Poll: DRM - A necessary evil?

[lacktheknack]

snip

Read again what he wrote. You obviously did not understand his point. You yourself actually gave an argument in his favor with your example of your buddy there.

"it doesn't allow the games to simply be copy pasted, so if Joe Random buys a new shiny game, he doesn't go and give free copies to all his buddies thus making his buddies not buy the game."

Yes. To pirate a game people will need more than just one guy in their area who bought it and copypastes it, they need guys who crack it / upload installers. It takes Joe Average more time to get the game = investors are happy and the developer can making games.

...Would be a point if games weren't constantly leaked early. Deus Ex: HR was leaked early, Crysis 2 was leaked early, Skyrim was leaked early, Mass Effect 3 was leaked early... need I continue?

Also, don't forget who got to play those leaked editions. (Hint: It was pirates.)

 

[Chairman Miaow]

DRM is like locking your car door. It's not going to stop someone from smashing your window to get into the vehicle but it is a deterrent to those who are less determined to get into your vehicle.

Not really, because all it would take is one of the more determined ones to crack the window, and then leave an infinite number of perfect copies around for the less determined ones.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Obviously you didn't read my first comment. Go back and do it.

Ok done.

Now, go and look at your front door, especially the lock. I'll wait.

I don't have a lock on my front door.

Are you back?

yep

Good, now get whatever tools appropriate and remove the lock.

I can't, there isn't a 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.

Yep

So why have it in the first place?

I don't.

Go and remove it right now to save yourself the headache.

I can't, it does not exist.

Didn't you ever watch Michael Moores film scene where he wanders around Canada breaking into people houses by opening their front doors because almost no one puts locks on their doors? Not everyone is as paranoid as you are.

1. a) unobtrusive DRM. Look it up.
b) unobtrusive DRM. Look it up.

I said depending on the type of DRM used. Its ok reading is hard, I forgive you.

c) statistically, I want data to back that claim up.

"Look; at this point in your life cycle your DRM got hacked, right? Now let?s look at the data; did your sales change at all? No, your sales didn?t change one bit. So here?s before and after, here?s where you have DRM that annoys your customers and causes huge numbers of support calls. In theory, you would think that you would see a huge drop off in sales after that got hacked, and instead there was absolutely no difference in sales before or after. You actually probably lost a whole bunch of sales as near as we can tell; here?s how much money you lost by bundling that with your product." -Gabe Newell

Why am I supposed to do your research for you exactly?

Games that had DRM at launch which subsequently removed their DRM(ARMA 1&2, IL2 Dover, the witcher 1&2, Mass Effect,) showed no change in the number of people pirating the game prior and after DRM.

d) it's because of ignorance

Depends on the DRM. There's cases where its quite well founded and you'd be stupid to argue otherwise. Also saying they are ignorant, does not make my claim any less true.

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.

You do when they cracked that DRM already. Do you get a new car key when the carjacker has a copy of your key?(oh hey look metaphors cut both ways.)

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.

Oh man you're right and what if he makes 10 million copies while hes at it! the totally made up ratio for 10,000,000 to 1 in favor of piracy means that only one copy of any game will ever be sold and is indisputable proof.

Joe Random bought a burner, and then downloaded a software suite for his computer, then he ripped an ISO of the disc, and then burned it to another disc. Because downloading utorrent and then click buttan to download was too hard for Joe Random.

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?

Reading comprehension, look it up, goddamnit it. Seriously, how hard is it as a concept to realize that the words "no chance" mean that without DRM it definitely won't happen. But that with DRM there have been dozens of of recorded cases of paying customers getting screwed over and locked out of their games. While DRM Free==0 cases of customers screwed over and DRM>=1 case, my statement is correct.

It is possible you just reduced piracy. Or you might have not.

I thought you were certain that it didn't reduce piracy, that's kind of the basis of your whole argument.

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.

Nothing has ever linked piracy to lost sales. I know of multiple people who have bought games post trying them out with piracy, who would never have bought the games right out.

http://technoose.com/the-louis-ck-no-drm-experiment-breaks-even/

"I have a profit around $200,000" "This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you"

o man, all those lost sales. What will he ever do with his sad fate of having more money than he would have gotten if he put DRM on it.

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?

