DRM Drives Gamers To Piracy, Says Good Old Games 642
arcticstoat writes "Independent retro games retailer Good Old Games has spoken out about digital rights management, saying that it can actually drive gamers to piracy, rather than acting as a deterrent. In an interview, a spokesperson for Good Old Games said that the effectiveness of DRM as a piracy-deterrent was 'None, or close to none.' 'What I will say isn't popular in the gaming industry,' says Kukawski, 'but in my opinion DRM drives people to pirate games rather than prevent them from doing that. Would you rather spend $50 on a game that requires installing malware on your system, or to stay online all the time and crashes every time the connection goes down, or would you rather download a cracked version without all that hassle?'"
Yup (Score:5, Insightful)
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I agree also, after my wife gave me GTA4 a couple years ago for xmas I couldnt ever play the durn thing, Our clearwire, while fine for browsing was not 100% on 100% of the time. I wanted to play my new game and the DRM instantly drove me to find a crack.
If I am going to have to goto a shady site and take a risk downloading something, just to play my game, I have to ask why should I double team myself and pay money for the privilege too
Re:Yup (Score:5, Insightful)
These days the point of DRM seems to be more to stop video game rentals and prevent you selling the game second hand rather than stopping piracy.
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GTA 1 and 2 weren't PC only - they were available for the original PlayStation.
Re:Yup (Score:4, Interesting)
I will not consider buying a game that I cannot get a nocd crack for. Why would I want to have to put a DVD in every time I play? As for having to play while online, there is no way I would pay for something that I cannot play when I want, and I do not always have an internet connection. It is all stupid, so yes, I know that I 'AM' driven to look at p2p games because I cannot get a playable version that I can buy.
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I'm allergic to installing that crap on my system, so I figured out how to bypass it with a modified exe.
Did you personally modify the exe? Why would you be allergic to rootkits from DRM, but not from modified executables?
Re:Yup (Score:5, Informative)
I'm going to repost my previous comment [slashdot.org] to another story.
I've downloaded some ~20 cracks for PC games. I've cracked about 6 games using my own (not-quite-expert) REing skill.
I verify each crack I download. So far none have been fakes or malicious. They've fallen under two categories.
I haven't bought a game yet which uses some of the more modern DRM techniques (e.g. remote server emu).
Usually, if you stick by the dedicated release groups, you can be certain the cracks are safe. All crackers pour over their releases to see what they did -- their reputation would irreparably tank if discovered.
For each new crack released for a semi-popular game there are at least a dozen unaffiliated crackers looking over their work, especially if it's an attempt at a previously uncracked DRM scheme. Malware would be noticed immediately.
Once you know even the basics of REing it's utterly trivial to verify most cracks. Most of them can be analyzed in under 10 seconds with a hex editor that can compare binaries. The more complicated DRM is still easy to vet, because you only need to dump the packed exe/dll (doing whatever steps that might entail) to compare it... you don't need to personally repair the IAT or anything like that.
Maybe you won't believe it but prestige matters to game cracking groups. Malware is very rare. It's nothing like you see with the shareware scene.
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Run a binary diff on the original, or even just a fc /b from a command prompt, and you'll find that most no-cd cracks only change a handful of bytes at best. Sometimes they remove a large chunk of code entirely. I've never actually seen substantial modification or additional code added to the exe with "legit" cracks.
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Because he, like most others, I would imagine, has had his system hosed by DRM from software publishers more often than he has by cracked EXEs from cracking groups.
It has gotten to the point that I, for one, literally trust the crackers more than the video game publishers. I cringe at the thought of installing new, store-bought games. You're almost guaranteed to have your system compromised by some DRM garbage that will mess
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Yup (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd think that Ring 0 hacks would constitute unlawful modification of the OS itself.
Where's Microsoft in this?
Re:Yup (Score:5, Funny)
You'd think that Ring 0 hacks would constitute unlawful modification of the OS itself.
Where's Microsoft in this?
At the bank.
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That link to game copy world tried to load malware on my system so dude, nice write up, but really bad form to post a malicious link. Folks, don't click on that link. Now I have to go and check if anything else got loaded...or is this how you get business !!!!
