What Modern Games Are DRM-Free? 630
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?
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...
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:5, Insightful)
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 :)
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.
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:4, Informative)
There's a pack that contains HL1, 2, Portal, TF2, CS:S, CS.. pretty much everything Valve put out. I bought it for like $70. That's about the price of ONE brand new game.
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.
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? ;)
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.
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:4, Insightful)
As a WoW player, I was rally happy that they went after Glider, as it's only purpose is to cheat.
This bnetd thing, I don't know, might be ok, might not, but give it's purpose of being able to play net games with hacked versions, I can see why Blizzard would go after them. It's only logical that any company will try to protect against illegal use of their software.
I haven't looked at the freeCraft thing, if it's just a Warcraft II clone, cleanroom implementation, then I think renaming it would have solved the problem. I don't think Blizzard can claim to own the RTS genre itself. Trademark protection requires that you go after things that try to use a similar name for a similar product, so Blizzard needed to also take action here.
--
All in all, there might be reasons not to like Blizzard, but I really don't think any of the reasons you mentioned are valid, unless you want to cheat, want to use an illegal copy of their games, or think that Blizzard should to defend its trademarks.
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Ah, and Freecaft did change its name, it's around as Stratagus [sourceforge.net]
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No, its purpose was to play games (including legitimately purchased ones) without having to deal with Blizzard's servers. For example, IIRC for a while it was the only way to play Starcraft over a TCP/IP LAN until Blizzard added support in a patch (Starcraft 1.0 could only do IPX LAN games).
bnetd was at least as legitimate as FreeCraft.
Also, the problem with Glider is not about c
We require more minerals! (Score:3, Informative)
It's now called Bos Wars [boswars.org].
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I'd have threatened to take them to small claims court for selling me a defective product. It's not your problem that someone stole your key... why the fuck should you pay ANYTHING else for the product you legitimately owned?
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It's not your problem that someone stole your key...
Actually, it kind of is.
Suppose it was a console game, and someone stole your physical game disc. Should that be their problem?
I find it much easier to keep track of a few pieces of information than a physical disc -- and, were this not the case, I could always write that information to a disc and keep track of the disc. With pre-Steam Half-Life, I could potentially lose the CD. With post-Steam Half-Life, so long as I don't lose my password, I can re-download the game.
I think that hardly counts as "defectiv
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:4, Interesting)
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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 :)
Not sure how you can say that World of Warcraft is DRM free. You are required to pay a periodic licensing fee and authenticate every time you try to use the software. If you have not paid your licensing fee the software will not operate. That is a form of DRM.
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That's a good question, and I guess when it comes down to it I don't endorse it but I don't frown upon it either. People manage to get private WoW servers, I think that's cool and fine, but obviously Blizzard doesn't. My experience with them was less than satisfactory though, personally. Too much lag and not enough players, and it's easy to see why. If you want a free MMO, there are plenty to choose from anyways from my viewpoint.
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.
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Steam problems (Score:3, Interesting)
Steam hasn't always been so perfect. When HL2 first came out, I already had a Steam account, but I signed up for a new account since HL2 came with all the games I had in my first account.
I forget exactly when this was (I think it was near the XMas rush after HL2 came out, I don't think it was when the game first came out), but one of Steam's authentication servers died under the load of all the new users signing up for HL2. The result was that all new accounts (including my "second" account) could not log
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and most importantly it always works, period.
Unless you're on a university campus with outbound firewall; then, even if you have the physical CD, you can't even play single player :-/ It also apparently does some funky network stuff which breaks VPNs and SOCKS-tunneling apps. The only way I found to make it run was to set up a VPN on a second box and use that as the gateway...
If I'd have known that it'd be that much hassle, I would have just torrented it -_-
Valve tech support is great so
Since when? During the above I tried to find out WTF they'd done to break VPNs and tunneling,
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:5, Funny)
I'm a single childless guy...
This is Slashdot. Mod parent Redundant.
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:4, Funny)
I'm a single childless guy...
This is Slashdot. Mod parent Redundant.
He said he was childless, you insensitive clod!
Re:Windows XP Activation made me a Linux user (Score:4, Insightful)
I know I'll get modded down for this... (Score:3, Interesting)
... but what happened to personal responsibility? Everything the GP did, he did of his own free will. PC gaming is not some fundamental right that big gaming companies are depriving him of. If he's becoming a monster, then he should probably lay off the games for a while.
That said, he seems to be aware of the morality of his own actions, which is a damn good start.
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]
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.
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.
Re:A hard whack from the ol' LART (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me put it another way. Why give up a system where you can fly across the GUI, knowing precisely where everything is and have become totally accustomed to doing things quickly because of this knowledge, to another system where you basically have to relearn a large portion, JUST because of something trivial as the activation of XP?
Now in a work environment, of course you're not going to resort to a pirated copy. But then again, most businesses are prepared to pony up the cash for a site license, and Microsoft takes care of businesses with the corporate versions which do not require activation in the first place. Microsoft aren't stupid in this regard. Since the businesses keep using Windows, there's nothing lost with the home user getting the pirated copy.
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.
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Fill disclosure - I use Vista and actually LIKE Vista. I chose it specifically because it suits my needs more so than Linux, so if you wish to disregard my opinions based on this fact, and the fact I do not subscribe to the typical Slashdot groupthink, I'm fine with that. :)
Nothing wrong with running what you want. I like Linux and OSS, but I'm no zealot. My Linux box and my WinXP box, like Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, live side by side in perfect harmony on my desktop. :-) In a couple weeks, MS is giving me a free copy of Vista Ultimate, and I figured I'd install that too. I have a Mac OS X laptop too. They all have things I like and scratch different itches.
As to what's better, learning how and using, I guess that's a subjective question. As a software engineer, f
Re:A hard whack from the ol' LART (Score:4, Interesting)
I suppose that's fair enough, particularly as a software engineer. I happen to like Linux too, but it just has too many issues and not enough benefits for me to convert... for now, and on this hardware. Who knows what will happen in a year's time. It's just from my perspective as a simple desktop user though, and solely my opinion obviously.
Thanks for not being one of those annoying zealots that I see so often here or on the Ubuntu forums. :)
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Except that's not actually true. Windows requires just as much time at the command line as Linux does. Most of the higher level system management tasks work a lot better when done from the command line, and IIRC somethings can't really be done at all via the GUI.
Try living without robocopy once you've used it a few times, it's the copy function which Windows should have defaulted to, it's just that good. Network interfaces, the CLI utility does a much better job for most things I need than the GUI utility d
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]
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"Completely free of DRM" is a stretch; there's an activation step for downloading any patches for any of their games. Ditto if you buy their games online.
But, their activation doesn't have a finite limit on the number of installs, rather it limits you based on the rate of installs. They don't publish the numbers or details, but essentially they're only going to stop you from activating if you activate WAY too many times in a month. I wish they were a little more transparent in terms of defining exactly h
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.
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You won't get any sympathy pumping diesel into your gasoline car, so why should you be entitled to a full refund when you try to run Crysis on your GeForce3?
Mostly because, for that gasoline car, you know you need gasoline. That's it.
In addition to a better video card, you also need at least Windows XP (2000 won't cut it), a fast, modern CPU (either 2.8 ghz for XP, or 3.2 ghz for Vista, but they recommend 2.2 ghz dual-core), probably 2 gigs of RAM, and 6 gigs of free disk space. All of that is quoting the official system requirements.
And on top of that, for it to run acceptably, you have to be reasonably free of viruses, spyware, and crapware -- that last bit p
Sins of a Solar Empire (Score:5, Informative)
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Galciv 2. The DVD/CD (whatever, I don't remember) doesn't require validation unless you want to patch it because it has a manual key process. This doesn't mean the games is TOTALLY DRM free. It just means that they put the DRM on the disc and the process of putting in your key is the Digital copy protection. I bought the Stardock version of GalCiv and was told that I would need to pay extra to get the hardcopy version of the game, and I would not be allowed to patch the bugs without using the Stardock s
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Move, or rename the file sig.bin file and try to run the game. This is a digital hardware signature generated by the DRM software in Stardock. Without this digital signature that is generated from a hardware signature it will not run. You will be prompted to activate your copy.
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.
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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.
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You might say "i won't want to play it by then", but trends in retro gaming would beg to differ on the point.
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Well, they have said that if that scenario ever occurred that they'd release patches (for the activation stuff). I guess we just have to trust them at this point.
As for the hardcopy/softcopy, this is what backups are for (and steam makes it easy to burn to DVD for games you've downloaded).
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Any purchase has risk, understand it and evaluate the value accordingly.
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.
