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What Modern Games Are DRM-Free?
Posted by
Soulskill
on Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:30 PM
from the don't-be-annoying dept.
from the don't-be-annoying dept.
IceDiver writes "I used to be an avid PC gamer. However, I have only bought 1 game in the last 18 months because I am sick and tired of the problems caused by the various intrusive, and sometimes damaging DRM schemes game publishers insist on forcing upon their customers. Once burned, twice shy! The EA announcement that upcoming releases will include SecuROM, along with verification requirements and major restrictions on installations left me wondering which recently released or upcoming games (particularly major titles) are being released without DRM? Are there any? How has DRM affected your game purchasing? Will EA be negatively affected by their DRM decision?"
The ongoing DRM controversy was stirred by the recent launch of Spore. We discussed the public outcry from Amazon's reviews (which were subsequently taken down and then re-posted). EA's response to the outcry was to say that only one percent of accounts tried to activate the game more than three times, which is the limit without help from their customer service. Meanwhile, their efforts to find a "balance" between preventing piracy and not hampering legal users may not have been as successful as they hoped. According to Forbes, a P2P research firm found that illegal copies of Spore had been downloaded over 170,000 times already. So, is it time to create a whitelist for game publishers and developers?
Related Stories
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Will DRM Exterminate Spore? 881 comments
AC Dude writes "Will an anti-DRM flash mob that's determined to give EA's latest sim game Spore a rock bottom rating on Amazon.com sink the game, or will Spore evolve and shed the DRM? Is this the beginning of the end for DRM-laden games?
'Over the past few years we've focused a lot on the music industry and how it has attempted to use DRM to control distribution. While DRM in this market segment has been unpopular, anti-DRM campaigns have largely fallen flat when it comes to attracting widespread public attention because of the fragmented nature of music. Games are a much easier target given the monolithic nature of their release — campaigners only need to spread the word on a handful of specific online outlets to reach a wide audience. A quick read through the Amazon reviews of Spore seems to suggest that the negative comments are already putting people off from buying the game.'"
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Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:5, Interesting)
And DRM makes me a pirate.
I'm a single childless guy on an average wage and therefore have some spare money about. I generally buy games. Or at least, used to. However the DRM in Bioshock and Portal (more time playing the DRM than playing Portal...) amongst others have seriously affected me. Pirating the game instead of purchasing it means that once I have it, I install and play it, instead of 'fight the DRM'. I don't think I've downloaded a single big-name game title that didn't work first go. I certainly have purchased such a thing.
So, while my hourly rate isn't much, for both Bioshock and Portal I spent more hours than my equivalent wage would cost to buy the game, in Portal's case that's after tax :)
Funny thing is that despite both games having convoluted and misdirecting self-help support sources, the problem in both cases was that I had software installed that can mount .isos. Yes, that's right. Other operating systems have native support for this function because it's so damn useful. Game companies on the other hand treated me like a pirate for having such software installed.
So now I'm a pirate, due to the pain that game companies have caused me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be moral here - after all, I am stealing my entertainment - but the actions of the game companies have turned a paying customer into a pirate. Now there's an own goal for you...
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone randomly found the CD Key of my old half life game before I finally got to install steam. When I did, wanted to play back half life along with the updates, I was denied access to online play because I could not register the game.
I contacted them and the reply was to send them the cd & box, along with a proof of purchase (I had bought the games over 8 years before!) and 20 bucks to cover the replacement.
That would have been the only solution, short of buying again. I'm not using anything in steam or that I might think might end up in steam again.
As for his question, World of Warcraft is DRM free, and the upcoming WOTLK is also supposed to be free of it too!
I guess that count as a particularly major title :)
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:5, Informative)
re: Half-Life 1 and my original key being stolen.
Same thing happened to me. I sent in the CD case liner (which includes the barcode proof of purchase -- according to the instructions you were *not* to send in the original box or jewel case and for games older than a certain date, the receipt was also not necessary) and a check for $10 (the processing fee at the time, October 2007).
I received my CD liner intact back from Valve soon after having all of the HL1 games activated on my account. It went through pretty quick.
They also never bothered to cash the check.
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:5, Interesting)
well, blizzard isn't perfect.
