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Game Distribution and the 'Idiocy' of DRM
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Sep 28, 2008 01:01 PM
from the completely-neutral-titles dept.
from the completely-neutral-titles dept.
In light of the increased focus on the DRM controversy in recent days, Ars Technica did an interview with execs from CD Projekt's Good Old Games about where the problems are with current DRM implementation. "For me, the idiocy of those protection solutions shows how far from reality and from customers a lot of executives at big companies can be. You don't have to be a genius to check the internet and see all the pros and cons of those actions." Penny Arcade is also running a three-part series on DRM from game journalists Brian Crecente and Chris Remo. Crecente talks about how some companies are making progress in developing acceptable DRM, and some aren't. Remo recommends against a trend of overreaction to minor gripes.
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DRM-Free Classic Games Store Opens To Public 122 comments
arcticstoat writes "With all the controversy surrounding DRM in games at the moment, one games store has decided to buck the trend, proudly proclaiming that all its games are DRM-free. First announced back in July, Good Old Games is now in the public beta stage, which means that anyone can now access the site's archive of classic PC games, and you can do what you want with your game when you've bought it, too. 'You won't find any intrusive copy protection in our games; we hate draconian DRM schemes just as much as you do,' says the site. 'Once you download a game, you can install it on any PC and re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need, and you can play it without an internet connection.'"
In related news, Stardock, the company responsible for the Gamer's Bill of Rights, is apparently working on a new copy-protection solution that will be friendlier to consumers than current schemes.
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First thing I do with every game I buy. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
I usually do as well, unless it doesn't require any interaction on my part after it's installed. I especially hate when the CD/DVD has to be in the drive... it's www.gamecopyworld.com immediately after install if that's the case.
The only games I currently play that I haven't cracked are Steam games... their DRM is barely acceptable, so I haven't felt the need to do away with it.
I've been playing Spore recently, I would love to go out and buy it, but I refuse due to the DRM involved. It's a pretty good game and I'm happy to pay for it, but I won't pay for DRM.
Parent
Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Where did the guy say he owns it?
"I've been playing Spore recently"
doesn't say he has a copy. Maybe this guy has friends who own it and let him have a go.
But don't let that get in the way of you making your moral speech mate.
Parent
Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . (Score:5, Funny)
Just a novel idea here but uh. Ever heard of socialising where you actually get off your butt and visit in person. I mean actually leave the house and see him... for real?
And then with a total disregard for your germs he allows you to play his copy of Spore?
I mean, I know visiting other people is quite an outrageous thing to do but... It could happen..right?
Parent
Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Which sends EA the message: "sheeple are accepting DRM, we can keep doing it."
Parent
Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . (Score:5, Informative)
I bought Far Cry, I had to crack it to play it. I bought Doom 3, I had to crack it to play it. I've also had problems with overzealous measures such as the one used in Operation Flashpoint activating and making the game unplayable. Guess who didn't have any problems? That's right, the people who pirated them! Great job retards.
Nowadays I don't even bother trying to run a game without cracking it first. There's no point - the cracked version is almost always superior.
Parent
Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>Remo recommends against a trend of overreaction - "-look how many people buy music through iTunes, whose DRM mechanics are hardly lenient."
Over-react? I still play games that are nearly 25 years old (Pirates, Silent Service, and Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising). Any system that effectively makes the game unusable after just 5 years is not acceptable in any way, shape, or form.
Itunes? How about Google or Walmart? When they deactivate their services, and make my rather-expensive music suddenly stop working, I think I have a right to act peeved about it.
Parent
Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
look how many people buy music through iTunes, whose DRM mechanics are hardly lenient
Remo saying "iTunes is popular, so maybe you should get over DRM" is a bizarre argument. I would bet that most people who buy 128kbps tracks from iTunes wouldn't even know what filetype they were receiving and, if pushed, would probably guess mp3 because they don't know better.
I'm not having a go at non-geeks, but if iTunes had a massive warning on every page about how you'll have difficulty playing your music on anything but iTunes and an iPod, I'm sure sales would plummet.