The greatest game of all time is DRM-free... (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Comments not necessarily taken down (Score:2)
ETQW (Score:2)
P.S. it runs on Linux.
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.
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you forget that game sales follow a diminishing return chart, eventually plateauing and sliding back the way they came.
He's more or less accurate, unless you want to run a day by day time-series regression to create a forecasting model for a bloody internet forum.
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.
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Galactic Civilizations 2 (Score:2)
http://www.galciv2.com/ [galciv2.com]
Greatest 4X game ever. Period. Also DRM free.
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DRM Lite. You need Impulse to patch it, and validate it after patches.
y'arrr (Score:2, Informative)
I'll admit I snagged a copy of Spore in advance of the USA release. Played it for a day or two, and gladly coughed up dough for a legit copy once it was available.
Illegally downloaded copies != lost sales, I'm sure I'm not the only person who did it.
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?
Nonprofit lending libraries' exemption (Score:3, Informative)
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?
The United States, home of Slashdot, restricts the "rental, lease, or lending" of copies of computer programs. However, nonprofit libraries such as those run by government agencies or educational institutions are exempt. 17 USC 109(b)(2)(A) [bitlaw.com].
Why is software so special when compared to other fields?
Because it is so much easier for an end user to make a new copy[1] of a sound recording or a computer program than any other kind of work.
[1] "Copy" here includes phonorecords.
Seems to me like they like the sexy jobs (Score:3, Interesting)
In every arts related job, there are the expressive parts that you love and the administration jobs that you hate. Every game maker is founded by people that just want to make great games. Then they have to deal with the bullshit that is required to make their games a success. Is it any surprise that game makers, the RIAA, and every other arts related industry has shit the bed when it comes to marketing their products.
Let's face it, for every pirate out there, there are 100 people who are qualified to devise a way to market artistic digital media in a way that makes everyone happy. One problem stands in their way:
NOBODY IS PROVIDING ANY INCENTIVES TO MAKE THE JOB ATTRACTIVE, AND IT'S A SHITTY JOB TO BEGIN WITH.
I could go on for days, but most readers here have some insight into the situation, how much would you have to be paid to attempt to devise a reasonable scale for game makers to be reimbursed for their efforts?
Think about it, who wants that job? Worse yet, who's willing to pay for it? Everyone acknowledges it has to be done, but it's the ugliest job in a sexy industry. "Hi, I want to work for your modeling agency, got any grease traps you need cleaned?"
I record my own albums, book my own shows, drive the tour van, set up the stages, sometimes run sound myself, make my own posters, etc etc etc, and if I can do all that at age 34 and still run a successful studio, house tech at a local venue, AND still write good music, then these pukes who call themselves artists but can't deduce a way to bring their art to market can eat my shit. In fact, I happen to have a nice fluffy one brewed up just for EA.
Fire in the hole.
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.
Re:The answer... (Score:4, Interesting)
Are you 14? I ask only out of curiosity. If you are, carry on. If you're older, for shame sir
I'm not the original AC, but I share his opinion. I'm 31. The point is, anyone who wants a pirated copy of almost any popular game just has to haul their ass over to the pirate bay, look for a popular torrent of it and download. The DRM will have been stripped and everything will work just perfectly.
People actually paying for games will be presented with games that might not work with their hardware (I've seen games that only work with CD drives on a specific list, and if your drive isn't one of those you're SOL... time for a downgrade), or might not run if they have certain perfectly legitimate software installed (I've heard of games that refuse to run if you have debuggers, virtual CD drivers or even fucking Process Explorer installed). Even if they get the game to run, there's a significant change it'll stop working if they upgrade their hardware too many times.
Yes, DRM is an encumbrance on the paying customers but not on the pirates. This seems perfectly clear to me. So when you see people complaining about DRM, generally speaking they have paid.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Some of us "dirty bastards" have a damn good reason to do what we do. The way art and culture is commodified in this society is dangerous and wrong, and is responsible for many of the corporate abuses we see today. I don't feel that I'm stealing anything when I download a game, because the company that made it doesn't own it and can't sell it to me. Art and enter
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats some great justification, buddy. Glad you can sleep okay. Their art isn't YOURS to give away - if you believe as you do, then just play the open source games and stop being a self-centered prick.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So a company spends a ton of cash to develop a cutting edge game, and you think you have the right to access it for free just because you label it as "art" and declare that their "art" doesn't belong to them?!?