I suffered a bout of ID fraud in which there were several online purchases of The Burning Crusade on a card of mine. All of the purchases were in to European arms of Blizzard.
I tried to resolve this with Blizzard as at the time I'd had an account, and my son as well (no CC attached, using Game time cards only and none of these purchases were to my legit accounts). They responded with the typical "maybe someone charged your card...a family member" email they usually send.
I called Blizzard as well and asked to speak to someone in account security. Couldn't get past the snaky rep who basically said they won't talk to you.
I called the bank and had them issue charge backs.
Prior to this experience, I was a solid Blizzard fan. Bought all their games, had a good time. They sent me an email after the bank did their business, I suspect it said they were freezing my account because of all this biz, but at this point I didn't care, and still don't (and probably won't unless they directly apologize, but that's unlikely to happen).
Blizzard could do no wrong with me, and now they can't really do right. They make wonderful products, but horrid customer care. Hence, I won't be buying anything from them.
Ironically I've had good luck with Valve. I had a copy of Half-Life 2 with which the CD Key had been used; I took a snapshot of the discs, with the manual key in view (and reciept) and emailed it to Valve. It was fixed in an hour. Same thing with EA and my copy of BF2.
When I bought the Orange Box, I wasn't aware that it came with HL2, and Steam asked did I wish to gift it to someone, which I did. The thought that Steam isn't guaranteed bugs me, but as I've said.. I've had good experiences.
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:5, Funny)
> I took a snapshot of the discs, with the manual key in view (and reciept) and emailed it to Valve. It was fixed in an hour.
Can I get a link to where you downloaded that image? ;)
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:5, Informative)
Couldn't get past the snaky rep who basically said they won't talk to you.
I called the bank and had them issue charge backs
Funny, in my experience "Sort it out now or I report you to the bank and let them sort it out" is a pretty effective way of getting problems solved.
It's not particularly diplomatic but then neither is getting the bank to issue a charge back.
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:4, Interesting)
My Steam account got hacked (after my pre-Steam Half Life/Opposing Force/Blue Shift keys were registered with it) and all I had to do was send them a photo of the CDs and the CD keys. No payment was necessary.
'Course, I still hate Steam too, purely on principle.
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:5, Interesting)
You seem to be forgetting that unlike a physical disc where they will have to break in and take the thing,with those stupid keys there are automated keygens out there that can spit out dozens of keys per second until they find one that hits. Does that mean that if one of those keygens hits YOUR number you should just suck it up and buy a new game? This is also why I don't use Steam. I had the Half Life I:Game Of The Year Edition and my key got keygen'd.
And now we have crap like Spore where they are obviously trying to take away our right of first sale by making everyone afraid to buy it second hand,and they wonder why piracy just keeps going up? Maybe if you didn't treat you customers like sh*t maybe they wouldn't be pirating. I know I have gotten to the point that I won't buy ANY game until it reaches the $20 or less bin because I know they will have a good working crack out by then so I won't have to worry about my system getting "Secure Starforced Buttraper V2.0" infections. As a PC repairman I have had to fix countless machines with "weird crashes" and it turn out it was SecuROM'd. And I have thrown away quite a few drives from folks that got the Starforce PIO bug.
So while I would be happy to buy on release day to try all the new games I simply won't because of DRM. And I wanted to pick up Spore until I heard about the 3 activations BS(thanks Slashdot!) so that one won't even be on my "pick it up when it's cheap" list. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit.
Steam is annoying as hell and frequently stops me using [photobucket.com] games I own.
I paid money for that game so I own it. When I double-click on the icon, it is not a "request" for it to run. The game is fully installed, and doesn not need to be connected to Steam to run. Cracked versions work without the DRM-enforced waits.
If the game does not start immediately, every time, it is broken.
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a rather amusing problem with steam as well, easier to solve than yours thankfully, but more stupefying. Everytime I run a game, then quit it, then try to run another game Steam suddenly forgets I own any games until I restart it.
Steam is not a good service. I should be able to run my games without requesting permission from another program, no ifs ands or buts about it.
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:5, Funny)
I'm a single childless guy...
This is Slashdot. Mod parent Redundant.
