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99.8% of Gamers Don't Care About DRM, Says EA
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Oct 15, 2008 11:15 AM
from the they-also-don't-understand-it dept.
from the they-also-don't-understand-it dept.
arcticstoat writes "If you thought that EA might have been humbled by the massive Internet backlash against its use of SecuROM in its recent games, then you'd be wrong. Speaking at the Dow Jones/Nielsen Media and Money Conference, EA's CEO John Riccitiello claimed that the whole issue had been blown out of all proportion. 'We implemented a form of DRM and it's something that 99.8 per cent of users wouldn't notice,' claimed Riccitiello, 'but for the other 0.2 percent, it became an issue and a number of them launched a cabal online to protest against it.'"
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Someone failed statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
If you query the number of gamers you have left, of course you're going to get a 99.8% figure. (Though honestly, that exact figure sounds like bullshit to me. Did you know that 85.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot?) The question is, how many customers have you already lost where DRM was a contributing factor? Of those customers, how many can identify DRM as the problem rather than stating "the game doesn't work"?
I almost guarantee that any study EA has done resulting in these figures was flawed. Based on his statements however, I don't think EA has done that research. Riccitiello pulled that number out of thin air. Even if EA did research that suggests that only 0.2% of users should have a problem, there's a huge gap between theory and practice.
I'm an example of a PC gamer lost by the industry. I used to read PC Gamer regularly, wait for the awesome new titles coming out, and get lost in the worlds of these games. Eventually I stopped and gave up on the industry. If you're interesting in why, here are the key points:
-- Lackluster games. The majority of games felt like regurgitated first person shooters. They were all the same with new skins. Hardly an interesting market.
-- Technological problems. There's nothing more irritating than purchasing a game or getting a game as a gift, then not being able to run it. At least two of those instances were clearly DRM problems. The games would not even start. No error, no reason, just fail. Tech support then explains some BS about having a CD Burner. Because, you know, those are so uncommon in computers. (This guy explains it WAY better than I can. [youtube.com]) Not to mention the video card driver treadmill. Having problems with that game? Oh, well you need to update to Super Destructo Detonation Drivers version 34120123.1239213213 release 8231 patch -0123 revision B. It will make your system super-unstable, but your games will kick ass!
-- Time. As I got older, I simply had fewer hours in the day to game. I no longer have the time nor the patience to work around the previous two problem. So I just stopped buying PC games. Nowhere was there a concious decision of "screw them", it was simply, "This does not interest me anymore".
These days I have a console [wii.com] that lets me get the maximum amount of enjoyment out of the least possible time investment. Life is so much better than when PC games clogged my system's arteries.
In closing, I'd like to say this: History has shown that good games sell. Period, end of story. Piracy has always been and always will be a scapegoat for the real problem of poor quality merchandise. Implementing draconian anti-piracy measures will only drive away the few customers you have left.
EA Then and Now (Score:5, Funny)
Too true. (98.2% of our CURRENT customers love us. LOL)
EA Before:
"Hey Gamers, buy our wicked game because it's totally fun to play!!!"
EA Later:
"Hey Gamers, buy our new game because it has newer technology, better lighting, and it produces 100% more warm fuzzies than its predecessor!"
EA Now:
"Hey Gamers, bend over."
Parent
Re:EA Then and Now (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with EA's assessment (althought 99.8% is rather high, 80% is probably more accurate). MOST people don't care about DRM restrictions... ...until EA, like Wlmart, turns off the servers and makes your $50 game worthless. ...or they try to play the game on their shiny-new Vista or Windows 7 computer, and the OS rejects it.
A lot of people don't realize how bad DRM can be until they get bit on the butt by a non-functioning piece of software or music or video.
Parent
Re:EA Then and Now (Score:5, Insightful)
80% is significantly different than 99.8%.
Put another way, I'm sure they can fool themselves into thinking that 0.2% of their customers would've pirated the game if not for DRM.