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The Starforce driver isn't unsigned. It is signed by Microsoft and installed in the usual way.
Re:Yup (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years ago I had a collegue who would buy the big-name games, keep them in their plastic wrap and download and install the pirated version instead simply because the pirated version didn't require him to jump through hoops. These days with more obnoxious authentication and online accounts the hoops have gotten smaller and are arranged in a snake like pattern in the mud. I'm guessing this is what a lot of people do with their legally purchased games nowadays; the pirated versions are simply better.
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I might ar
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I started pirating because of DRM (Score:4, Interesting)
Then I kept doing it because I'm cheap. Guess they got to me in my formative years.
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At least Steam always tags games like that with the Third Party DRM tag... it shows up below the publisher information in the right column, along with any other tags.
Not just games, either... (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole Blu-ray bullshit, too.
I have a blu-ray player, but I run Linux. Playing Blu-ray in linux is difficult and error prone.
So I download the movies instead. I would happily buy them legally if I could pop them in and just play them in linux.
And the fact that the bluray rips are available with little to no effort on all the pirate sites would suggest to me that the copy protection isn't working anyway.
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Why don't you do both? Buy the Blu-ray, then download the version you can actually use?
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As far as I know DOWNLOADING is legal even in USA (and Europe of course). What is illegal is DISTRIBUTING (sharing with others). That's why it's safer to use bitlocker sites to download movies than bittorrent. When using bittorrent you download and upload at the same time.
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Why don't you do both? Buy the Blu-ray, then download the version you can actually use?
Paying for the movie won't release you from any liability should you be caught downloading it. The risk is the same either way. You'd only be paying for it to make yourself feel better about the whole process. (Note that I do pay and download if I want to feel like I'm "supporting" the group who made a product, even if I'm not happy with the delivery method.)
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By the time you get in front of a judge your legal costs will be so high that the verdict won't matter.
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Feh.
This whole chain of argument is specious, at best.
The obvious solution to playing Blu-Ray movies on Linux is not to bother trying to do so in the first place: At no point has a Linux distribution ever proclaimed "Hey, guys: We play Blu-Ray!!!!"
It is plainly unsupported. And anyone who understands even a small bit about the DRM in place on Blu-Ray can also understand that Linux (in any completely open-source incarnation) isn't likely to gain proper support for it any time soon.
The conclusion of this a
Re:Not just games, either... (Score:5, Insightful)
You wanna hear some real crap? I bought a bluray player, and the firmware update removed the ability to play DVDs (firmware update being required to play newer movies). It even says that the player will require physical maintenance to restore it on Samsung's troubleshooting. Guess what? They want to charge me $160 to fix it, and three tech support avenues later they are still dodging my contention of the charges.
Hooray for taxing DRM, in a literal sense. Well, those bastards at Samsung will certainly be getting negative press from me on any mention of Bluray online as a result.
Re:Not just games, either... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes mod down yet another complaint about how Linux is shit - maybe no one will notice.
No one who uses and advocates Linux thinks that a flaw in Linux created this situation. That's because they are acquainted with the facts. The fanboys who vent their nerd rage at anyone who slams Linux by modding them down would not interpret the comment as a slam against Linux. If anything it's a slam against the big media companies. Shit man, the guy said he uses Linux. Compatibility with Linux is important enough to affect his purchasing decisions. Think about that a moment.
I'll explain the part you don't seem to know about. It's not exactly Linux's fault that the owners of Blu-ray use strong encryption to lock it to set-top players and closed-source platforms like Windows. Maybe you have a legit complaint about Linux but this isn't one of them. The only reason you can play it at all in Linux is because a weak implementation of this encryption caused the keys to be released.
If you really don't like this the people to complain to are the companies that license Blu-ray. Not the Linux developers. If you don't care that much then what are you complaining about?
Now, consider this. Maybe the reason he was at first modded down is because he accepts and maybe even advocates piracy. That's a polarizing topic. I don't agree with them but there are people who think it is always wrong no matter what the excuse and that it's illegal for good reason. To them his tacit acceptance of piracy really might be offensive tho honestly I wish they'd grow a pair and argue their case instead of abusing the mod system. It's an alternate explanation that more plausibly fits the facts and it didn't occur to you because you were stuck on your little anti-anti-anti-linux rant.