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally I appreciate how Blizzard had the sense to remove the look-for-CD-protection in Warcraft III, of course a cd key is still required to play on battle net.
Their stupid requirement of having to use the CD and the risk of getting banned from bnet by patching the game or whatever made me use the original one ending up with big enough scratches on the CDs for being unable to install the game, for one of the discs to validate as a genuine one and finally this:
http://cdcrack.istheshit.net/ [istheshit.net]
Parent
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? It's easier to get a pirated copy and continue using the same knowledge set of skills, techniques and software than it is to totally convert to another operating system.
There's a reason XP is still pretty popular on the torrent sites.
Parent
A hard whack from the ol' LART (Score:4, Insightful)
> It's easier to get a pirated copy and continue using the same knowledge set of skills,
> techniques and software than it is to totally convert to another operating system.
Kid, I have some bad news for you. If you are worried about your 'skills' you needn't worry because you obviously aren't earning your living from them. Otherwise you would know how stupid you sound. Try installing that piratebay copy of XP in a work environment and watch what happens. First disgruntled ex employee that is, ya know clueful enough to listen to the radio or read a magazine, sees that 1-800 get revenge AND a cash reward hotline to nark out pirate copies and your employer is in a world of pain and you are out of a job.
Of course this isn't a problem in your bedroom/dorm but this is the time to upgrade your skills for the world of tomorrow... where with a little luck Microsoft won't be a monopoly anymore.
Parent
Re:A hard whack from the ol' LART (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe because some of us actually like to learn new things and stretch ourselves. And compared to learning a musical instrument or making fine cabinetry with hand tools, not at all difficult.
"Why learn a new GUI?" when did Slashdot become Yahoo groups... *mumbles* damn kids on my lawn again.
Parent
Introversion Software (Score:5, Informative)
Multiwinia doesn't have DRM as far as I know :) That's a pretty cool-looking game, I gotta say. Introversion does an AWESOME job with their games, in all reality.
Plus, they run on Linux natively! :D
Re:Introversion Software (Score:5, Informative)
Sins of a Solar Empire is also completely free of DRM.
It scored pretty much 9/10 in every review.
Sins of a Solar Empire is a science fiction real-time strategy computer game developed by Ironclad Games for Windows XP and Vista and published by Stardock Entertainment in February 2008.[1] Sins is a real-time strategy (RTS) game that incorporates some elements from 4X strategy games; promotional materials describe it as "RT4X."[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire [wikipedia.org]
Stardock Entertainment are also responsibile for the proposed "Gamers Bill of rights"
The Gamer's Bill of Rights:
Gamers shall have the right to return games that don't work with their computers for a full refund.
Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game's release.
Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.
Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer.
Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won't install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent.
Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.
Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.
http://www.stardock.com/about/newsitem.asp?id=1095 [stardock.com]
Parent
Re:Introversion Software (Score:4, Interesting)
... as long as you reconnect to Impulse to generate the new key. At least that's my experience with Galciv2. If I were to copy the game to another computer, it would not run until I put Stardock's software on the machine and validated my copy. That is DRM.
Parent
Sins of a Solar Empire (Score:5, Informative)
Sins of a Solar Empire (Score:5, Informative)
Sins of a Solar Empire [sinsofasolarempire.com] made by Stardock is a recently released DRM free game (their other games are DRM free as well).
We've discussed Stardock's [slashdot.org] anti-DRM [slashdot.org] policy before.
No affiliation with Stardock, just a happy customer.
Re:Sins of a Solar Empire (Score:5, Informative)
Referring to Steam games as "not having DRM" is sort of funny.
Steam *is* the DRM, although it is an acceptable version thereof in my (and many slashdotters) opinion.
Parent
Checkers (Score:5, Funny)
Now listen here Sonny, just yesterday I took my scooter down to the game store and bought me a brand new box of checkers for my grandson.
Now sure, it doesn't have any of that D-R-whachamacalit that today's young'uns want but it's brand new and that's what counts!
it should matter. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not exactly using DRM as a selling point when I buy a game. It affects me, but I have security software which can prevent the DRM from doing harmful things to my computer.
I buy a lot of games, and I honestly don't think the DRM is effective.
