The Needles: How Dumb Do They Think We Are?

[Shamus Young]

Gah. Double posted.

 

[raankh]

I'd like to point to the PS3. Prices haven't fallen on PS3 games, nor have the profits risen proportionally, so the losses to piracy are obviously very small compared to development costs.

Also,

I've said it before and I will say it again: Piracy is an industry straw man - DRM is only marketed as anti-piracy, the real goal is to cut down secondary sales and starve the second-hand games market. Pirates just help that goal along by providing a convenient target that also lets publishers take the moral high ground.

Since existing DRM obviously does nothing for piracy, yet distributors continue to invest heavily in those same non-functioning DRM schemes, they must have a separate reason for doing so. Secondary sales are an aberration on the quarterly ("they are spending money on our game, and we're not getting it?!"), so it makes sense corporate economists would want to get rid of it.

That doesn't help us as consumers, however. But that usually doesn't really concern Big Business, after all.

 

[Nutcase]

The original BioShock still requires activation today, even though the game isn't even on the shelves anymore and the only place you can get the game is used or from the pirates.

Wrong wrong wrong oh... and wrong.

I can absolutely, positively, 100% confirm that not only does Bioshock not require activation via digital distribution...

LOL. Never mind Shamus was talking about retail copies - Steam, Impulse, D2D etc. are all DRM systems with activation.

 

[CoffeeScamp]

so i read that the 15 time activation thru microsoft can be reset if you call them <.<

I read this too, and that's the reason I went ahead and ordered from Steam last night. If there was no way of getting the activations reset I'd be thinking much harder about getting it at all.

I don't like a limited number of activations at all.
I regularly reinstall windows, especially before and after going to lan.. and I doubt I'd remember to deactivate my copy each time. Saying that, my install has died twice in the last month following hardware upgrades, so I'd not have had the chance to deactivate if I'd remembered

 

[Mikkaddo]

The only real problem I see right now with this whole DRM Revoultion, is that it's a vicious, and I mean VICIOUS cycle.

Why did things like Crisis get pirated "20 times more" then legally purchased? because the DRM shit is so hard to get past, people don't want that crap infecting their hard drive and causing them to have to do a complete disk wipe just to have their machine run like normal.

Yet the very fact that the pirating keeps on means developers think this DRM malarkey is WORTH it because it'll keep the Pirates from being able TO pirate. But all it's doing is making the gamers that aren't pirates want to be them just to play the damn game without all the add in shit they can't escape.

I don't think the gaming populous will be just trampled over by this . . . but I see a pirating revolution . . . I see anti-DRM software coming . . . just wait, in a year or so there's probably going to be people on torrent sites or torrent related forums saying they have software for you that makes the DRM shit THINK it's doing it's job, but actually keeps it from doing anything to you.

And not to be blind, I see both a new kind of DRM being born from THAT, AND a wave of people selling both the real thing of Anti-DRM software, and fakes selling viruses that crash your computer any time you try to do something more complext then plug it in.

Not to play prophet of course . . . but just know, if that shit happens I WILL be pointing to anyone that makes eye contact and going "HA! I told you so!"

 

[Andy Chalk]

My big ***** in this particular instance isn't the DRM (that'll come later, I'm sure) but the way it's being sold to us - or, more accurately, not sold to us. GFWL has install limits. BioShock 2 requires GFWL. Therefore, no matter how you spin it, BioShock 2 has install limits.

I don't particularly care about that (I do, actually, but only as a part of my overall issues with DRM, so it's not worth picking too much at this one specific instance) but I do get worked up over the fact that we're apparently all so thick that we won't notice this ham-handed bait-and-switch act.

 

[Piorn]

Oh man, I remember when I bought and installed Mass Effect 1, I actually had to pirate it later, just because the game didn't accept my registration! I wasn't able to play the game I bought! What was I supposed to do?! Copy-protection is one thing, but making the game literally unplayable, that's just ridiculous! They need to change their priorities!
And I hate Windows Live, it erased all my Fallout 3 saves and never accepts my Steam-registration-codes.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

THAT's why I'll buy Bioshock 2 for PS3. And that's why i've bought the original Bioshock for PS3 while I already had a copy for PC. When I pay for a thing, a game, a DVD or Blu-Ray movie I want to OWN this thing. This is my property. In case with PC version of Bioshock 1-2 you don't own anything, you just buy permission to play the game for some amount of time, if you use some 3rd party program. And by amount of time I mean the amount of time while servers, responsible for activation/deactivation are maintained.
I'm sure - in 2022 I'll be able to play my Bioshock on PS3. Or maybe on PS3 compatible PS4. But I fear that by that time my PC version will be a worthless piece of plastic.
If they treat all PC gamers like pirates, I won't buy PC versions at all. Oh, and I fucking hate Microsoft and their Games for Windows Live.