Man you're right I wonder where that idea came from. Maybe from the people who bought products with DRM and then got burned for it

http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/4487/article/ubisoft-drm-monitors-computer-hardware-breaks-when-you-change-graphics-cards/
http://www.digital-digest.com/news-62970-DRM-Locks-Out-Legitimate-Gamers-For-4-Days-Pirates-Play-Happily.html
http://gizmodo.com/5429705/massive-drm-fail-kills-avatar-3d-screening
http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/03/08/ubisofts-drm-servers-fail-while-gamers-say-we-told-you-so/
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/drm-fail-microsoft-locks-users-out-from-own-documents/6436
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wal-mart_gives_consumers_number_1_reason_why_drm_not_answer.php
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/yahoo_music_store_closing.php
http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/7415/command--conquer-4s-pc-drm-is-fail-admits-eas-jeff-green
http://archive.geekworld.co.za/node/232
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100316/1908348592.shtml
http://www.growingupotaku.com/2011/10/fear-3-drm-fail-captured-live-via.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/04/19/directv-turns-on-drm-breaks-p.html

 

[Krantos]

"Make Piracy the least attractive option"


This has been Stardock's position for YEARS and it seems like UbiSoft is going in the same direction.

This (in my inexpert opinion) is the only way to beat piracy. Virtually every DRM scheme out there right now does the exact opposite. It makes Piracy MORE attractive because then you don't have to deal with the Draconian DRM schemes.

Instead give people a REASON to want to buy the game versus steal it. It's worked for Stardock so far and it will probably work for Ubi.

 

[Deadyawn]

The fact is that DRM in its current form does nothing to prevent piracy. It might mean it takes a bit longer for pirates to get their hands on it but thats it. In the long run all you're doing is inconviniencing your legitimate customers which is in fact more incentive to pirate the game. It's really dumb.

Some forms of DRM like the one that was in arkham asylum (pirated copies couldn't progress beyond a certain point) don't affect legitimate customers and are actually pretty good. If that was the only security feature they used as well as any other non intrusive methods then that would be ok. As it is DRM is stupid and crap and should be ditched.

 

[tobi the good boy]

I've never been inconvenienced by DRM enough to really understand all the bitching that goes on about it.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well you need to consider how bad things are when the best version of the game is the pirated one...
Like Gabe said there are some major service issues in there.

 

[babinro]

I feel that DRM is a necessary evil.

Pirates should have a barrier to entry that prevents the wider populous from getting on board. I believe that the corporations know what they're doing. They wouldn't spend tons of money on DRM efforts if it only caused them to lose further money from legitimate buyers.

Everyone knows that a game will be pirated either prior to launch or within hours/days of it. DRM isn't designed to prevent the high end pirates. It's designed to place a barrier on those who'd consider it but otherwise shy away because it seems to complicated, or difficult, etc.

I get the impression those companies with no DRM are still worse off in terms of lost sales than those who use it.

I'm sure DRM could be improved to provide less of an impact on the honest consumer.

 

[zumbledum]

DRM only impacts legitimate customers , pirates wont have to deal with it. lost track of the amount of games i bought that i then had to track down a "No cd crack" for.

Its always better to encourage than punish , give people reasons to not pirate rather than reasons to.

 

[Vivi22]

I'm not saying that we can eliminate piracy, especially through DRM, I'm just asking if you guys think that there may be a better way to handle DRM aside from removing it completely. Wouldn't a DRM-free gaming world be subject to much more piracy than it is now? Like it or not, some DRM can be effective - just look at how many people use Steam.

Steams DRM is only effective because they offer a comprehensive service which benefits customers greatly with sales especially, but it's other features as well such as being able to play games on as many computers as you want to load them on. If it weren't such a good consumer experience in every other way, I don't think it would have caught on. Many people are still bothered by the fact that they are still at the mercy of Valve for access to these titles, and if Steam every vanished then the fate of their game is very much up in the air.

So the only option I see for those who don't want to use Steam to deliver their game or who want to compete directly with it is to have no DRM. The majority of companies don't have the resources to try and out-Steam Steam, and the ones that do aren't doing a very good job. So the only reasonable alternative is to offer the best experience possible for the paying consumer, and that means no DRM. It doesn't work anyway so there's no reason to use it on the consumer end.

In fact, the only reason many people still do is because when they have to go looking for investment money or justify their decisions to a board who knows nothing about the industry and it's consumer base, nor of the efficacy of DRM, it's tough to explain to those people why you're not taking steps to protect a product they invested in.