Scenario #1: you bought the game and enjoy it. your friend wants to play the game without buying it. You can't copy the CD and have him play thanks to the DRM. or can you?
Scenario #2: you don't want to buy a game, but you still want to play it. You can't download it from the Internet thanks to DRM. or can you?
in both scenarios, DRM is useless. in #1, you can download a NOCD crack from the Internet and make as many copies of the disc as you want. In #2, the game has already been released by some cracking group without DRM before the game even hits the stores. Is harrassing paying customers really helping to gain more paying customers?
DRM doesn't even deter casual gamers who would copy their own disc. Since the game has been cracked before it's even released, that DRM scheme is a waste of customer money.
As I see it, this harmful middleware just eats into profit margins. Companies who make products like securom and starforce rely on the fear and ignorance of publishers to sell their harmful software. Who is to say these companies don't have their own agenda in installing their harmful and mysterious software on unsuspecting machines?
Since we don't fully know what the software does, nor do they allow us to know, isn't it safe to assume it's malicious?
Where DRM in games makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, assuming you're a twisted marketing/accounting guy...
As with most DRM schemes, I think there's an ulterior motive here, and I think that's to kill the second hand market. Most people are unwilling to buy games with activation second hand, and most stores are unwilling to even take them for trade or sell them.
Remember, the difference between Digital Rights Management and plain old copy protection is that DRM is about restricting your rights, and in this case they're taking away your right of first sale, plain and simple.
Parent
The greatest game of all time is DRM-free... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The greatest game of all time is DRM-free... (Score:5, Insightful)
What about Angband [thangorodrim.net]?
Parent
Re:The greatest game of all time is DRM-free... (Score:5, Informative)
With complex and polished open source games in almost every genre being available, it's quite surprising how much people spend on commercial games from companies that treat them like criminals. Wikipedia has a good list [wikipedia.org] - I've not played more than a small fraction of them.
[1] This doesn't quite count as open source. The game is all GPL'd, but a number of images were things the author 'found on the Internet' and are used without a valid license. It was removed from the OpenBSD ports system last week because of this, as the author refuses to address the problem.
Parent
EA Spindoctoring (Score:5, Insightful)
EA's response to the outcry was to say that only one percent of accounts tried to activate the game more than three times, which is the limit without help from their customer service.
Spore has been out for 8 days, and that's if you count the early release in Australia. In 8 days they've had 1% of their customers install Spore enough times as to be unable to play the game.
Bullet, meet foot.
Epic games, to a degree (Score:4, Interesting)
As far as I know, Call of Duty 4 does not have any DRM. Searching "Call of Duty 4 $DRM" where $DRM equalled DRM, SecuROM, and Starforce, turned up nothing relevant.
Be warned, both of those games are basically only good for the multiplayer, so keep that in mind.
The Civilization series has strong single player, if you're into turn-based strategy, has no DRM, and really only requires a quick No-CD crack to be completely convenient. This includes every Civ I know of (2 to 4 + expansions).
Telltale games from what I've experienced has no DRM. Their Sam and Max series of adventure games, when purchased directly from Telltale's site, can be redownloaded over and over. This is no large technical feat, however, as their episodes are ~80MB a pop.
GOG.com (Score:5, Informative)
Good Old Games [gog.com] has just entered beta. They are offering older games for $5.99 - $9.99, completely DRM free. They've got some great games in their catalog, including Fallout [wikipedia.org] & Freespace [wikipedia.org].
Being DRM Free [gog.com] is one of their major selling points.
One percent of accounts ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... and they claim this as a POSITIVE attribute ? One percent of accounts ALREADY hit the 3 installation limit ? This game has been out for ~a week. One week, and already one percent of the customers are plagued by this DRM-scheme (some percentage of which will already have gotten customer service responses akin to "buy a new one" by the helpful customer representatives, as has happened with "Mass Effect").
After just one week, legitimately bought copies of the game stopped working for these people.
What will the stats be in 10 weeks ? 6 months ? Five years ? Can YOU offer up proof-of-purchase for all your games after 5 years ? Good on you. Should you have to ?
I find it pretty telling though that EA considers 1% for this timeframe to be a good number.