 

[ReverseEngineered]

It's the same old song and dance: they punish the paying customers and tell them it's for their own good. Now they've just gone one step further and tried to convince us it's not a slap in the face, it's a gentle correction. Call it what you will, it's an insult to our intelligence.

The sad thing is, no matter how ridiculous the DRM is or how many people complain, the game has been hyped to hell and will still sell a million copies. It was no different with the original Mass Effect, or Spore, or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. People complained, said they would never buy it, even claimed to be on a boycott, and yet they still sold millions. None of us wants to be the only guy in the room who hasn't played the latest game; we're all suckers for 0-day.

I think that DRM is a waste of time and money, because it has never prevented me or anybody I know from getting pirated copies of things they wouldn't bother to spend real money on. But that won't stop me from buying games with DRM; DRM or not, I still like the game. It's just not as enjoyable when I have to put the disc in every time. And that's why even people who bought the game still use cracks.

 

[smjck]

Hey if you think the Bioshock DRM is bad, you should check out Ubisofts new take on DRM. You now have to be online at all times. Check out the full details here

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/01/27/new-ubisoft-games-must-always-be-online/


by the way why can't we code links?

 

[Black Rabt]

If they want you online at all times maybe they should help cover your broadband costs.

 

[Doug]

This is, after all, an industry that seems determined to shoot itself in the foot, or at least the PC, one way or another. Be it with "day one DLC" that punishes not only gamers who dare to buy pre-owned games but also the retail partners who sell them....

Could you expand on this? I don't see how its shooting themselves in there own feet to try and get people to buy new rather than renting...?

I mean, renters and pre-owned buyers aren't helping the developers/publishers one bit. In fact are pushing developers towards often needless multiplayer mode - i.e. Brutal Legend - to try and stop people renting for 1 week and never buying it.

 

[Weaver]

So what if you went to the library and read a book you were never going to buy? Let's say you heard great things about Timeships by Stephen Baxter and you spend all day in the library reading it. Half way through you realize you don't like it so you put it back and leave. By your own moral standards you should go out and buy that book so the author gets money, right?

Well, not really. The library already paid the author for allowing you to read the book, and you already paid the library through your taxes.

Surely the author would make more money if everyone just bought his book, correct? But by this logic so long as someone throws him a bone, it's just fine.

My real point behind this is using strained metaphors is a bad idea. You bring up the Ferrari and I bring up books, but it's apples and oranges here. With books and cars, for instance, you can lend them to friends. Thanks to DRM (the point of this thread) with PC games you can't do that. With books and cars you can resell them. With PC games you can't do that. With books and cars I don't need to make sure I'm connected to the internet to use them. Too bad, you do if you want to play games on the PC. Console games don't have this problem, but PC games have had it for a long, long time - and it just gets worse. Despite what companies think, pirating on consoles is a relatively popular thing but no one does a damn thing about it. Plus they can trade in and lend games, why can't I do that?

So yes, you could steal a Ferrari, but you don't see Ferrari making it so you have to sign on to your Ferrari.net account and input your login to drive the car. Oops too bad the severs are down, you aren't going anywhere.

 

[Thoric485]

Is everyone in the copyright protection department a complete and utter idiot? How much do we have to stress that the game will be cracked in a day tops, and that it's those who pay that get the online validation/some crappy program running in the background/install limits/all three, while pirating you get the game with all that bullshit removed.

I feel like captain obvious here, but seriously. Install limits? AGAIN?

 

[Seldon2639]

So what if you went to the library and read a book you were never going to buy? Let's say you heard great things about Timeships by Stephen Baxter and you spend all day in the library reading it. Half way through you realize you don't like it so you put it back and leave. By your own moral standards you should go out and buy that book so the author gets money, right?

Except the author already got the money (as did the publisher) from the original purchase of the book. You're trying to compare piracy to things like "lending a movie to your friend". No one in their right mind (no true Scotsman, and all) is trying to argue that sharing with your friends/family is wrong. But you're talking about (basically) copying and mass-distributing a book, letting many people read it, even own it permanently, and the author gets nothing.

 

[Fromez]

Having written this blog article
http://potentialgamer.com/2010/01/25/bioshock-2-swims-with-sharks/
I (obviously) totally agree with Andy's article, especially the conclusion. It is a "barefaced switcheroo" and I too am concerned about the un-vocal majority that seem to think this is ok.

That people don't see a Machiavellian sleight-of-hand has been pulled is disturbing.

Anyway, I'll untwist my knickers now.

 

[Seldon2639]

Isn't that all a bit like saying it shouldn't be illegal for me to steal a Ferrari, because I'm not going to buy one anyway, so they aren't losing a sale, and I'm giving them the free advertising of people seeing me drive it, and me talking about it?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but those were your second and third points, weren't they?