But if it's 80%, is there really any chance that they'd lose more than 20% of their customers to piracy, if not for DRM?
For that matter, would any business be wise to make a decision that alienates a fucking fifth of their customer base?
EA, I really wanted to buy Mirror's Edge. I was almost considering buying a console for it, so I wouldn't have to deal with the DRM. But with this attitude, I'm sorry, you're not getting a dime of my money, or a minute of my time.
Parent
They just got it wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
Confusing 'users' with 'customers'.
It's like you sell elk urine as a perfume, and claim 99% of perfume users love the elk urine smell.
Nope.
99% of perfume users hate elk urine smell and don't buy it.
The 0.99% who buy it and love it are weird perverts who feel turned on by the smell.
The remaining 0.01% are clueless morons who didn't know what they are buying.
Yep, from people who -bought- the game, possibly well over 90% don't know and don't care. OTOH the rampaging piracy is in a major part influenced by DRM. If they surveyed -users- and not just -customers- they might come up with a totally different number.
Parent
Re:EA Then and Now (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with your sentiment and that plenty of people are serious about boycotts, I think you're underestimating the amount of idiots who will buy Madden 2097: The Revenge of Athlete's Foot Expansion, and not give a toss about DRM, either because they are going to get the next iteration of the series next year, or because they are playing on a console. The console games market dwarfs the PC games market, so in the end even if all PC gamers quit EA games, it might not hurt them as much as you think - especially if it just means one less platform to develop for. In fact I've just done a little googling and it seems that EA already decided this year to release their sports lines for consoles only [wikipedia.org], so it appears that it already is more profitable to focus on the console market, for whatever reason. I hate playing devil's advocate sometimes, but there it is..
Personally I already moved to console gaming this year too, for mostly the same reasons as AKAImBatman outlined above. Despite the fact that I love mouse/keyboard for FPSes, I love the convenience of gaming in my living room - on my HDTV, with no bloated OS, no need to download the latest gaming API, latest drivers or buy the latest hardware - more. It just makes sense to me these days, and best of all it means I can happily use a non windows OS on my laptop without worrying about lack of gaming options :)
Parent
Re:EA Then and Now (Score:4, Interesting)
potential customers will actually take their money and walk away.
I would guess most gamers aren't quite like me -- DRM wasn't really an issue until Spore.
But I am deadly serious [slashdot.org].
If anyone wants to start a petition, I'll sign.
It might even be interesting to put some money into escrow, to show how much we are actually ready to spend -- but escrow is a lot trickier than a simple petition.
Parent
Re:EA Then and Now (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. 99.8% of 16-year-olds don't give a rip about cholesterol, either - but someday they will.
People who don't care about DRM now will learn to care when their games/music won't work anymore.
Parent
Re:EA Then and Now (Score:5, Insightful)
I will agree up to this point. Gamers breaking down and getting the game. Most gamers I know are completely competent in finding and retrieving torrents. If DRM is too intrusive they *will* go pirate it even if they had intended to buy it. Others will actually buy the game, park in on a shelf and download the torrent. DRM, in some cases, can actually encourage piracy due to the intrusiveness of it. I, personally, will never buy another EA game due to this thinly veiled virus masquerading as DRM. I know other gamers that will pirate it instead because they don't want their game systems compromised. EA apparently doesn't understand the gaming community especially on the PC side. Even the 80% number that some have purposed as more accurate may be a bit high.
If the DRM is not that intrusive (only makes copying the CD difficult but not impossible) then, while I still dislike it, I will deal with it. Otherwise, I will just take a pass.
Parent
Re:EA Then and Now (Score:5, Insightful)
That'll only work as long as they stay under their activation limit. Once they've ghosted and reinstalled the 3-5 allowed times, they're up the creek.
It's ironic that the only ones hurt by DRM are the ones who play by the rules.
