Ladies and Gentlemen of the Games Business:
DRM is not a political football between game sellers and game buyers. DRM is a technical football between DRM coders and reverse engineers.
Most gamers have enough technical skills to apply someone else's method to circumvent DRM. The interesting issue is how to invent original methods to circumvent DRM for the first time.
I am not interested in breaking DRM in order to play a copyright-infringed game. I am interested in breaking DRM because DRM imperils my control over my computing system. I have a hard enough time managing traffic analysis, operating system updates, and user support. I don't need some 3rd party vendor sneaking some black-box onto my system that will cause me problems of any kind - whether those problems are intentional malware or unintentional bugs.
Game vendors complain that I might copyright infringe their games, break the DRM, and then play their games. That is incorrect. I have no interest in their crummy games. I have more open source games than I have free time. I do have interest in being able to take apart any black box that might try to run on my system.
I may have purchased subsidized hardware with the intention of running non-supported software. Once I have purchased that hardware , I will not tolerate vendors who attempt to screw up the firmware. If I make a Linux-based supercomputer out of PS3s, Sony might try to update the firmware to make the hardware incapable of running Linux. I will oppose such attempts.
This implies that if I purchase a circuit board (e.g. in an XBox) and I feel a need to void my warranty by soldering modification chips onto that board, I am going to do it. I am aware that I am running the risk of reducing the hardware to a boat anchor. I have ruined better hardware in worse causes before there was such a thing as an XBox.
I exercise my freedom to tinker. If you sell me anything - hardware or software - be aware that I might reverse-engineer it or break its DRM. As far as I can tell, the games industry wants my skillset to be made illegal.
I would be amused if the games business somehow managed to reduce the entire English-speaking world to such incompetence that no native English speakers would be available to crack game DRM. In that event, I would not bother to crack DRM for my fellow English speakers - I would encourage them to give up games and to study math. However, I suspect that my opposite numbers in Brazil and Russia and China would crack the DRM of English-language releases, and would circulate the results - perhaps with malware, and perhaps without.
DRM is not a political football between game sellers and game buyers. DRM is a technical football between DRM coders and reverse engineers.
DRM is not a political football between game sellers and game buyers. DRM is a technical football between DRM coders and reverse engineers.
Most gamers have enough technical skills to apply someone else's method to circumvent DRM. The interesting issue is how to invent original methods to circumvent DRM for the first time.
I am not interested in breaking DRM in order to play a copyright-infringed game. I am interested in breaking DRM because DRM imperils my control over my computing system. I have a hard enough time managing traffic analysis, operating system updates, and user support. I don't need some 3rd party vendor sneaking some black-box onto my system that will cause me problems of any kind - whether those problems are intentional malware or unintentional bugs.
Game vendors complain that I might copyright infringe their games, break the DRM, and then play their games. That is incorrect. I have no interest in their crummy games. I have more open source games than I have free time. I do have interest in being able to take apart any black box that might try to run on my system.
I may have purchased subsidized hardware with the intention of running non-supported software. Once I have purchased that hardware , I will not tolerate vendors who attempt to screw up the firmware. If I make a Linux-based supercomputer out of PS3s, Sony might try to update the firmware to make the hardware incapable of running Linux. I will oppose such attempts.
This implies that if I purchase a circuit board (e.g. in an XBox) and I feel a need to void my warranty by soldering modification chips onto that board, I am going to do it. I am aware that I am running the risk of reducing the hardware to a boat anchor. I have ruined better hardware in worse causes before there was such a thing as an XBox.
I exercise my freedom to tinker. If you sell me anything - hardware or software - be aware that I might reverse-engineer it or break its DRM. As far as I can tell, the games industry wants my skillset to be made illegal.
I would be amused if the games business somehow managed to reduce the entire English-speaking world to such incompetence that no native English speakers would be available to crack game DRM. In that event, I would not bother to crack DRM for my fellow English speakers - I would encourage them to give up games and to study math. However, I suspect that my opposite numbers in Brazil and Russia and China would crack the DRM of English-language releases, and would circulate the results - perhaps with malware, and perhaps without.
DRM is not a political football between game sellers and game buyers. DRM is a technical football between DRM coders and reverse engineers.