If a company wants to advertise by giving samples, even free copies, to drum up word of mouth support, that's one thing. But the argument that it shouldn't be prevented because it creates word of mouth means I should be allowed to steal anything.

But, wait, you'll say. A Ferrari actually costs materials to make, whereas a game costs nothing to make more copies of.

Yes, true, but irrelevant. Most of the cost of a Ferrari is not in the actual parts (or even labor) of making the machine, otherwise it'd cost relatively. The intellectual property is where the cost comes from, as well as the need to make back the investment of research and development. So, as long as Ferrari is charging me more for their car than the pure "resources" put into it cost, we have to accept that intellectual property has value in and of itself.

I'm gonna stick to my guns here.

You're basing your entire argument in a fallacy. Piracy = Stealing.

When you steal a Ferrari the loss doesn't come from the fact that I can no longer sell YOU a Ferrari, but from the fact that the car you stole can't be sold to anyone else. A car that cost resources to make, that had an expected profit, suddenly is gone without any profit. At the end of the day, whether I steal the Ferrari and use it myself, or throw a grenade in it and turn it into scrap metal, is irrelevant. It's not the loss of "intellectual property" or of a "potential sale" to you, it's the loss of a real, actual, tangible sale because the product you could sell is gone.

If you walk to a gamestop and steal a copy of a game, that's stealing. Piracy would be walking up to the Ferrari stand, look up a model, then building your own replica right there, for no cost, in a matter of minutes, and driving off in the car you made. Not quite the same.

The colossal difference lies in the fact that stealing comes with a real, tangible, quantifiable loss. You lost the exact value of the product, since you can no longer sell it and will need to replace it. In Piracy all loss is basically conjecture. There is no actual product loss. You could argue that there is a potential loss, but as I mentioned before there's both positive and negative interactions with "potential", a wildly immeasurable variable anyways...

I've gotta give you credit for following the exact logical chain that I suspected (and addressed). A Ferrari is worth more than just the materials that go into it. It's why the models are patented. If I tried to make an exact copy, they'd have me arrested.

Thus, then, if I steal a Ferrari, by your argument, I should only have to pay Ferrari the cost of the actual materials in the car. But the materials in a Ferrari cost maybe 1/10th the selling price of the car as a whole. 9/10ths is the intellectual property. If we're talking about harm only being in the actual loss of materials (ignoring, of course, man-hours as well), then there's nothing really worth as much as it sells for, and I should be allowed to take it, and replace only the original materials (as that's the only harm to the company).

Do you see how your argument doesn't make as much sense as it sounds at the outset? If we accept the basic assumption that the only "harm" to a company from theft (and thus the only true theft) is the loss of the resources which went into the product, then my analogy makes perfect sense.

Once again, though, you have to fall back on "you weren't going to buy a Ferrari anyway". If I was going to buy one, but you offer me a free one you made (an exact replica), you're guilty of the theft of intellectual property, and have taken a sale away from them. If I wasn't going to buy one, and you give me one, you've devalued the actual product.

 

[Nutcase]

When have you last seen a game journalist, in the course of an interview with Ken Levine, bring up Levine's various earlier statements and relevant facts about Bioshock DRM and 2K activities, then ask Levine to explain the discrepancies and keep asking clarifications until until the readers have a complete picture?

Never.

95% of them are incompetent. Not good enough writers to be a writer in another field. Not good enough and knowledgeable enough gamers to have an informed opinion of half of the games they write about. Instead of playing more games, learning about games, asking the right questions and thus becoming worth reading, they choose to babble about "gamer culture" and how ostensibly this or that person thinks about this or that another person who might have something to do with a game. Eyeball-selling little maggots masquerading as "journalists".

And there you have in a nutshell why the public doesn't know: it is never informed in clear terms. It does not see any writing of quality, does not know to demand it, and is even afraid of the little it sees because it causes cognitive dissonance next to the avalanche of crap headed in their direction. Levine, Riccitiello and scores of others who are utterly full of shit do not get called on it. The dots do not get connected.

 

[1066]

It's been said, but this is one of two main reasons I stopped using aPC to play games. The first is the need to constantly upgrade hardware and I just don't have the disposable income to keep up with that.

The other is this. Last game I bought for the PC (Not counting Plants vs. Zombies) was Portal which required I be online with Steam just to turn it on, making it completely useless for the laptop (I am not buying a second internet connection, thank you very much). Friends who still stick to the PC are often forced to use semi-legal workarounds and cracks to even run games they bought legally.

I have no issue with these people trying to protect their investments, but there comes a point where people will stop jumping through hoops and find alternatives. Better experience or not, PC gaming has such a stranglehold on it now that I, and many people, just don't care anymore.