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What Modern Games Are DRM-Free?
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?
GNAA announces switch to Windows Vista
fellacious (GNAP) Intercourse, PA - Windows Vista appears to finally be taking off, at least within one Fortune 100 company. The GNAA had for the past 13 years been using Red Hat Linux and it's successor, Fedora Core, but growing discontent with the free software operating system forced CTO Jmax to declare on Wednesday that the company was to be switching its entire infrastructure to the new version of Windows, effective immediately. "I'm not going to theatrically claim that I wasn't expecting to have to do this," Jmax said. "This has been coming for quite some time." The GNAA's troubles with Red Hat's Linux system included chronic governance problems, a persistent failure to maintain key repositories, a complex and undocumented submission process which has kept the GNAA's free trolling utilities off the Red Hat-based desktops of thousands of would-be trolls, inability to keep RPM up to date, and a failure to address the problem of Firefox not crashing a entire computer when the user loads Last Measure. "The deal-breaker, though, was when a key Last Measure server remained down for four hours while our entire Intercourse development team tried desperately to bring it up despite not having statically-linked package manager binaries." What had happened was Dikky, visiting from Norway, wanted to play the child pornography mod of Doom 3 on that server- which had to drag several libraries with it. "In addition," said Jmax, "several key software applications used in the GNAA's corporate workflow are proprietary software- which means that they had to be run in an Ubuntu compatibility environment anyway." However, being as those unnamed applications were written in C#.NET, "We expect that our transition to Windows Vista will come off without a hitch."
About Jmax:
The CTO of the GNAA, Jmax also has a seat on Microsoft's board of directors. His resume can be accessed at http://goatse.fr/.
About Windows Vista:
The fastest-growing desktop operating system on the market, Windows Vista combines the legendary security of Windows 98 with the legendary ease of use of those computer interfaces you see in the movies into one ultra-fast, ultra-stable computing platform.
About Red Hat:
A failure of a computer company, Red Hat burns through investor money while giving its products away for free. It is currently under investigation from the SEC for misuse of invested funds, and being sued by the GNAA for breach of contract for sucking more than specified in the GNAA's contract with Red Hat.
About the Linux community:
Trolled.
About GNAA:
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.
Are you GAY ?
Are you a NIGGER ?
Are you a GAY NIGGER ?
If you answered "Yes" to all of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY NIGGER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America and the World! You, too, can be a part of GNAA if you join today!
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Prepare for the Keith World Order
I wasn't about to ask permission from Microsoft to use something that I bought and paid for. Since then, I've personally converted three non-techies from Windows to Linux. These companies never stop to think of the sales they lose by trying to stop each and every last instance of piracy.
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
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
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! Seriously, hardly any breath is spent on criticising these leaches. In fact, I bet I see it justified several times over the course of this thread. If it becomes socially unacceptable, people will stop doing it so much. Right now, stories like this just work as justification for more theft.
STOP GODDAMN STEALING!
Jeremy
is which games work well in WINE??
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?
Try Sins of a Solar Empire, one of the best games of the year that has no copy protection. So far they have sold 500,000 copies of it which is huge considering the modest budget.
I ecentky purchased Supreme commander, as soon as the 3220 patch was relesed (which removed the DRM from the game), It now only needs a valid CD key if you want to game online. I just like not having to rummage through my CD collection to make the game run :)
Sins of a Solar Empire made by Stardock is a recently released DRM free game (their other games are DRM free as well).
We've discussed Stardock's anti-DRM policy before.
No affiliation with Stardock, just a happy customer.
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!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
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?
They're using their grammar skills there.
...it's even open source.
Advice: on VPS providers
It's just as likely that the explanation that Amazon gave was legit and that a technical error caused them to be removed (it wasn't just negative reviews, but ALL reviews on Spore retail which went away). Remember never attribute to malice that which can be more easily explained by a simple fuckup. They probably have never had that many comments on any single object before and some limit was simply exceeded. They fairly quickly reposted all comments and never removed the volumes of negative feedback on the other versions of the game. My favorite DRM free games are freeciv and Scorched 3D.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Those you download from torrent sites.
If you fear the legal consequences get another hobby since DRM is made to fight paying customers.
ETQW all the way. Aside from it being an excellent game and being DRM free, you can get a full copy of it for $15 on Amazon.
P.S. it runs on Linux.
Well, if it was downloaded 170,000 times, that would be 1,700 failures. But those were the pirates, who don't suffer from DRM gone bad.
So how many actual customers did they have? Because 1% of them mean that thousands of people had to put up with ineffective DRM for no reason.
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.
As long as you keep local backups of your downloaded content and the Steam client intstaller you're good to go. If for some reason Valve and/or Steam should ever disappear you can still launch in Offline Mode and play your games.
The Unreal/Unreal Tournament series of games, including UT3, don't have DRM. However, Gears of War DOES, so avoid that one.
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.
Good Old Games has just entered beta. They are offering older games for $5.99 - $9.99, completely DRM free. They've got some great games in their catalog, including Fallout & Freespace.
Being DRM Free is one of their major selling points.
http://www.galciv2.com/
Greatest 4X game ever. Period. Also DRM free.
It should say what modern games are shit free. Instead, i see a word 'DRM', that i dont know.
Read radical news here
I'll admit I snagged a copy of Spore in advance of the USA release. Played it for a day or two, and gladly coughed up dough for a legit copy once it was available.
Illegally downloaded copies != lost sales, I'm sure I'm not the only person who did it.
The Witcher Enchanced Edition on Stardock Impulse will be DRM free. I believe the release date is this coming Tuesday.
I am all for stopping DRM in every possible media.
But DRM-free isn't and shouldn't be a factor of AWESOMENESS. It's like putting China-free on your food product: doesn't make your food taste any better, period.
This is so going to be marked as troll, isn't it ?
As an added bonus, you'll be supporting independent developers who come up with innovative gameplay ideas. I'm liking some stuff from Chronic Logic lately, most of which even comes for Linux (in addition to Windows and OS X).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Alteil ( http://www.alteil.com/ ) is a free online CCG that started up recently and is truly a fascinating and fun tactical card game. Great art too. Its all browser based, so no downloads/no DRM.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
It's no longer acceptable for games to need administrator privileges to install. That's a holdover from the Windows 95/98/ME era, and should have disappeared with Windows XP. With Vista, there's no excuse for it.
... 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.
you reap what you saw.
if companies like EA didnt sow that much SHIT, they wouldnt get any piracy on their hands.
respected companies who treat their gamers like customers should be enjoy lowest piracy rates. whereas companies who are run by marketing people and lawyers instead of gaming industry people, like EA, get their butt pirated off.
you should think about why.
NOone can heavy-hand a free market. If you are not selling your product from the value it should be, market pirates it.
for historic case studies, check out the subject of 'mercantilism' and how even penalty of death didnt prevent everyone from smuggling against their nations' wishes.
once mercantilism ended around the world, smuggling stopped in a flash.
Read radical news here
Just about all popular games also come in a DRM free version. These versions are usually called "cracked", "patched" or "warzed".
Serriously though, pirated versions of music, DVDs and games are often superior for these kinds of reasons. Buy the boxed copy and leave it in its shrink wrap then pirate it.
You're out of luck if you want to play online.
it's a dead end, I'd really like to see the numbers of how much they make vs how many they believe prevented piracy.
Good developer? