DRM

[Oppenheimer]

So I was wondering what everyone thought of Digital Rights Management. One warning, please do not start asking for ROMs or any pirated software at any point during this discussion (as that's against the forum rules), but you can talk about pro-piracy ideology if done tastefully.

I'm pretty annoyed about the most recent one, Assassin's Creed 2 and now Command & Conquer 4. Here's some details on it: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6253104.ht ... lt;title;1

I don't mind having to put a disc in or get an activation code or something like that. But, I think this has gone too far. They're now penalizing the people who buy the games by giving them an inferior product with built in limitations. They're making a pirated product look more desirable by not having these requirements. I think it's a big mistake.

[Raww Le Klueze]

This is mostly why I don't play games on my computer. There's always some intrusive crap that limits my playability, and Ubisofts is the worst of it's kind to the point where I wonder if they simply only hire idiots or if there's a mandatory lobotomy involved before you start employment.

DRM does one thing only, delays the pirates by 1 day and ***** the people that actually bought. It's not a good business plan when you get a better product by pirating than buying it. And for some reason I'm supposed to tell them when I play, how often I play and how long I play. What? Why the hell is that any of your business? That's what these "dial home" DRM's amount to in the end.

Yeah, the whole "save on a server" thing might have some value, but I expect that the amount of people that have several computers that they use to play and that are so far from each other that they couldn't stand to be away from the game for a few days has to be a miniscule market, and the solution here is not server saves accessible from anywhere but rather a good psychiatrist.

And even so, put the savegame on a USB-stick and you're good to go, and it won't rely on being able to connect to the internet.

[thcrock]

I agree that I didn't mind them when they were just activation keys. That system wasn't too much to live with, as the only times when legitimate users get screwed are through their own error. For instance, my cousin just bought a second copy of Warcraft III + Frozen Throne because he lost the case, which had the activation key. That was his own fault.

Modern DRM is a nightmare. I agree with Raww, in that DRM is one reason that I would not even think of doing much gaming on a PC. There's plenty of PC gaming without intrusive DRM, but big titles like Assassin's Creed II are ridiculous and make me laugh at the subset of PC gamers that look down on the 'restrictions' of consoles.

[Hirathien]

What i find the most annoying with the so called "Anti-piracy" crap some publishers pull, is that they limit you to how many times you may install the product, but excuse me, if i buy a car the dealer don't tell me "You can only drive this car 5 times, then you need to call me so i can let you drive it again"

It's madness. I never had a real gaming PC, and i probably never will, the gaming on PC just seems to want to limit you, control you like some animal in a cage.

[Oppenheimer]

Another thing I find annoying is when articles state that a company has had a particular game pirated 500 000 which equates to $30 000 000 in lost sales. That's completely ridiculous. Just because someone pirates a game does not mean they would have bought it and if they did doesn't mean they would have bought it at full price.

It surprises me EA would return to such a punishing DRM after Spore blew up in their face:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6198136.html
It looked like they had been backing off:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6209144.html

I do play a fair bit of PC games. If a game is available on both PC or console I usually get console but if it's only available on PC, like C&C4 then I would get it there. Unfortunately that doesn't look like it's an option if they're going to be like that.

Edit: It appears as if all Ubisoft PC games are going to have this DRM from now on. Here's Ubi's stance on it: http://support.uk.ubi.com/online-services-platform/

[Elendil]

Another thing I find annoying is when articles state that a company has had a particular game pirated 500 000 which equates to $30 000 000 in lost sales. That's completely ridiculous. Just because someone pirates a game does not mean they would have bought it and if they did doesn't mean they would have bought it at full price.

This has always rubbed me the wrong way, too. I do wonder how much money game, movie & music publishers have "lost" from pirating, and if such a dollar amount ever existed, or if they even produced that many copies.

[Hirathien]

I know some friends of mine pirates stuff first, and if it's good, they buy it. I mean, shouldn't that be a lesson for the game companies to dish out more demos? More games should have some kind of demo, somewhere. Since it's a lot of money to buy a game at full price.

[Oppenheimer]

An interesting new article on the Pirate Bay I ran across:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... esture.ars

[Raww Le Klueze]

I miss the good old days when you made a bad game and it didn't sell it was because it was a bad game. These days you make a bad game and when it doesn't sell well you can blame it on piracy and then you can lobby the government for new laws and send a team of lawyers against people that can't defend themselves regardless of wheter they're guilty of anything.

And apparently there hasn't been any kind of recession recently to accomodate for people simply not being able to afford as many games, no it's obviously piracy that's driving down sales. The entertainment industry got it easy this millenium, if it doesn't go their way: it's piracy. Nothing else can be a cause.