Sega Talks Alpha Protocol DRM
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
That last statement is pure speculation. It's a reasonable hypothesis, but we don't really know. But, unless you're claiming that Assassin's Creed 2 had a piracy rate of over 90%, I'm gonna stick with "yeah, more DRM tends to prevent at least some piracy". My point, as always, is that the game companies are getting screwed when they try to be reasonable and decent in their treatment of gamers as a communityHurr Durr Derp said:
Hey, my idea of an RPG is a game that is stat focused. Thus making Mass Effect barely qualify as an RPG. Here's a few skill points!seydaman said:
Pointless it will be cracked and forgotten in weeks....
Here is what you do offer offline content with no protection, offer online mode which allows updates and stuff with a simple keycode that is passively checked while the game logs on, if the key is good(IE less than 5 ips using it in a month) the game pays fine if there is something wrong they game locks itself and asks you to buy a new discounted key or most updated version of the game, or put in a new key.
No fuss no muss......
Here is what you do offer offline content with no protection, offer online mode which allows updates and stuff with a simple keycode that is passively checked while the game logs on, if the key is good(IE less than 5 ips using it in a month) the game pays fine if there is something wrong they game locks itself and asks you to buy a new discounted key or most updated version of the game, or put in a new key.
No fuss no muss......
I'll ride right past the whole "if the company loses money due to piracy, they invest less in off-beat, unexpected, and experimental games" argument (which is well-trodden, by me), and focus on:Ewyx said:
Yes, they're trying to do right by their consumer base by having a less invasive DRM than is (and likely will always be, until we as a community shape up) doing a service to their consumers. I get that your baseline is "there shouldn't be DRM, so any DRM is a bad thing", but if taken from the baseline that there is (and should be) DRM, the less DRM they use, the more concessions they're making to the gaming community.
And the more likely they are to get screwed with their pants on.d
AHA! You fell for it. If RPGs are about "role playing" and "choices" then why are the commonly described "RPG elements" always stats and leveling? BECAUSE YOU DON'T NEED CHOICES TO BE AN RPG.seydaman said:
Sorry, I disagree.Hurr Durr Derp said:
No DRM at all is akin to a bank firing its security guards and leaving the vault wide open, and relying on the honor system that people won't just walk in and take money that doesnt belong to them.
It reminds me of, as a child, when on Halloween the people that were lazy foolish enough to leave a big bucket of candy on their doorstep with a sign that says "Take one please". Sure, there will be those who do indeed take "one".. but there will be an unknown amount who will take two, or three or fill their bag, simply because they can and because it was made ridiculously easy to do so.
many gamers are young and the economy is bad, so when getting a game requires nothing more than a solid internet connection and a little patience, you're going to have rampant pirating.. the interesting thing is, DRM such as Assassin Creed 2's DRM was a weapon that targeted pirates by their very tool.. the internet. You see, most pirates simply torrent or download the game, which means they DO have internet connections available to them, probably broadband/high speed. So it stands to reason that the argument "what about people without static internet connections!" was a gamble they were willing to take, especially since the game was out on EVERY console available excluding the Wii. Therefore, your options were a great deal wider if you wanted to own the legitimate game, and since PC gaming is arguably in some sort of death spiral, and the requirements to run the game on the pc were high anyway, I think Ubi weighed the options and made one that made a good amount of sense.
Personally, I am rather pro-DRM and do not knock Ubi for at least attempting some SORT of anti-piracy measure. I don't support game-piracy, it is unhealthy for the industry and has absolutely no redeeming value. Some will argue that it allows people to try a game before they buy a game, but there are plenty of demos out there for just about EVERY game, you don't need to steal a full retail copy to determine if it is worth your money. Add to that the fact that you could either simply wait until the game is cheaper at some used game store, or buy it and resell it, there is little to no justification for taking something just because you feel entitled to it and because the ability to do so is simple and available.
It comes down to social morality, and in this day and age, people have little honor. You can't just walk out of a store with an arm full of new shirts and declare that if you like them you'll come back and buy the shirts you liked the best.
Piracy hurts the industry and it hurts legitimate consumers, so to make the argument that fighting piracy hurts the consumers is nothing more than an advocacy for bad behavior to be endured. It should not be. In a war, collateral damage on both sides is to be expected, so why shouldnt the industry do whatever it can to eliminate the pirates altogether? Once that is done, the consumer will benefit even more than they would if the Pirates got THEIR way.
At least the industry tries to make good for his missteps. Pirates on the other hand receive no such "bad publicity" for DRM, wrongly turning them into some sort of modern day robin hoods when all they really are is a den of thieves leeching off of society. They should be and must be crushed, for the good of all gamers.
Considering Sega has a record in patching out this sort of DRM [http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=173216], I see it as a sort of a compromise measure. You get the DRM to please the shareholders, then two years down the line you remove the DRM and the anti-DRM lot buy the game.
Ultimately, anyone saying internet piracy can be crushed by bashing them over the head with DRM and suing the downloaders is, frankly, deluded. The industry is aiming at the wrong target, they should be targeting the distribution system for pirates, not the downloaders. If it's harder to pirate than to buy the game[footnote]and we're talking Click game, Click buy, enter details, click download here. Or Steam. Whatever floats your boat.[/footnote], people will buy the game, as long as you don't hobble your customers (*cough* Ubisoft *cough*). Sure, there will be a few hardcore pirates who would not pay for food if they could get away with it, so you may as well ignore them.
In conclusion, DDoS the trackers.
