent summary about it while he's playing it in front of us. Even if you don't agree with his opinions on it, the game footage won't lie there, since it's honest start-to-finish footage without the jumping around from best part to best part that some reviews can do.
Of course, you may want to check out first impression videos where the player actually DOES go in blind. Would make his comments far less well-thought-out, but is better for showing you the game from the start. After all, a game won't be any good if you lose interest at the beginning before it gets to the good parts.
Together, I think both of them could present a pretty thorough synopsis of what the game is like before you buy it.

 

[Morgoth780]

A point someone made in another thread (or possibly another forum entirely) that investors might be less likely to invest in publishers/developers if they didn't appear to be making an effort to combat piracy.

So it's possible we'd have less big budget titles. Which may or may not be a bad thing with the state of recent releases such as AC:U and to a lesser extent FC4.

I'd argue the biggest deterrent to piracy is the use of services superior to piracy as well as multiplayer focused games that require a purchase to be best. StarCraft II does have a (somewhat crappy) offline mode, but most of the enjoyment from the game comes from the multiplayer which appeals to the core audience.

 

[asdfen]

games/software has been pirated before the internet. People who pirate will pirate regardless of DRM. The only ones who are suffering from DRM are the paying customers.

Even DRM like putting a random word from a manual/serial number is a pain as those things are easy to loose and one of the reasons I have multiple copies of stuff

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

In terms of us buying pc games? Absolutely, 90% of DRM cant stop us from pirating if we want to anyways(Apparently Diablo 3 has been sucessful, but puts off a lot of customers with its horribleness)

But I dont think DRM is really about us, I think its about coming to the shareholders and saying "This is what we are doing to fight piracy and therefore boost sales"

So if our programmers went up to the suits and said "We are doing nothing about piracy because we cant stop it" I suspect a lot of money would be pulled out of the industry by the suits getting cold feet.

 

[kasperbbs]

It survived this far considering that the only working DRM was a rare case of online only bullshit.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

A point someone made in another thread (or possibly another forum entirely) that investors might be less likely to invest in publishers/developers if they didn't appear to be making an effort to combat piracy.

It goes beyond that. Companies can be sued by stakeholders and shareholders if they can't show they've "taken all reasonable steps" to protect their products... and as I said in another thread "reasonable" isn't defined by the consumer but stakeholders in these cases.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Yes. It's not helping at all. Sure, pirates have to wait longer now for a crack, but really, it barely slows them down. I do think that piracy is hurting the industry, but DRM just isn't the answer.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

I think GOG really have proven that you don't need DRM. DRM doesn't work, games will be pirated anyway and DRM barely slows them down, it just makes things worse for legitimate customers. Not only that but DRM costs money to implement in the first place, it's an expense that clearly isn't worth it.

 

[Mahorfeus]

I'd be interested in seeing what happens, I guess. DRM and not piracy seems to be the common enemy to gamers these days. I think the impact on the industry would be far more substantial than some people think, but it would hardly collapse the industry, or anything ridiculous like that.

 

[Rozalia1]

Can't say either way as I'm not so arrogant as to claim I can know the future with 100% accuracy, however if I had to give an answer I'd say no. What people tend to forget is DRM doesn't have to be unbroken to stop people pirating (not all of course, merely some).
The easiest ones are simple downloads, others involve overwriting some files, and some are a bit more in depth than that. Another thing to remember is that as PCs aren't static some pirates are going to run into problems running the application anyway even if they get it cracked.

That added effort can work to prevent piracy, it works for other things so I don't see why it wouldn't apply to piracy. All that goes out of the window if pirating becomes as simple as downloading some files in every instance, and "cracked" versions started popping up on release, or god forbid before release (which has happened even with DRM so that number can only increase).
Once pirating gets the rep that its as simple as downloading something, and that its safe.... boom market is dead in the water and the bosses ain't going to be happy. So wish for DRMless future if you want them to go all in with console DRM I suppose, ultimately makes no difference to me but likely does to most people on this site.