Subject (Score:4, Insightful)
Spore's DRM was so effective that the cracked version was leaked only *3* days prior to retail. The game companies are making progress!
I bought it and then I pirated it.. (Score:4, Insightful)
(in that order)
I don't buy or play PC games. When I do any gaming it's on the 360 so none of this stuff is an issue.
But this time.. I bought the game mainly because of a very cool special I was able to catch on the Hist Channel - went into both the tech and also the lore/idea behind it. Wasn't familiar with Spore until this. Saw all of the negative pub on Amazon before I purchased.
I've opened the original (just so it can't be returned/exchanged when I'm done - that's wrong) but I downloaded and am playing the cracked version. I've done it this way to 1) support whoever needs to be financially supported (not paying and then playing is plain stealing), but also 2) hopefully send a message to someone somewhere (even if it ends up just being to me) that DRM/limited activation is the more evil of two evils. I'm not a gamer (tho WOW ftw) and I've got no problem next time just keeping my cash and doing without.
Doctrine of First Sale? (Score:5, Interesting)
You want to see the game companies sit up and howl like a howler monkey? Get the federal government to pass a law saying that everything sold at retail has the right to the "doctrine of first sale". That is that if I buy it and don't want it anymore I can legally sell it to whoever I want and companies can't do anything to interfere with that.
You would see most of these DRM schemes disappear over night. This crap of your key tied to your account and you can give it away or sell it would be up in smoke. All these insane EULA's that say your not buying a copy of the software just the right to use it would be gone. Also they wouldn't be able to say hey if this blows up your computer it's not our fault, you can't sue us. Because then they would have to abide by the doctrine of fitness for sale.
As it is right now software companies love to tell you, we own it not you. We're just allowing you to use it for awhile, and we don't promise anything other than there are some bits that your allowed to use that might do something or they might not do something, just be glad we let you look at it at all.
Oh yea and don't you dare try and make anything compatible with our stuff, that's illegal. We sure showed those BNETD guys, and the Overhead garage door, and the printer ink guys not to ever try and be compatible with us. Why should we let you in on our ability to steal...excuse me..get all the money we can get from you? That's our money in your pocket and we'll be dang if we are going to share it with anyone else.
Game companies and software companies in general hate the software resell market, because they aren't get anything from it. They don't want you to buy 1 copy and sell it to another guy who does the same. Dang that could mean like 5-10 people who bought the same copy over a 2+ year period and they only got 1 sale. They sure can't allow that to happen.
Game companies *HATE* EB Game, Gamestop, and your local used game shop. They think they should be criminalized and run out of business for interfering with them making obscene amounts of profit. After all that isn't your money in your pocket it's their's and how dare anyone deprive them of it.
Then the whole thing of telling people what they can and can't do with software once they bought. Oh sorry you can add 5 extra lives and 1000 bullets to the game that effects the balance and by passes our protection, it's not allowed. Also you paid good money for the game, full retail, but you can't put it in your gaming shop or cyber cafe without paying us more. Do car rental places pay special extra price for their cars? What about a library that loans out books? Why is software so special when compared to other fields? It shouldn't be.
CD Key tied to accounts, and updates tied to specific people, and it's all non-transferable. Those are things that block the "doctrine of first sale" and should be out right illegal to do. If I want to sell my game I should be able to do it without any extra fees paid to anyone. I don't pay extra for my books I donate to the local library, or when I sell a book to a friend. Why is software suddenly special and needs to be protected different and given differnt rules?
Re:The answer... (Score:5, Insightful)
The vast majority of people are not stealing fucktard. All those people complaining about DRM own it... they paid for it and the real issue is that they are treated like criminals.
DRM is like showing a commercial about how movie piracy is bad while you're sitting at the theater. It only annoys the honest and does nothing to those who are not.
Basically, DRM discourages people from buying legit software since cracked software has that shit removed.... I'm glad I could teach you something today.
Parent
Re:The answer... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think what we have to do, as a community, is stop bitching at the game developers, and start bitching out the dirty bastards who steal games and ruin it for the rest of us!