Seriously man, if you ever wonder why great, meaningful, edifying, constructive discussion can be so hard to find it's because people like you are destroying it. I know you don't set out to do that but brother, that doesn't mean you aren't.
Re:Not just games, either... (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually remember when Slashdot was about nerdy things. You know, things like actually doing cool stuff with computers, networks, etc.,and then talking about them here, and not about pissing and moaning about how "The Man" was preventing us from being entertained by things that that others had created to which we felt we were entitled to, simply because we couldn't entertain ourselves, nor create anything nerdy.
Actually I think piracy is pretty nerdy. I have in fact cracked one piece of commercial software all by myself and I didn't feel bad at all. In fact it felt great. I was proud of myself. I can't think of anything more nerdy than cracking DRM. And it's great fun involving computers. Unpacking, decompiling, reading assembly language, all those lovely opcodes... All the raw beauty of information technology spread right out before you. Every computer science major should be required to crack a major piece of commercial software before graduating.
As far as blurays, the hackers at Slysoft have got our backs. They are clever and very skilled and have saved the bluray format for me. Instead of just sticking the disc in a standalone player (which I don't even own) I rip the disc to my drive and start the geeky command line process of demuxing it into its components, messing with the audio in Soundforge and remuxing the result with mkvmerge. Another command line utility. That isn't geeky? Not as geeky as actually writing utilites for the process like the ubergeek madshi did, but more geeky than just placing the disc in a standalone player and watching it on your TV, which is what hollywood wants you to do.
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Making stuff do what they're not supposed to do IS nerdy. Installing Linux on your toaster because you can. Making a BluRay play on Linux because it's not supposed to is nerdy. You're more looking down the hacker vs cracker line, but both are nerdy activities.
Besides, I've never considered clicking on torrents or putting a disc in the drive and click "Run" in AnyDVD to be particularly nerdy, that's script kiddie at best. You could probably teach a preschooler how to do it.
I do it because it's convenient, no
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Wait, let me see if I understand your rationalizations:
So, you bought the hardware, but your OS of choice doesn't suffice, which leads to:
Because you believe you're entitled to be entertained?
It's not entitlement of being entertained (which is a basic human right IMO, though I don't have to watch that specific movie), but rather *entitlement of using your hardware in any way which you so choose*. If I have a BluRay Reader hooked up to my computer, why must I run a specific OS and a specific software to watch a movie I legitimately bought?
XKCD sums up the argument pretty well: http://xkcd.com/488/ [xkcd.com]
As for me personally, I try to download as much as possible legally. That means I use a lot of free
This just in... (Score:2)
I absolutely agree with them (Score:3)
I absolutely agree with them. With the big budget games I've bought previously, I've also tended to download and apply cracks to be on the safe side - not just in case their DRM screws up my system, but also to get rid of needing the disc in all the time. There has always been temptation, though, to simply screw them over like they've screwed me over in the past, and get a pirate copy of the game.
I personally have re-bought over a dozen games I previously owned from GOG.com - they've made an effort to create automatic installers for all the older games, and it's a lot easier than breaking out the discs again. Particularly for some of the larger games, like Pandora Directive, which came on 6 CDs.
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I liked Fallout 3, because it didn't require the DVD in the drive, it was only needed during install or to change gfx options. So then I decided these guys knew what they were doing and got Fallout: New Vegas, only to discover they went over to the DRM dark side and it requires Steam now. Ugh. Did they lose so much money on FO3 that they did this, or did someone sweet talk them into a feature they didn't need?
Re:I absolutely agree with them (Score:4, Informative)
Steam requires that you be online once to validate the license. After that, you can go into "offline mode" for as much as you please. It's pretty transparent, and hasn't been a problem for me.
Personally, I prefer buying games on Steam: automatic patches, frequent discounts for various games on Steam, in-game voice/text chat, Valve Anti-Cheat on many multiplayer games (while not perfect, it's better than nothing), and not having to deal with license keys and physical media are major perks for me.
Is there DRM? Sure. Is it far less obnoxious than the stuff on other games (I'm looking at you, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory)? Definitely.