I'm no fan of DRM, but I just can't take this argument seriously. They developed it, they paid people to code it, shouldn't it be possible for them to reclaim their expenses (and then make a profit)?
If you want high quality, cutting edge games to continue to be produced, then there has to be a method
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't tell me you really need Spore so bad that you have to dl it without paying for it. You know the deal, they made a game and to play it you have to pay for it. If you don't want to, don't, but also, don't make up shit about art and culture. It cost the same as a meal at a nice restaurant or a couple of cases of beer. How about you skip a few bags of weed and pay for your art and
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.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
First, I still have to see a video game I could consider as "Art", at least as valuable art. They are entertainment, they can be part of pop culture, but art (as in Beethoven, Rembrandt or Shakespeare)? Sorry, but no.
Second, a painter can work on his spare time, a musician and a writer too, but video games are now an industry. They are not about one artist expressing himself, they are a business. Most people who work in this industry do it mainly as a job, meaning for the money, they don't do it for the lov
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Art belongs to the artist who created it, for the lifetime of the artist. When the artist dies, then you can claim that his/her work belongs to the greater culture. Not before. Any less than that is infringing upon the artist's freedom, and is 100% unacceptable.
The founding fathers seemed to think otherwise. [wikipedia.org]
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.
Re:The answer... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The answer... (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM is not about pirates, it's about killing the reseller market for games.
Re:The answer... (Score:4, Informative)
Amen brother. EA and the other gaming companies have been pissed off for years at Gamestop, EB Games, etc that they resell their games used to customers and they don't get any slice of the pie. The gaming companies at one point wanted to make reselling games commercially illegal. They were like why should we only get 1 sale when 4-5 people have bought it from EB Games, played it and sold it back to be resold again. That has really been pissing of the computer game companies and they have slowly been working to make that less and less possible.
If you want to know if it working, just look at the historical data. EB Games used to sell a ton of used PC games, not so much anymore due to online activation keys and other forms of DRM. The PC industry has slowly been able to kill the resale industry of PC games, and now they want to do the same exact thing to console industry if they can.
Game companies want to make it illegal for you to give away or sell your old games you don't play anymore because it cuts in to their profits for them to sell another copy instead of someone getting or buying your old copy. Have you actually read some of the EULAs that they make you agree to? Most of them do not allow you to resell or even give away your game to someone else, only you can use it and play it. It has *ZERO* to do piracy and 100% to do with killing the resell industry.
Don't believe me read some of the old news articles on this and ask the game companies what they think of the used game resell industry.
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.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The gaming community has been suing thieves? I demand linkage.
Re:The answer... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm the first person to voice this (unpopular) view.
No you're not. It pops up like an annoying ad everytime the subject of DRM or copyright comes up. And it's lame. GNAA is a better read.
Fuck I hate this site sometimes.
Click here [slashdot.org].
Re: (Score:2)
how the hell did I get redundant? I'm the first person to voice this (unpopular) view.
You were modded "Redundant" for lack of a better descriptor, and because others have expressed this view before (not that 90% of everything said is unoriginal to begin with), and because this view kinda sorta goes against the groupthink, but mostly because it doesn't work like that: you don't change the behavior of other people as a group simply by asking.
Just because something is illegal doesn't mean that people won't do it. The economics has to work out---and by "economics", I'm not merely referring to mo
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.
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.
Re: Punkbuster (Score:3, Informative)
Punkbuster (Made by EA, hmm) is a terribly buggy and resource intensive program that is ineffectual at BEST.
Punkbuster is made by Evenbalance which isn't related to Electronic Arts. Now EA Games does license Punkbuster from Evenbalance to use in various games and the same goes for Activision and ID Software.
Now the part about it being buggy and resource intensive I can testify that is definitely true. Even a monster of a machine like mine using an ASUS Maximus Extreme, Q6600, 2GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM, and GeForce 8600 GTS it'll choke on games like Call of Duty 4 whenever Punkbuster does screen captures that get up
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Impulse is DRM. DRM as it is defined is any electronic form of verification of ownership. If you don't have Impulse, you cannot run the game.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I won't link to it, but gamecopyworld.com is the domain name for those who want the NO-CD or cracked versions of the games. It is mirrored by various web sites throughout the world.
A warning that some of the cracks may have malware in them. You bought the ticket, so take the ride. As Hunter S. Thompson would say.