Parent
Re:s/gamers/developers (Score:5, Funny)
s/developers/developers\ndevelopers\ndevelopers\ndevelopers
Parent
Games not on Wii (Score:3, Insightful)
These days I have a [Wii] console that lets me get the maximum amount of enjoyment out of the least possible time investment.
What do you do when you want to play a game that isn't on the consoles? For example, a lot of indie games are PC exclusives because the developer isn't a big enough company for a WiiWare license.
History has shown that good games sell.
Even good games from small companies?
Re:Games not on Wii (Score:5, Interesting)
Well I'm not the OP but I don't do PC gaming just console(Xbox 360 or Wii):
"For example, a lot of indie games are PC exclusives because the developer isn't a big enough company for a WiiWare license."
Unfortunately in that case I can't play it, (unless they do a Linux version). I'm sure there's some gold out there, but the signal to noise ratio has IME not been worth it.
Frankly I see computer games as being for fun and not as another job - hearing what people go through to get games running on a PC sounds far too much like the bits of my job that I hate to pay for the privilege of doing it.
Parent
Re:Games not on Wii (Score:4, Insightful)
Wine is really getting quite good these days. You still certainly can't expect a game to work in it, but it's at the stage now where it's usually worth a try, particularly for indie titles that are probably going to be concentrating on fun gameplay rather than pushing technical boundaries.
Parent
Re:Games not on Wii (Score:4, Informative)
"The reason you hear about the people that have problems is because they come on the internet to explain their problem and get help. You don't hear much from the people for which it "just worked"."
No, it's not. It's because people have problems, and in console land they just don't.
I'm another person that moved off the PC to consoles, as much due to social reasons as anything (playing with friends on the TV is just nicer), but I recently purchased spore. It wanted to install a patch after a while because a lot of people had problems getting it to run at all. The patch broke my install.
Sod that, I'm going back to my easer, cheaper consoles.
Parent
Re:Games not on Wii (Score:5, Funny)
> I have no problem with copy protection on the xbox. It works. I put in the game, and the game plays, always.
Unless your 3-year old gets his hands on the games. Seriously, do you expect me to lock everything in a safe? He'd know the combination after watching me open it twice anyway...
Parent
Re:Games not on Wii (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't. I'd love to play Little Big Planet, but I'm not going to invest in a PS3 to do it. So I just don't play.
In the past I did purchase a few indie games. Especially the kick-ass Puppy Games [puppygames.net] titles. That being said, you need something absolutely incredible to overcome my current ambivalence of PC gaming. I simply don't care enough to endure the pain and anguish of PC gaming. Even though AAA games like Halo, Mass Effect, and Spore COULD be played on my PC, I. SIMPLY. DON'T. CARE.
Crazy, isn't it?
What's even better is that if I wait long enough, the great indie games will reach the WiiWare service. Defend Your Castle, World of Goo, Cave Story, Lost Winds, and other incredible titles are at my finger tips. All it takes is a credit/debit card and a bit of Wii Remote clicking.
Any game that did not reach its target audience is not being pirated, either. There have been good games throughout history that received a cult following ex post facto, but no one paid them any heed when they were released. If there is a healthy pirate market for the game, there is a healthy consumer market for it. Pure and simple.
Parent
Re:Games not on Wii (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you do when you want to play a game that isn't on the consoles? For example, a lot of indie games are PC exclusives because the developer isn't a big enough company for a WiiWare license.
WiiWare licenses apparently cost under ~3k. I can see that killing a solo-hobby-developer, but any entity big enough to call itself a small business can afford this.
That said, I have never played an indie game that needed beta drivers, had crazy drm, or was otherwise particularly difficult to install and get running, so if the OP wanted to play one, it would probably be a no-brainer to just buy it and play it.
Parent
Re:Transition from hobby to small business (Score:4, Insightful)
So?
Some of my favorite games are 2D. Defcon and Uplink come to mind. And Darwinia isn't that taxing.