Why? People stealing games (are you talking about shoplifting?) don't harm me. Companies that add DRM do, because they are making my purchases harder or in some cases impossible to use. As for people who make illegal copies of games (copyright infringement), well they're mostly not affected by DRM, so my opinion is that DRM's purpose is probably not to stop them from doing so, or if it is it is completely ineffective so there is no point to it anyway.
Seriously, hardly any breath is spent on criticising these leaches[sic].
Likewise few people spend time on Slashdot criticizing people who embezzle millions from large corporations, because very few of us suffer because of such behavior.
If it becomes socially unacceptable, people will stop doing it so much.
Yeah, sure. It is publishers and their lobbyists that are harming me these days. Just recently they passed a law to use my tax dollars to prosecute their dubious and unconstitutional civil lawsuits. That's much, much worse than anything a copyright infringer has done to me.
Right now, stories like this just work as justification for more theft.
What does this story have to do with theft? Do you even know what theft is?
You wouldn't copy a car. You wouldn't copy a handbag. You wouldn't copy a television. You wouldn't copy a dvd. Downloading pirated games is copying. Copying is against the law.
Parent
Re:The answer... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:The answer... (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM is not about pirates, it's about killing the reseller market for games.
Parent
Re:The answer... (Score:5, Insightful)
As a legitimate customer, it is NOT MY FAULT that other people are stealing the game. Let's say you're person A, and you're with person B and person C. Person C does something that pisses off person B. Person B can't reach person C, so they hit you instead.
Person C may be a douchebag, but your immediate concern is that person B just hit you, and you DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG.
Games will be pirated. DRM punishes legitimate customers. The pirates shouldn't goddamn be the ones to get the better product. Paying customers should.
As things currently stand, pirated software ...
* is a bitch to install
* might not play successfully
* could come with a rootkit
In contrast, legitimately purchased software ...
* is a bitch to install (don't you love those 40 character CD keys?)
* might not play successfully (if you can't connect to the internet to validate the damn thing, god help you)
* and might come with a fucking rootkit.
* costs 50 bucks
Pirates will always have to use work-arounds to get software to install and run. Pirated software will always have a risk of carrying a rootkit. Legitimate software need not have these issues.
Parent
Re:The answer... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:The answer... (Score:5, Insightful)
Free entertainment is not a requirement for life in any fashion, sane or otherwise. The fact that you really, really want it has no bearing on the necessity at all. Your lack of impulse control doesn't make you a freedom fighter.
Parent
Re:As I've said before (Score:5, Insightful)
The game publishers here are cowards and scared. Even if the "public outcry" makes them finally rid us of DRM, they will find even more scary things to throw on our harddrives. The only solution I see is for the big companies to realize these two rules: Rule one, games will be pirated; rule two, publishers can't change rule one.
On the other hand, rainbows exist, why not miracles?
Actually, publishers can change rule one.
All they have to do is make their game rely heavilly on Internet content for much of their game logic, requiring a monthly subscription to have an account activated.
Take World of Warcraft, for instance. The game itself is essentially free -- at least here in Europe the cost of the game itself is the same as the montly subscription cost -- and the game comes bundled with a 30-day subscription.
As far as I know there are no DRM measures in World of Warcraft. There is an anti-cheating module, designed to detect and stop third-party software, but whether that can be called DRM is debatable. And even if it is DRM, it's for a good cause.
I for one applaud publishers like Blizzard and the many other publishers out there who, instead of trying to prevent the physically impossible act of copying bits, actually find new viable business models to base their software around.
Parent
Re:As I've said before (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd like to say that, though I despise what they did making generics illegal in the computing world (blizzard v. bnetd), I've never heard of them using the ruling to kill any websites.
I've been to a couple free servers, and blizzard simply out-innovates them. One particular "server-which-must-not-be-named" had so many bugs with the shaman class it was impossible to play it, and examination of their tracker shows they are simply not capable of keeping pace with the blizzard game updates.
Despite their dishonesty, they were compelled to compete with free and have done so. Kudos to them for doing what 3 other full industries refuse to do.
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Re:The better question.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Losing DRM is a good first step to achieving WINE compatibility. I've seen a good many games where they will work perfectly on WINE, except the stupid DRM system some moron decided was necessary.
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