Mycroft Holmes said:
DoPo said:
ResonanceSD said:
DoPo said:
However, is it necessary - I'd say yes. For the reasons stated - stop random pirates and stop zero day releases. No DRM just doesn't make much sense. Well, aside from some good publicity, it's not achieving anything, really. No DRM doesn't reduce piracy by any significant portion. At least I haven't seen any evidence for that.
And games without DRM (Humble Indie Bundle) get pirated anyway, so what's the point of playing nice with pirates?
None, really. That's why I don't get why some people would think that no DRM is somehow inherently better.
No DRM makes
some people more likely to buy the game but at the expense of some other people getting easier access to it. All in all, it's not going to make a massive amount of profits. No copy protection at all is fighting piracy about as hard as hard as going "Pretty please with cherry on top".
Because DRM does not reduce the ability of pirates to steal it at all. Yeah Humble Indie Bundle got pirated. So did Mass Effect 3 which requires origin. So has DRM free witcher 2. So has every Call of Duty game. So has every insanely irrationally DRMed Ubisoft game. Because guess what, breaking DRM is really easy, and once its broken the game can be distributed freely VIA torrents, p2p file sending, or various download services. Sorry to burst your bubble, but every single game that has garnered sufficient interest can be pirated, has been pirated, or will be pirated.
There's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it, so you have two choices:
1) Spend months developing software to stop pirates, that will invariably be broken and bypassed day one of your release. And subsequently every person who steals it will have removed your extra cumbersome software while your actual customers will not.
2) Have no DRM, and say whatever happens, happens: we don't endorse or like piracy but we have no way to stop it.
The effects of which are
1)a. Your customers have a diminished experience(depending on what DRM you used.)
b. Pirates get a better experience from your game.
c. Piracy statistically is not reduced at all.
d. People are less likely to support your company(perhaps negligible.)
e. You waste a bunch of money developing something that didn't work at all
2)a. Your game gets stolen just as much as a DRM protected game.
b. There is no chance of reduced experience for your customers
c. Your company will not take any heat from anti-DRM people, if anything they will like you more. I personally believe Louis CK is awesome, and CD Projekt Red is one of the best developers around.
d. You wasted no money.
Obviously you didn't read my first comment. Go back and do it. Now, go and look at your front door, especially the lock. I'll wait.
Are you back? Good, now get whatever tools appropriate and remove the lock. It doesn't serve any purpose. Any lock you put there would be useless. Anybody who wants to can bypass it will, it's not a big deal. I have a set of lockpicks myself, bought them from Amazon. Anybody can buy them and it doesn't take a genius to operate them. But any other lock you put is equally useless at stopping every single person from accessing your home. So why have it in the first place? Go and remove it right now to save yourself the headache.
Oh, let me address those effects you mentioned:
1. a) unobtrusive DRM. Look it up.
b) unobtrusive DRM. Look it up.
c) statistically, I want data to back that claim up.
d) it's because of ignorance
e) or you use one
readily available. It's the 21st century people, we don't need to reinvent the wheel every fucking time we reach for our car keys.
2. a) only perhaps more because there is nothing to actually stop Joe Random from making free gifts to 10 of his friends. And for that matter any paying customer. A 10 to 1 ration in favour of piracy isn't good, you know.
b) unobtrusive fucking DRM. Look it up, goddamn it. Seriously, how hard is it as a concept that people constantly live in denial of it?
c) good. Now go and shout "Pretty please with cherry on top!" from somewhere high. It is possible you just reduced piracy. Or you might have not.
d) only in wasted sales, you know. But oh wait, you're sure to cover those with the mountains of cash you save by not including copy protection.
Who the fuck came up with the concept that DRM, at its core, is the spawn of Satan and wants to munch on babies while it steals your games? And why in Hastur's name did people believe them?