Dear Introversion,
Can I please work for you?
Really, if you want a good indie game, introversion is *the* place to go.
Parent
Re:Transition from hobby to small business (Score:5, Informative)
I'm actually in your position. The standard practice for obtaining a WiiWare license appears to be:
1. Create a title that runs on the computer. Even if it's just a demo, it should convince Nintendo that you can create games for their system.
2. OBTAIN COMMERCIAL OFFICE SPACE! I can't stress this one enough. Even if you get 200 square feet of office space that costs $200/mo., this step is critical to getting Nintendo to trust you. (Nintendo is concerned about secure access to the development kit.)
3. Apply for a WiiWare license [warioworld.com]. 2D games don't matter. DYC, World of Goo, Mega Man 9, Gradius Rebirth, Cave Story, and many other games have already paved that road for you.
At least, that's the strategy my little cadre expects to pursue. If we can ever finish pulling a team together, that is. Having a part time game designer and part time programmer does us no good if we can't get one of our artist friends to sign up. At least we have some seriously recognized brands lined up.
Anyway, feel free to email me if you need any more info. I'm far from a fountain of information on the process, but I may be able to point you in the right direction.
Parent
Re:Someone failed statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
The main problem with his thesis though, is that the smaller percentage (up to about 40-50% of gamers though, not
DRM doesn't do what they think it does. It encourages Piracy (by making valid copies less than their pirated versions) and spies on people who have no intent on pirating your game anyway or breaking any DRM.
Parent
Re:Someone failed statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, their target audience coincides nicely with people who are going to care about this issue.
Parent
Well I always felt the numbers were inflated (Score:3, Interesting)
on the side claiming to be adversely affected by DRM.
I put a lot of them down; and I mean a large percentage; to those just hopping on the band wagon. The "got to get my two cents in and feel as if I belong" crowd. Cost them nothing to claim to be part of the aggrieved party. It wasn't like they were going to buy it anyway but now they can claim offense which lets them continue feeling put down by the system/man/the other guy/etc.
Re:Good games sell, but sell enough? (Score:4, Informative)
Your post sounds perfectly reasonable and solid on the outset. Too bad it's complete nonsense.
On the matter of Thief, here is the Looking Glass post-mortem [ttlg.com].
Interestingly, you'll find that piracy isn't even mention. Piracy did not kill Looking Glass studios. Difficult financials did, same as Origin, Westwood, and a multitude of other classic studios.
"No doubt" is not a real-world metric. In fact, 2D Boy EXPLICITLY shipped with no DRM on the honor system. So far, it has not hurt them [arstechnica.com]. And with the recent release on the Nintendo Wii, 2D Boy is flying high with the first 10/10 review from WiiWare World [wiiware-world.com].
As much as I'd like to believe your post is simply ignorant, I cannot ignore your posting history [slashdot.org]. All posts on copyright topics, all in favor of stronger copyrights. You are most certainly a shill. The question is, for whom do you shill?
Mod parent -1 Troll.
Parent
Re:Good games sell, but sell enough? (Score:5, Insightful)
Last I checked, spouting outright lies is a key feature of trolling. 2 seconds of research would have found out that Poor sales of Thief did not kill Looking Glass [ttlg.com] and that 2D Boy has had no serious piracy [2dboy.com]. In fact, the Looking Glass post-mortem explicitly says:
If his post acts like a troll, sounds like a troll, and smells like a troll, it's a troll.
Parent
Even if the stats are true... (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's assume the statistics are actually correct. 0.2% don't want DRM, 99.8% don't care, and 0% are in favour. That should be enough of a message to realise it shouldn't be included. Especially when that 0.2% can damage the reputation of the game by giving shocking reviews all over the internet.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"...EA's CEO John Riccitiello claimed that the whole issue had been blown out of all proportion. 'We implemented a form of DRM and it's something that 99.8 per cent of users wouldn't notice,' claimed Riccitiello, 'but for the other 0.2 percent, it became an issue and a number of them launched a cabal online to protest against it.'"