Ultimately, anyone saying internet piracy can be crushed by bashing them over the head with DRM and suing the downloaders is, frankly, deluded. The industry is aiming at the wrong target, they should be targeting the distribution system for pirates, not the downloaders. If it's harder to pirate than to buy the game[footnote]and we're talking Click game, Click buy, enter details, click download here. Or Steam. Whatever floats your boat.[/footnote], people will buy the game, as long as you don't hobble your customers (*cough* Ubisoft *cough*). Sure, there will be a few hardcore pirates who would not pay for food if they could get away with it, so you may as well ignore them.
In conclusion, DDoS the trackers.
No offense, but that's a retarded comparison. The majority of people (don't recall the exact numbers, but Shamus Young wrote an article about it a while ago, look it up if you have to) pirate games even with DRM, so that's like saying that the majority of the people today rob banks. Besides, comparing software piracy to bank robbing is a stupid thing to do on any level.HyenaThePirate said:
I shouldn't be discussing this... but ok.Seldon2639 said:
Ok. Then tell me this, how is DRM preventing piracy? Sure Ubis worked... for what? 2 months? 1 month if you count server emulation, 2 months if you consider pure crack. However, Splinter Cell used the same protection, and it's already in the wild. So it delayed A SINGLE release. So yeah... That worked oh so well. How many legit users were screwed out of this one? How about Silent Hunter V and other games? How many legit users suffered? So we can simply assume that SEGAs DRM isn't probably going to work much longer.
See, here's the funny thing people keep complaining about how DRM prevents piracy, yet all evidence points to the contrary, piracy is unhindered and legit customers get fucked and inconvenienced.
I ask you again, if you support DRM, how does it prevent piracy? And more importantly, do YOU as a LEGITIMATE customer feel absolutely comfortable with the fact, that pirates are NEVER hindered, while you are inconvenienced because of DRM?
I loathe DRM of all stripes, and the idea that one-time online activation has become a sort of "standard" is in itself rather loathsome, but I will take such a system that is up front and honest about it's nature over systems like the one Ubisoft created in a heartbeat.
From the description this sounds as if Sega has essentially "perfected" that style of DRM - sure, the 5 machine limit thing is annoying, but they aren't making us complain for a while before they backslide and provide a tool to revoke activations for re-use. Their work around for people without active internet connections sidesteps an issue previous games employing this type of DRM never even addressed, and the promise to eventually patch out the DRM, while not especially noteworthy in itself, is still much more than certain companies have promised.
So yeah, I may not like it, but if I'm going to be annoyed by DRM, I want it to be something that isn't any 'worse' than this. Reading about the DRM in Assassin's Creed 2 convinced me to boycott everything Ubisoft makes forever, this just makes me go "oh well" and continue wanting to play Alpha Protocol. So good job Sega, you're approach to DRM does not chase me away and convince me to start a one-man crusade to bring your corporation to it's knees out of plain old spite - clearly somebody in your organization has their head on merely askew instead of backwards.
From the description this sounds as if Sega has essentially "perfected" that style of DRM - sure, the 5 machine limit thing is annoying, but they aren't making us complain for a while before they backslide and provide a tool to revoke activations for re-use. Their work around for people without active internet connections sidesteps an issue previous games employing this type of DRM never even addressed, and the promise to eventually patch out the DRM, while not especially noteworthy in itself, is still much more than certain companies have promised.
So yeah, I may not like it, but if I'm going to be annoyed by DRM, I want it to be something that isn't any 'worse' than this. Reading about the DRM in Assassin's Creed 2 convinced me to boycott everything Ubisoft makes forever, this just makes me go "oh well" and continue wanting to play Alpha Protocol. So good job Sega, you're approach to DRM does not chase me away and convince me to start a one-man crusade to bring your corporation to it's knees out of plain old spite - clearly somebody in your organization has their head on merely askew instead of backwards.
DRM is like gas prices.
Imagine that gas is currently $2.00 / gallon, but the suppliers want the cost of gas to be $3.00 / gallon. If they just jacked the price up, people would be upset, and would actively seek out ways to use less gas. So what they do is ramp the price up to about $3.50. People start to get upset, but that doesn't matter, because they quickly drop the price back down to their original goal of $3.00. People are not upset at this point, they're just glad the price isn't $3.50 anymore.
I'm starting to wonder if Ubisoft's DRM tech is like $3.50/gallon gas.
Imagine that gas is currently $2.00 / gallon, but the suppliers want the cost of gas to be $3.00 / gallon. If they just jacked the price up, people would be upset, and would actively seek out ways to use less gas. So what they do is ramp the price up to about $3.50. People start to get upset, but that doesn't matter, because they quickly drop the price back down to their original goal of $3.00. People are not upset at this point, they're just glad the price isn't $3.50 anymore.
I'm starting to wonder if Ubisoft's DRM tech is like $3.50/gallon gas.
Well this isn't that horrible if you compare it to Steam, which is basically the same thing. Steam validates the once and then it's bound to your account and never rechecks. And the fact they had deauth and a system of limited connectivity activations means as DRM goes this isn't bad.
It's still DRM and shouldn't be neccesary, but it's not that bad either.
It's still DRM and shouldn't be neccesary, but it's not that bad either.
I for one applaud this step, since I was terribly pissed to buy BioShock and find out I couldn't play it without internet connection, which wasn't installed for another month.
This is a workable solution for off-line players. Still it does make me miss the good-old days of the code-wheel that you had to align for different random codes. Back in the day of good-old fashioned anti-piracy.
This is a workable solution for off-line players. Still it does make me miss the good-old days of the code-wheel that you had to align for different random codes. Back in the day of good-old fashioned anti-piracy.