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Re:I absolutely agree with them (Score:4, Informative)
So steam was the problem in step 4. Every other step the problem was with the shitty game company you bought from.
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Too intrsuive (Score:3)
While I don't personally install pirated games (too concerned about what else may come with it), I could see why people would if they really wanted to play game X. For me, there are enough other games typically that I'll just pass and go buy something else. I think the overboard DRM etc stuff does nothing to stop people from hacking it eventually, and just stops consumers like me, willing to pay for it, from buying the game(s) at all. And then there's also a certain about of ill will you feel towards the companies who do it -- maybe not a tangible, but I think it impacts my thinking and spending towards those publishers.
DRM benefits one party, and it's not the buyer (Score:3)
A little off topic, but did anyone see they recently added Realms of the Haunting [gog.com]?
Re:DRM benefits one party, and it's not the buyer (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM only benefits one party, and that's the DRM software provider.
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I'm an example (Score:5, Interesting)
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http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/ [magicaljellybean.com]
Run that, copy down key, reinstal. Less hassle trying to find instal keys.
Trust issues (Score:5, Insightful)
Pipe Dream (Score:2)
...then my boycot is a result of my distrust in them
A lot of people say that - and not just about DRM - but in the end just go out and spend the money on the DRM infestation anyway because they don't want random warez possibly infecting them with something perhaps more offensive than DRM.
Certainly there has to be a fundamental change in customer service philosophy from the game companies, but I don't think pirated games or non-existent "boycotting" will do it.
Sadly, simply selling games cheaper, DRM and all, would probably eliminate a huge percentage
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And the software makers know this. They know that they have a huge number of customers that will buy the games anyway, no matter the restrictions. As long as it's not too in-your-face they're happy. They'll lose the old school people who like to keep around games for a long time, but when most of the market just wants to play the game a few times with friends and then throw it away they won't care that they're only renting a game. Sometimes they'll even defend DRM by saying it's so convenient to downloa
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> $50+ for a game? Obscene.
Obscene? For a game with thousands of developer and artist hours in it? For a game you're going to get a few dozen hours of play out of?
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Obscene? For a game with thousands of developer and artist hours in it? For a game you're going to get a few dozen hours of play out of?
Yes. The game companies made their money back at a fraction of that $50 to $100. Of course they are entitled to make a profit. And, indeed, they are making an obscene profit, specially for a game you don't even own!
Re:Pipe Dream (Score:5, Insightful)
l2 play games. dozens of hours is most definately a thing of the past. now they want you to spend $50+ for a game that you can completely conquer in 6-8 hours. back in the day games were created that took so long to complete you just plain never got around to it, now the company spends eleventy billion dollars on 16 minutes of cinematic footage that, if you're honest the vast vast majority of you press every button on your controller or keyboards to skip it. we need less "video cut scene designer guy" and way way way less "poorly trained sales/management types that think theres actually some kind of effective drm available on this planet/ greedmaster guy" and replace those with "guy who makes the character actually walk properly on the ground and not slide like gumby guy", "old timey manager that understands that you make a quality product and people will want to give you their money instead of having to trick them", and a S--t Ton more cowbell
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Which is why I started to buy indie games. Steam has a huge selection of them, and they are more around 1$ per hour of gameplay. If they have DRM then it's only a key or something (which steam provides automatically)
And if you are cheap, wait for the Christmas sales on steam.
Games I really enjoyed the last half year:
-Super meat boy
-Revenge of the titans
-Amnesia
-The void (one of the weirdest games I played)
-Starcraft 2
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Are you kidding? I just beat San Andreas last month. I then promptly went out and bought a used copy of Liberty City Stories, which, while I don't expect it to take me another six years to beat, will undoubtedly give me way more than my money's worth of play time.
Then there's stuff like Civ, which is pretty much infinitely replayable.
Are you just playing shitty games?
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...then my boycot is a result of my distrust in them
A lot of people say that - and not just about DRM - but in the end just go out and spend the money on the DRM infestation anyway because they don't want random warez possibly infecting them with something perhaps more offensive than DRM.
Then they don't know what a boycott is. The only new game I've played between Mechwarrior4 and Current (on the PC) is Battlefield2, and that was on a dedicated system. I gave up on PC games after MW4 because it wouldn't work with any CDROM drive I owned. I gifted it to a friend. He doesn't talk to me these days.
