Game Industry Vets On DRM 372
An anonymous reader points out an article at SavyGamer in which several game industry veterans were polled for their opinions on DRM. Cliff Harris of Positech Games said he didn't think his decision to stop using DRM significantly affected piracy of his games, accepting it as an unavoidable fact. "Maybe a few of the more honest people now buy the game rather than pirate it, but this sort of thing is impossible to measure. You can see how many people are cracking and uploading your game, but tracking downloads is harder. It seems any game, even if it's $0.99 has a five hour demo and is DRM-free and done by a nobel-peace prize winning game design legend, will be cracked and distributed on day one by some self righteous teenager anyway. People who crack and upload games don't give a damn what you've done to placate gamers, they crack it anyway." Nihal de Silva of Direct2Drive UK said his company hasn't noticed any sales patterns indicating customers are avoiding games with DRM. Richard Wilson of TIGA feels that customers should be adequately warned before buying a game that uses DRM, but makes no bones about the opinion that the resale of used games is not something publishers should worry about.
In soviet Russia... (Score:1, Funny)
The games pirate you...
Sorry. Had to be done.
Re:Unavoidable (Score:3, Funny)
>> Being in PC repair I can attest that the latest DRM can be worse than most viruses. If you get Starforce or SecuROM mixed together, or either of those with any other like SafeDisc, well lets just say I hope you look back on the days of unstable Win9x fondly, because you will be getting a taste of those times. I can't even count the number of DVD drives of customers I had to throw away because Starforce or SecuROM decided they were "dirty evil filthy pirates" for actually having a burner and threw it into PIO mode and burned their drive smooth up.
Have you started any lawsuits for this yet?
Also, remember... you can return ANYTHING. Whether or not Best Buy's policies agree with you. Leave the CD on the return desk, take a photo and walk away. Then call Visa.
People who talk about not being able to return things have clearly never called Visa. The phone call is faster than a Slashdot post and 100% effective.
Re:Unavoidable (Score:4, Funny)
downloading cracked versions of games we already bought because the shitty DRM doesn't work!
Umm - if you need to download cracked versions, then it would seem that the DRM is working perfectly fine.
The entire point of DRM is to prevent people from playing the game. Since it's preventing you from playing, then it's obviously working.
Re:Unavoidable (Score:2, Funny)
Now the MMO world has it much better off, since you need a subscription to actually play the game at all.
There are plenty of private servers for games like WoW, which in general I found to be more enjoyable with increased level rates, etc. You can advance through the game quicker and achieve a lower level of dissatisfaction when you realize its over and how much time you've wasted...