Parent
Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . (Score:5, Informative)
I'm confused as to what the hell you're talking about because the quote is correct. Spore now gives you 5 activations. If you activate once on your laptop and reinstall it still counts as one activation because it's the same PC. Essentially it lets you install it on 5 unique PCs.
Parent
Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Essentially it lets you install it on 5 unique PCs.
There's no standard for defining what makes a "unique PC". Anything from a HD/GFX card upgrade to an OS reinstall or BIOS update could make one of these ad-hoc systems decide it's no longer on the machine it was installed on.
And guess what gamers tend to do quite a bit?
Parent
Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Who said anything about returning it?
I buy games I play to support them. If the CD in the drive thing is easily fixable and I still retain full functionality then it's something I'm willing to deal with *most* of the time. If it's something as hostile as to how many machines i can install it on and it phones home every time I fire it up for no reason other than to verify it's authorized, then it can piss off.
Although, as time wears on, I'm getting tired of having to play a cracked (and thus having to jump through hoops to patch) version - it's becoming not worth the money to buy even those games. Stardock seems to do rather well without copy protection - I bought their games, so did many others.
The problem is not pirates, as Stardock clearly demonstrates. There are many other factors that are far larger problems than pirates. DRM inconveniences the legitimate users far, FAR more than it causes a problem for the pirates. That being an indisputable fact, why have it?
The only copy protection that is really needed is of the physical media. Make it so Joe-Sixpack can't burn off a quick copy for their buddy and you've done all you can possibly do to prevent piracy. Anything beyond that is completely, utterly meaningless. This is an absolute, it is not an opinion or a theory. Once Joe-Sixpack graduates from the baseline "I put CD in drive and click copy, if it doesn't work, I can't copy it," to the "I go online and download this crack," or "I go online and download this torrent," Joe-Sixpack is already far, far beyond the effects of DRM.
It's a small step, but once that step is made, you can't stop that person. You can appeal to their sense of morality, but you can't physically stop them. Game developers need to put no, or bare minimum copy protection on their games. Then use that money saved from not having to develop useless DRM and make a good game. Works for Stardock!
Parent
well yes (Score:5, Interesting)
There are now two games I *really* wanted that I can't get because I don't want their DRM infesting my machine. Nor do I want to use pirated games (being a programmer myself I don't like to download illegally, I really would prefer to pay), so I don't get to play at all.
I've been a computer gamer since 1983, and this not being able to buy things because of stuff put there to stop piracy is a new experience for me.
I hope its short lived, or the number of new games I buy is going to plummet.
Re:well yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if you do that you send the signal you accept DRM. Do that, and we'll never be rid of it.
Parent
Re:well yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:well yes (Score:4, Interesting)
"I don't like to download illegally, I really would prefer to pay"
Then why not buy the box and download and play the pirated version of the game? That puts the money in the correct pockets, but you still get the version of the game you want.
I've downloaded cracks for games that require the dvd in the drive, but I have always purchased the game concerned. Its more for my own convenience than anything else.
Even then I wouldn't touch a game that used an invasive system like SecureROM or Starforce, or those that limit the number of installs, simply because I don't want to have anything to do with a company that does that. If I buy the game, then that indicates I agree that their behaviour is acceptable, which I don't. If I don't buy it and don't pirate it, they and their crippled game are something I don't even have to consider.
Of course this means I'm less likely to consider future titles from the company concerned as well.
Parent
They're starting to get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
"DRM can encourage the best customers to behave slightly better. It will never address the masses of non-customers downloading your product."
Why the others haven't understood this I don't know. And note the 'DRM can encourage...'. I'd say I'm a good customer (I spend a bunch anyway), but I'm increasingly drawn to warez, because they - and I can't believe I'm writing this - are less likely to screw my gaming PC. What is the world coming to?
DRM encourages customer to download cracks. (Score:5, Insightful)
"DRM can encourage the best customers to behave slightly better. It will never address the masses of non-customers downloading your product."