Pirates should have a barrier to entry that prevents the wider populous from getting on board. I believe that the corporations know what they're doing. They wouldn't spend tons of money on DRM efforts if it only caused them to lose further money from legitimate buyers.

Companies absolutely would do that. Try explaining to investors or shareholders, or even executives within the company who don't understand the industry why not trying to prevent piracy is a better business strategy than including DRM. They don't care that it doesn't actually do anything, creates a worse user experience and costs god only knows how much in development/licensing costs. They just want to see that you're trying to protect their investment, the investment of shareholders, or trying to have something they can fall back on as a way of showing they're doing their job, even when it's really just a waste of resources.

And DRM doesn't create a barrier to entry for pirates. Anyone worth their salt is going to crack a game and completely remove the DRM, making it a pretty straightforward matter to install the game, and it's going to be available to millions via torrents. It's not as difficult as people think, and anyone who really doesn't want to pay for the game to the point that they're willing to pirate it is probably going to at least try downloading it first. Hell, the fact that millions are supposedly pirating games like COD is pretty strong evidence that it can't be that difficult.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

Its makes it harder to play if you buy it and not really any difference to those who would pirate it.

 

[ElPatron]

WHAT NECESSARY EVIL? It has been proven that DRM does NOT work and it's easily circumvented.

It's not necessary, it's just evil.

It's designed to place a barrier on those who'd consider it but otherwise shy away because it seems to complicated, or difficult, etc

I'm sure DRM could be improved to provide less of an impact on the honest consumer.

Keep drinking the Kool Aid. DRM is designed to have more control on paying customers.

People who crack software are the ones that have to do extra work. Pirates only have to follow the instructions the cracker leaves on each release.

If you can install a PC game, you can pirate one. DRM is ineffective and only punishes the consumer. Develop a kind of DRM that doesn't piss off the consumer? That's a catch-22, it's impossible to restrict who is playing but at the same time let people play with no restrictions.

I've never been inconvenienced by DRM enough to really understand all the bitching that goes on about it.

Steam is the only kind of DRM I am willing to use.

Any other kind enforces silly things (watch Jim Sterling's "Accountability" episode) or just prevents you from playing.

Me and a friend bought Grand Theft Auto IV and we wanted to play online. Rockstar Games apparently couldn't validate my Social Club account, but it seems like Take 2 are the ones who actually run the helpline.

I said "fuck this" because the game forced me to have Games for Windows, Social Club AND SecuROM.

And a lot more games enforce a policy of "limited installs". They don't hurt pirates, but every time you change a graphics board it counts as a "spent" installation.

DRM is bad. Period.

 

[zehydra]

This subject is common, especially here at the escapist. I know there's not much controversy among gamers, as in, most of us really hate it, but piracy is still an issue that we can't ignore. Is DRM really all that bad? The way some companies use it now is no doubt backwards and harmful... but I know a huge amount of gamers use Steam and don't complain, even though it uses DRM. Does that mean that it can be used correctly?

It is easy to get angry at some of the worst DRM strategies out there and dismiss it all as the doings of Evil Corporations, but you have to remember that they're doing it in protection from a legitimate threat: piracy. What's your honest, educated opinion on the matter? Is it justified as it is, or is there a way to improve it? Perhaps it should be done away with altogether?

You cannot eliminate piracy. Because to do so you would have to change either the nature of computers or human nature. Good luck trying to change either.

Likewise, you cannot eliminate murder. Doesn't mean we shouldn't stop trying, no?

 

[barbzilla]

Anything more than CD-Keys is a waste of time and money in my opinion. The more advanced and aggravating the DRM, the more you punish your customers and drive them off. The CD-Key is enough to keep Joe average from giving it to his friends, but doesn't cause any further issues past the initial install (well the poorly printed horrible font having cd-key codes they use are a pain to read, but I digress).

So many larger developers are taking a NO OBTRUSIVE DRM stance that it is now getting harder to defend these annoying DRMs than it is to defend legit piracy (by legit piracy, I mean no other available option to buy game: IE not sold in your country or DRM prevents use in your country, or game is no longer sold at all). I am not advocating piracy by a long shot, as I am effected by lost sales in my business.

The fact remains that anything past simple copy protection is a waste of time, money, and other resources. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. By including obtrusive DRM you are hurting your sales (proven, even it not by much) and not truly deterring pirates determined to get the game for free in any real fashion.