Ive pirated many games I bought (Score:2)
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Not news, just an advert (Score:4, Insightful)
I am a big fan of GOG.com, but I am not so blind to fail to notice that this whole article is just an advert for them. It is hardly "interesting to see them coming from an online game retail business" when that retail business is dedicated to non-DRM games!
I agree that intrusive DRM will drive some people to piracy, or at least stops people (like me) from buying the products (FU! EA). But I am not convinced that the number of customers lost would be more than the number gained by preventing casual piracy. DRM will never stop the dedicated pirates, it is more aimed at people who do not identify themselves as pirates but who just loan their discs to their mates.
Re:Not news, just an advert (Score:5, Insightful)
it is more aimed at people who do not identify themselves as pirates but who just loan their discs to their mates.
And what's wrong with that? My friends and I lend each other books, movies, etc. all the time. If I buy a game, why can't I lend it to a friend when I'm done playing it?
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If I buy a game, why can't I lend it to a friend when I'm done playing it?
That is fine. The problem the publishers have is when people share it before they are done playing it. We used to do that all the time back at school (in addition to completely pirated games). One copy would get used by dozens of people.
That said, they do also have problems with the lending afterwards (and the secondhand market), but that is a separate thing. Locking games to accounts and digital downloads is supposed to combat this. I find this practice to be completely unjustifiable. This is why I would n
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And what's wrong with that? My friends and I lend each other books, movies, etc. all the time. If I buy a game, why can't I lend it to a friend when I'm done playing it?
If you want to become a billionaire really quickly, come up with a DRM scheme for books and movies and the content industry will pay you anything for it. The only reason you can lend books and movies is that they don't have DRM, not because the publishers are fine with it.
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casual piracy
What does this even mean? Even someone who only has minimal knowledge of how to work a computer can figure out how to install a crack (especially considering that there's instructions). Yes, that may be slightly more difficult than just being able to copy the game and not having to install any cracks, but for someone who is planning on getting the game for free, I doubt that they'd care all that much about such a small hassle.
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Also, why shouldn't people be able to lend their games to others (which, if we're thinking of the same thing, isn't the same as allowing others to download it and copy the data)?
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I have found that some people can justify it to themselves that they are not doing anything wrong if they can install something on their drive as long as they don't have to crack it. It seems less illegal that way. After all, if all you do is just follow the standard install procedures, then how could that be wrong?
I have seen this plenty of times in business too. There have been many times when people have come into my office to get the MS Office discs so that they can install it on their kid's new laptop.
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I have found that some people can justify it to themselves that they are not doing anything wrong if they can install something on their drive as long as they don't have to crack it.
Some people, maybe, but I don't think that the number of them is very high (it's a seemingly strange argument to make, after all). Horrible DRM does indeed turn off some customers, I believe, or perhaps even makes them download the software for free. I'd be willing to wager that the amount of people that do not wish to support DRM (or deal with it) is higher than the amount of people who use the argument present in your comment and the amount of people who would simply walk away from using a piece of softwa
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And yet, on a console there is nothing preventing me from lending and borrowing games. Want to play Halo with a friend ? Bring the disc to their place and play. Want to play Starcraft II with a friend ? Um.. Tell them to spend $60 to buy the game, wait five hours for downloading and patching, and play with him some other time :P
Given how widespread piracy has gotten, which I believe is a direct response to ever-encroaching abusive DRM, I'm of the opinion that software developers should skip the DRM and
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Yes, people will pirate a game because it is free. Hell, I did that a lot when I was a student. Then I started to get some disposable income and I began to buy my games because I knew that it was the right thing to do. There are a lot of people out there who want to do the right thing, but resent being treated like a criminal for wanting to play a game. GOG fills their needs.
There are others reasons to pirate software than DRM, and that is why I said that it drives SOME people to piracy, not all.
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DRM drives me to buy console versions (Score:2)
Which I think the developers know and don't mind much at all.
If I play it on a console I don't get malware on my PC.
I didn't buy Starcraft 2 because of the whole "you don't own it" issue.