Seriously, WTH is that supposed to mean? By better it means, not loaning it to your brother, it means not being able to sell it. All perfectly reasonable things.
DRM definitely does encourage customers to visit the pirate sites to get proper usability back by downloading cracks (AKA no cd cracks). Eventually you are going to lose a number of customers who get fed up and cut out the middle man (the producer) and start with the cracked version. After all you trained them for years this is where you get the full value product.
Parent
There is no acceptable DRM. (Score:5, Insightful)
Peeny Arcade (Score:4, Informative)
"Penny Arcade is also running a two-part series on DRM from game journalists Brian Crecente and Chris Remo."
It's a three part series, only two parts are up. The third will be up on Monday.
DRM: the precious (Score:5, Interesting)
"Remo recommends against a trend of overreaction to minor gripes"
That, in a nutshell, is why the industry isn't taking all the bleating about DRM seriously. DRM is a business decision. It's not there because they hate your freedom, it's there because they think it will help stop or at least slow piracy. If the world wasn't full of thieves, there would be no DRM.
Acting like DRM will go away if you cry about it is childish. It will only go away by becoming invisible. Nobody seems to know that iPhone apps are protected with DRM, nor that it helps bring prices down (although it certainly doesn't have to; PSP DRM hasn't had any effect on software prices).
The real issue is that DRM doesn't work well in the hands of software producers (audio/video/apps), because their monetary conflict of interest pushes them to wield the power of DRM to extort hight prices.
The only successful DRM comes from hardware makers (read: Apple) who balance the power to govern sales without extortion prices and without runaway piracy, because their interests are aligned with both consumers and intellectual property content producers.
That's why Microsoft's DRM didn't work; the company only cared about producers because it wasn't selling its DRM products directly to consumers, and subsequently stacked the deck against end users.
Apple carries DRM like the Ring.
The Japanese iPhone Failure Myth [roughlydrafted.com]
Re:DRM: the precious (Score:5, Insightful)
"Modern DRM isn't about stopping piracy. It's about stopping the game from being resold at used games stores so EA doesn't have to compete against their own games with the average customer."
Parent
There is no such thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no such thing as "acceptable DRM". By it's very existence, a non-DRM'd game will always be more acceptable than one which has added bloatware in the form of DRM attached to it.
I've always bought my games. I often download pirated games to try out, but if I like them, I almost always buy them. There are a few exceptions where I've never gotten around to buying a copy, but they are far outweighed by the number of games that I've paid for and never played, still sitting on my shelf in their shrinkwrapping.
However, a few years ago, I was so furious with the music industry selling me a useless CD that I couldn't play that I vowed never to buy another music item again. I have a whole basement full of CDs, but none of them are dated after 2005!
With the bad experience I had with Bioshock, I'm very tempted to do the same thing with games. I certainly won't buy Spore even though I'm a fan of Will Wright's games, solely because of the awful DRM. I've tolerated having to use No-CD crack up until now but if things keep getting worse, I'll stop buying games altogether and I'd encourage others to do the same.
The notion of "moderate" DRM is a curious one. (Score:5, Insightful)
A DRM system consists of a locked box and a key. In order to be effective, the system must simultaneously know the key, while preventing the user from knowing it. This means that the DRM system must deny the user access to some or all of his own system. There is absolutely nothing "moderate" about being locked out of parts of your own memory space. In this sense, all effective DRM systems are absolute. If DRM is working, it isn't your computer, period. Some DRM systems are more indulgent than others about what and how they restrict; but that isn't the same thing as moderation.
Note: there are some DRM systems that don't control the user in this way, and might be said to be genuinely moderate; but none of them are effective. Further note: my opposition to DRM is no more an endorsement of piracy than my opposition to mass surveillance is an endorsement of murder.
Re:Pick one: DRM or logging&prosecution for pi (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk about false dichotomy.
It'd be like "Either I can rape my kids, or have no children". Guess what? There's a third, and very palatable answer. We'll let YOU figure that out, if you are mentally able.
Parent
Re:Pick one: DRM or logging&prosecution for pi (Score:5, Funny)
Parent