His numbers are hyperbole, of course more gamers don't like it but they know that they don't have a choice if they want to stay legit.
"If you thought that EA might have been humbled by the massive Internet backlash against its use of SecuROM in its recent games, then you'd be wrong."
I hate to say that he's right about a relatively small "cabal" comment- bombing Amazon. Not that the reaction wasn't huge, but when half of the comments are obvious dupes then the complainers lose credibility - they're seen as being a handful of crybabies who are threw a collective tantrum and they make the rest of the anti-DRM crowd look bad. Wait for the cracks o
Re:Even if the stats are true... (Score:5, Insightful)
of course more gamers don't like it
Heck, even he himself doesn't like it:
"Riccitiello admitted that he personally doesn't like DRM, as it 'interrupts the user experience.' He also added that 'We would like to get around that. But there is this problem called piracy out there.'"
Of course, for the potential customers who 'would like to get around that', piracy isn't the problem, it's the solution.
Personally I have bought a number of EA games, but since they started using SecuROM they're permanently off the list. I have better things to do with my time and money.
Parent
because (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:because (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because you buy, it doesn't guarantee that the DRM won't bite you in the ass. Just ask SPORE users, perhaps?
I recently bought an EA game...oh, the horror. Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. On more than one occasion, it would spaz out and refuse to let me merely start the game because the online authorization servers were feeling paranoid, and more than once (separate issue), the game's "DRM service" wouldn't start correctly, kept throwing a braindead error message and refusing to even allow the game to attempt to authenticate online.
There's something inherently perverse about a game that will only allow you to the main menu...if it can verify that your copy is retail valid, and won't allow "internet is disconnected" play at all. Unfortunately (or fortunately for pirates), that's what EA does with virtually everything now. A few games were patched to have a '3 day' grace period. Huzzah.
Mind, that's the first game I dared to buy since Unreal Tournament in 1999. It's not very satisfying to pay $50-60 for a game, only to have constant crashes, graphical issues, NO patches, buggy multiplayer, etc and so on, especially when you might finally have a computer that works better than the minimum requirements (and cost impossibly little).
The game industry seriously needs a wakeup call.
Why would anyone spend $60 on a new (even non-AAA) game now, if they can spend $60 and get a nice hardware-accelerated MPEG-2/4/AVC based TV tuner, or a 32GB usb key? Or another 4GB of low-latency DDR2-800 RAM? Or, if you EBay, a high-end video or sound card for half the normal price?
For a triple-A, "I'll BE able to play this for 10 years if I want to", well supported with patches (when does this happen anymore?), utterly life-changing game...$60 is perhaps worth it.
For a crappy half-assed game where they shut down the DRM and multiplay servers after six months... $60 is a grevious offense to the PC gaming public.
Piracy isn't happening in record numbers because they're producing -quality- games, and nor does it eat into their figures even 10% as much as they claim. Most people who would only care about trying it, burning it into the ground, and getting bored with it after 2-3 days...often 2-3 days after they finish the game (that's not a typo).
If the quality of games were higher, they'd see higher returns on investment, less piracy. DRM is like putting up a gaudy neon sign: "steal this game because we KNOW it's so crappy that no one would legitimately buy it".
The more complex or aggressive the DRM, the worse the game is. Anyone remember Starforce? Can anyone name a single _good_ Starforce game? The new versions of SecuROM (anyone else remember when it was JUST a CD check?) are quickly flying straight towards that point of no return.
Parent
Re:because (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm still a PC gamer. I made the decision this year to upgrade my PC one more time rather than buy an XBox 360 and I don't regret it. I can play Half-Life 2 (Episode 2), Titan Quest and Civ IV: Colonization, all great games that are not found anywhere else but the PC.