Obviously it would be fine. Generally pirates are the ones who buy the most games anyway (save for reviewers like Yahtzee, who buys a new game every week on his own, but that's an incredibly small minority) since they are the ones most interested in the product.

If anything, DRM is the fucking problem. AAA games make money in the fucking hundreds of millions, they don't have a problem, it's just this outright greed that they have to squeeze out every last penny. Fucking hell, you make something, I can guarentee you'll not get 100 % worth of it, whatever it is, but you should honestly by fine with it if you mkae more than it cost, then it's no bloody problem. Remember, the producers here are fucking rich, they aren't starving single mothers who have to sell their youngest kid to a pedophile if they don't make rent, they're millionairs who can do pretty much whatever the fuck they want with their money. I couldn't care less if they made $350.000.000 rather than $400.000.000.

You got any to back up that ridiculous pirates buy more games claim?

Wanting to be paid for your efforts is greed? I suppose your boss should take 20% off your wages because hey stop being greedy he is still paying you the 80%. Oh and apparently according to you piracy only effects the big companies who are rich, news to me.

 

[chikusho]

You got any to back up that ridiculous pirates buy more games claim?

Honestly, this should actually be common knowledge by now.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/05/file-sharers-are-content-industrys-largest-customers/
http://www.dailytech.com/Nearly+Half+of+Americans+Pirate+Casually+But+Pirates+Purchase+More+Legal+Content/article29702.htm
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pirates-buy-more-music

 

[Xyebane]

I'm pretty sure the industry would do fine without DRM. I know I would probably buy more games not fewer. Intrusive DRM is the #1 reason I won't buy a game that I would otherwise be interested in trying.

 

[Adultratedhydra]

The industry will -Thrive- without DRM.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Just echoing the sentiments already here, but it'd be fine.

In fact, I'm almost positive that it would be better, all around, for both customer and producer, if it were eliminated entirely...with the exception of the good 'ol CD key. Those worked just fine. They discouraged the folks who were in it for a quick, easy 'looting' of content, but didn't stop the 'I'm having this for free, no matter what' segment-

Kind of like exactly what's happening now, and for a decade or two, with all manner of DRM, costing these companies millions and directly (read: negatively) impacting customer experience...which, in turn, spurns some of said customers toward 'alternatives.'

Hell, I've bought Witcher 2 on two different service providers JUST because it's CD PR. Bless those guys/gals.

And...frankly? Shitty DRM and censorship are the PRIMARY things that keep me from buying a title I'd otherwise be interested in.

...Also, obligatory youtube:

 

[Avalanche91]

I kinda think it survived thusfar in spite of it, not because of it. If its purpose is to stop piracy it just flat-out doesn't work. If its purpose is to benefit players, it just flat-out doesn't work either.

A point someone made in another thread (or possibly another forum entirely) that investors might be less likely to invest in publishers/developers if they didn't appear to be making an effort to combat piracy.

It goes beyond that. Companies can be sued by stakeholders and shareholders if they can't show they've "taken all reasonable steps" to protect their products... and as I said in another thread "reasonable" isn't defined by the consumer but stakeholders in these cases.

And suddenly it all makes sense. Thank you.

 

[Death_Cometh]

I work in game retail and I can tell you that DRM drives customers away like you would not believe. It has gotten to the point that we don't even stock AAA PC games anymore because of how poorly they sell just because people don't want to have to connect games to a million accounts just to play them. So I think that getting rid of DRM would improve game sales.

Speaking personally the terrible DRM practices from 7-8 years ago is why I fled PC gaming for consoles in the first place because they were easier to use and didn't require always on connections, huge downloads and my friends and I could lend games to each other so there was DRM costing companies money.

Accepting that stopping piracy is impossible companies should rather try and add value to games so that people don't want to pirate games. Give legitimate users free content and an improved experience so that they want to buy the game and not pirate it.