I try not to buy games on Steam because the more games you buy on Steam, the more you stand to lose if Valve decides to cut your account off. If they cut you off because of a dispute over one game, you lose the ability to run all the games you "own". At least with other DRM schemes I don't stand to lose everything over one
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Nah, that'd never happen...
Well... Unless you were one of the victims of Stargate Resistance. Stargate Worlds was well publicized, and then put on the same dev cycle as Duke Nukem Forever. When Stargate Resistance came out, the general noise said that if there was enough interest, it would help push development on Worlds.
I bought it soon after it came out. I found that for whatever reason, it would crash my computer. Nothing else would. Turned out it was s
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If I play it on a console I don't get malware on my PC.
Consoles have DRM to shut out unlicensed developers. A lot of indie developers are too small to qualify for a license. So do you just choose to shun games from developers without a console license? Or if not, how do you play these games?
I try not to buy games on Steam because the more games you buy on Steam, the more you stand to lose if Valve decides to cut your account off.
How is Xbox Live Arcade any different?
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Consoles have DRM to shut out unlicensed developers. A lot of indie developers are too small to qualify for a license. So do you just choose to shun games from developers without a console license? Or if not, how do you play these games?
The 360 does not. You can get indie games all you like via the XNA Creator's Club. You can even peer-review, play-test, and help translate them.
Bioware just dropped the ball this weekend (Score:3, Informative)
DRM for the DLC of Dragon Age Origins has been preventing users from playing the game since Friday. The verification servers are having an issue preventing authorization. Still no fix in sight.
Meanwhile all of the pirates are playing without issues.
Pretty much correct (Score:4, Informative)
I have a friend who couldn't play some game -- I believe it was Assassin's Creed 2 -- because his internet is so unstable that he's lucky to have an uninterrupted connection for more than 15min. Unfortunately the game's DRM required a constant internet connection, and he got pretty fed up and decided to return the game. After a while he got around to trying a cracked version and was able to enjoy the full game without any interruptions. I think he just went straight to downloading for the next game they came out with, because he didn't feel like doing any research to find out if it had the same draconian DRM.
Then again, GoG's point of view is kind of skewed. The great majority of their games are cheap, making them easy impulse buys. Since they're mostly older I bet the majority of people buying them are nostalgic adults who're willing to pay for something they remember as being really great. I kind of doubt the lack of DRM factors much into the decision for most buyers.
I want to agree, I really do (Score:4, Insightful)
As a legitimate consumer, I hate DRM with a burning passion because I'm the one getting punished for the actions of pirates, while pirates get to enjoy a DRM-free experience. I want to believe this is true, but unfortunately, I cannot let myself engage in argument from consequence logical fallacies nor indulge in confirmation bias. I look at the evidence, and the evidence (to my knowledge) says that DRM-free games get pirated at about the same rate as DRM games.
Someone please prove me wrong.
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I've heard anecdotal evidence to the contrary, from unrepentant pirates, saying that the only games they legitimately bought were DRM-free (usually quoting some trendy "indie" game of the month), but when those very same developers report that piracy is through the roof for their games (which are usually at bargain bin prices), it's hard to believe that any appreciable number of pirates really are buying the DRM-free games. Sure, some of them do. It's just that you constantly hear the same refrain from ce
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That may be an embarrassment, but 2D Boy still made a million gazillion dollars with a game that was easily available for free, because many people felt that their game was worth the prize they asked for it. Exactly the same is going on now with Minecraft. It simply doesn't matter if a fuckton of people pirate your game, if enough people do decide to pay for it.
The article also mentions, that another data point, a game with DRM, suffered exactly the same piracy figures. The point isn't that 90% of the popul
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You're wrong, DRM is there primarily to prevent people from selling their games used on the second hand market. DRM against pirates is more or less pure fiction. Most games are cracked within a few days of release, if not before. And only a very small number survive for even as long as a month, if any do.
Despite what the publishers might say, pirates are unlikely to pay for a copy, chances are if they were willing to do so they already would have.
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DRM has nothing to do with piracy.
It has everything to do with eliminating the secondary market and forcing consumers to "subscribe" to media rather than purchase it.