However, and take note of this, any lurking EA PR flacks, I have made the conscious decision to not buy several games with Securom and other irritating DRM (Bioshock, for example) because of the last time a game with it (Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory) left a bunch of crap lurking in my system that caused my DVD burner to just halt or fail for no reason when I was burning backup discs of my family photos and documents.
That's intrusive, irritating and unacceptable, EA. If you're going to put crap like that in your games, the installer must clearly state everything that is being installed on my system.
That said, I know Titan Quest has Securom but there are ways to remove it [gamecopyworld.com] that don't require visiting dodgy Russian websites.
Parent
I protested and... (Score:3, Funny)
Obligatory... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Obligatory... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Because they don't know. (Score:5, Insightful)
If gamers knew that installing a game had a chance of damaging their CD Burner, or causing crashes in non-game activities, requiring a system reformat I bet they would care. As it is, they blame "computers" and do not care.
They wish (Score:4, Insightful)
Now while I am one of the first who will tell you that personal experience doesn't equal empirical evidence, it isn't worthless in this case:
100% of the gamers I know (including me), which is quite a few, care about DRM. None of them like the "3 activations only" crap. Now it is always possible that I happen to belong to a really, really outside group, but not likely based on their BS statistics. If what they claim is true, you'd think at least one of the people I know, and more like everyone except me, would be perfectly ok with it. That they aren't says that EA's statistics are BS.
While I can perfectly well believe that most gamers are ok with DRM of some form, I'd bet almost none of them are ok with it when it interferes with their gameplay. Well, that's what these new DRMs are doing. The cause you to not be able to reinstall, they won't work with perfectly legit systems (Civ 4: BTS didn't like my DVD drive, and I don't even have any virtual drive software installed) and so on. Gamers care about that.
Keep hammering! (Score:5, Informative)
Sounds like they're getting nervous, keep the 1-star reviews coming!
Red Alert 3 (upcoming):
http://www.amazon.com/Command-Conquer-Red-Alert-Premier-Pc/dp/B001F6HJIY/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1224087512&sr=8-2 [amazon.com]
http://www.amazon.com/Command-Conquer-Red-Alert-3-Pc/dp/B0016BVY7U/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1224087512&sr=8-1 [amazon.com]
Far Cry 2 (upcoming):
http://www.amazon.com/Far-Cry-2-Pc/dp/B000X9FV5M/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1224087659&sr=8-2 [amazon.com]
Spore:
http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Mac/dp/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1224087603&sr=8-1 [amazon.com]
http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Galactic-Pc/dp/B001AYEGXM/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1224087603&sr=8-2 [amazon.com]
Crysis Warhead:
http://www.amazon.com/Crysis-Warhead-Pc/dp/B001ATHKVC/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1224087659&sr=8-1 [amazon.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, give them more ammo that you are an irrational, online cabal by posting bad reviews not of the game you have not purchased due to DRM, but of the DRM that caused you to not purchase the game.
Yes, that will help your cause.
Re:Keep hammering! (Score:4, Insightful)
Suppose I found that my hamburger contains rat turds. I talk to some friends who bought burgers from the same store and find that they found rat turds in their burgers too. I then pay close attention to the announcements regarding other products that store is planning to introduce in the near future - they say they're going to put rat turds in those too.
So to forewarn others, I go to an online review site and write up about these new products 'These contain rat turds'.
Even though I haven't bought those products, I know perfectly well there are rat turds in them, and that's why I haven't bought them. Are the rat turds an irrelevance to an otherwise tasty burger, excellent in parts? Or are they an integral part of the product, sufficient in themselves to ruin it entirely and make it deserve the worst possible review?
Parent
My Spore DRM woes (Score:5, Informative)
I've been playing Spore quite a bit until this weekend, when it simply stopped showing any graphics whatsoever after updating my video drivers. Rolling back to the old drivers didn't help. So I tried reinstalling, and the game would simply crash.
After much futzing around and unhelpful EA support people basically reprinting their FAQ for me, page by page, I figured out the problem. I had patched Spore and uninstalled. But the DRM is never uininstalled, it lurks around forever. When I reinstalled the unpatched version from the CD, it was not what the DRM expected, and it crashed.
EA provides no way to download the patch without running the game, but I found the patch file on gamershell.com. Patching the game let it run without graphics again, and I switched to windowed mode (good like finding the key combo for that in the printed manual or help files) and checked out the graphics settings, uhhh, 170Hz refrsh rate, WTF? Setting it back to 75Hz allowed the game to run once again in full screen mode.
To reiterate: if you patch the game, uninstall, and reinstall the unpatched version, IT WILL NOT WORK, and the only component I can think of that would cause this is the DRM. Thanks EA, for making your paying customers prefer the pirated versions of your programs.
DRM is self-defeating. (Score:5, Insightful)
If 99.8% of the customers don't have an issue with the DRM (presumably they are not restricted in what they are doing), why have it implemented in the first place?
DRM has the purpose of restricting what one can do with a digital product - be it a game, a song, whatever. If no-one ever runs into those restrictions, it's been a waste of effort. However if the restrictions are tight and many people run into them, they are presumably effective for what the manufacturer wanted, but will result in customers trying to circumvent it as they want to do things they are not allowed to out of the box. Such as making a back-up copy.
So either DRM is a priori ineffective (restrictions so loose no-one notices them, so there is no effect of the DRM) to prevent complaints, or it is effective in restricting people but then will guaranteed result in protests and circumvention, rendering it ineffective after all.
Ric Romero Reporting (Score:4, Informative)
In other news, 99.8% of gamers are playing pirated versions of their games.
My wallet thanks EA and DRM (Score:5, Informative)
Look at the audience (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't need more that 3 installs for Spore (Score:5, Insightful)
Who needs 3 installs for Spore when you basically can play the game only twice without being bored?
The game was touted with tons of customizable features... few of them having anything to do with game play.
Wow! I can download tons of imaginative designs for buildings and things, and no matter which one I choose, they all do the same thing.
A DRM issue like this is only a problem for a game like StarCraft or Counter-Strike that people will be playing (and reinstalling) for ten years.
That's not to dilute the point that Bad DRM is... bad. It does illustrate the point that most people don't care about DRM, until they actually get bent over by it.
Almost completely off-topic. (Score:5, Funny)
My DVD drive hasn't worked in a week and half, despite repeated tweaks and reinstalls. While mucking around on my drive last night, I found a directory called SecurROM. No frigging idea where it came from. I don't know if this is just a coincidence or what, but if I delete that directory and my drive suddenly starts working again then I'm going to do two things. First, I'm going to torrent a copy of Spore. Second, I'm going to track down an EA executive and punch him in the cock just as hard as I can.
Alternate headline: (Score:5, Funny)
"0.2% of Gamers are too stupid to operate BitTorrent!"
Consoles? (Score:5, Insightful)
It was sort of the other way around for me.
I got tired of console games that were buggy/poorly tested etc. and could NOT be patched. I was stuck with the first release version.
PC games at least gave me the aftermarket to fix problems with a game. When I could get inside them, or utilize cracks or whatnot, I began to see more cost value in a PC game. Yeah, I realize that in a perfect world, the games should be perfect on release, but they are not. For that simple reason, I choose to buy a product that at least gives me some latitude in making the fucking thing work to MY liking.
99.8% of what gamers? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think someone's study was pulled out of their backside.
Re:Liar (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people try to contact the manufacturer by going to the place they set aside for discussions. EA however locks any threads on the subject, and bans the participants if they continue. So the manufacturer in this case is sitting back going "LA LA LA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU! EVERYBODY LOVES ME!"
Not really very constructive.
Parent