That's the real motive. Every time you hear piracy mentioned -- for or against DRM -- just repeat to yourself, "DRM has nothing to do with piracy."
There's more to DRM than piracy (Score:3)
Put another way, DRM == Control
too late... (Score:5, Interesting)
DRM didn't drive me to pirate games, it drove me to give up gaming entirely.
Even on a console, the hassles were just too much.
Game publishers think they're in the game business. They're in the fun business. If they figure out how to sell hassle-free fun on any of my several mainstream computing platforms, I will give them money. But the longer they fail, the less likely they are to ever interest me again.
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So have you given up on fun or moved onto other endeavors that you consider fun?
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Not just games- any software (Score:4, Interesting)
I was pretty fed up at that point, so I decided for the first time to give piracy a try. It was perfectly ethical; I was just trying to be able to use the software that had already been paid for. I couldn't believe how simple it was, just download a small crack from the pirate bay, and everything worked perfectly. DRM was the very thing that introduced me to piracy. I personally still wouldn't take anything without paying for it, but I can easily see how someone might start pirating their media solely because of DRM.
true and then some (Score:4, Insightful)
I know I've downloaded No-CD fixed .exe files for games that I actually bought. If that doesn't tell the game publishers something, I don't know what will.
I've been saying this for years: If you want to lose the "war on piracy", the absolutely best way of doing that is making the legal, bought copy less convenient than the pirate copy.
If one option you have is to go to a brick-and-mortar store, or order a CD/DVD online and wait for 1-2 days, paying some $50, then paying some more for DLC that really should've been in the main release, then spend 10 minutes entering a 243-character ID number badly printed on the inside of the case, half covered by some advertisement sticker, then have to enter your private details that they have no business of knowing, registering some online account, and having to have an active Internet connection every time you want to play, so the rootkit they installed can check you're legit, after crashing your PC a couple times and requiring you to uninstall a few perfectly legal and useful tools because it has decided they're evil...
Or, you go to some random torrent site, download three seperate releases because you know at least one is fake, but the other two are fine, have all the DRM crap removed, and you're up and running within a few hours and without all the hassle...
Seriously, which option would a rational being choose? Ignore the legal and moral, because if you feel compelled to "do the right thing", that's not a rational decision.
Yes, I am exaggerating, but not really all that much. Fact is that for way too many games these days, the torrent is simply more convenient, less hassle, less invasive(!).
And, as I keep telling to game publishers, you can't change the pirates' side of the equation. You can change yours.
reminds me... (Score:3)
of reading a PCGamer review that actually suggested using a exe stripped of DRM, because it would improve game performance noticeably. And that was back when Morrowind was first released. And DRM have only gotten more invasive since.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it appears that most of the comments are from people who bought a game and were annoyed that they also had to download DRM cracks.
So yes, many people do pay money and crack it.
Re: (Score:2)
You can pay money and then crack it.
And then you'd be supporting the company that used the DRM. By continuing to support them, it probably won't get better, and it may even eventually get worse.
but DRM isn't driving anyone to piracy who isn't already okay with piracy from an ethical standpoint.
Except people who think it would be worse to support DRM.
Re: (Score:2)
If people were "against" piracy but felt driven to avoid DRMed products, wouldn't they buy the product in question and then pirate a DRM free copy?
If it wasn't just a lame rationalization for wanting to get games for free, then yes. I doubt very many people that pirate games "because of DRM" buy the game, because they just want to get it for free and they feel better about themselves if they can rationalize it.
If you choose to not buy something because of DRM or whatever else, that's fine, but then you aren't entitled to then play and enjoy the game. If you play it anyway, then you're just a hypocrite and a leech on those who do buy it legitimately.
Re: (Score:2)
LOL at "pirate games are safe". Malware ridden keygens and cracks on usenet say otherwise. Of course, there's plenty of little nubbins infecting their system by saying it's AV false positives...
It's a good thing most people don't use usenet then.
Re: (Score:3)
That's true if the user is a complete idiot. Typically, you'll be able to avoid most, if not all, viruses if you simply only download from trusted sources. The risk could still be there, but it will be minimal.
Re:DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll give you partial credit, it's true that the absurd number of AV false positives leads to desensitization, but that blame rests squarely on the AV developers for purposefully flagging anything that looks like a crack or keygen (seems to revolve around API calls for the odd-shaped windows and chiptune playback). That said, viruses are a rarity on "official" pirate channels, since it only takes one infected victim to warn all the others and get the uploader banned (or plonked). Of course, for those getting stuff second-hand from public sites like TPB or old-school p2p such as Limewire, that social enforcement does not apply.
The alternative is to rely on mainstream web sites such as the GameCopyWorld and MegaGames, which have been publishing No-CD cracks for over a decade, and while they have accidentally posted infected files in the past (rarely), they are quick to remove them once identified.
Also keep in mind that today's viruses are usually benign - annoying, but non-destructive - they install some fraudware to run on startup, which either hijacks passwords/financial info, or tries to sell you a fake anti-virus to remove the infection (again stealing your CC info). It's not like the ones we used to write in the Dos days, since back then we didn't have the internet, thus no way to courier stolen data back to the author, so most viruses would simply append themselves to every EXE or COM file and slowly corrupt your entire system out of sheer sociopathic boredom.
Re: (Score:2)
They can put any kind of DRM crap and limitations on my [PS3] as long as it works as intended.
Wow. Of any of the options you could've named, it's funny you went with that one...
Re: (Score:2)
This is one of the reason why I shifted my gaming activities to PS3.
Say you read about an interesting video game. The graphics aren't as detailed as those of a typical PC game, but the game rules are innovative. Then you find out it's available for PC but not for PS3. Do you just shun the game?
Re: (Score:3)
Allow me to present you a counter example: Games for Windows Live.
Let's say you're (like me) buying a game. It just happens to include this GfWL "protection" that keeps you from playing it until you jumped all their hoops. This looked a bit like this for me:
1. WTF, I need a Windows Live account? *sigh* ok, let's create one. One should add that back then their page was slow and ... well, let's say not QUITE intuitive. It almost seemed that they're the only online service that does NOT want you to sign up. Bu
Re:What a load of crap (Score:4, Insightful)
People pirate software because they are cheap, unethical bastards.
Yes ... No ... Please don't throw around the word people like you speak for all of us when you have no clue about our motivations. Sure there's plenty of people who pirate because they are cheap, there's plenty of others who pirate for other reasons too. Like the last game I pirated, It costs a whole $0.99 for Angry Birds Rio on Amazon, and I'm sure as hell not that cheap. Actually seems they've released an ad supported version too but fuck em. When they released it they released it Amazon exclusive. On the release date Amazon offered the paid version for free to celebrate. After spending 20 minutes downloading the amazon fucking downloader only to be greeted by a "this service is only available to USA customers" notice I snapped. I intend to pirate the next 10 Rovio games that come out just so I gain the 20 minutes of my fucking life they wasted back.
I would have had no problem with the ad supported version. I would have had no problem with paying even $5 for that game. But no, the endless hoops consumers need to jump through these days just makes it no longer worth while. Why don't they release games world wide at the same time? Why do I need to have the DVD of the game in the drive to play when it has been installed on the harddisk? What do you mean you won't send me another disk when the game I bought got scratched in the drive? What now I need to be connected to the net to play the fucking single player game?
You may be a cheap arse punk, but quite frankly my time is worth more than the effort it takes to do something legitimately these days. Steam is tolerable. Yes it's DRM, but it is in my view nice. The download system works, the games are stored on my computer, I don't HAVE a DVD drive in my computer for the games to complain about, I can play offline, and if I lose my media due to drive failure, or house burning down I can download the game again.
Dear video games industry, If your games aren't distributed by an effort free content distribution system, and you do anything I think is not fair, or the game is not available to download from your website, expect that I will find it by some other means, your shit has wasted enough of my life.
And to you Dave, fuck you for calling me cheap.
Re: (Score:3)
I wonder if you are speaking for yourself here. How are you capable of getting inside someone's head and knowing with 100% certainty all the reasons why they may or may not buy a particular piece of software? Is there some kind of mind reading technology I haven't heard about? I can't speak for other people but the only reason I don't buy games from my favorite developer(s) is due to DRM. Period. I liked Fallout: New Vegas (which I know because I played the free cracked version) and would have bought it exc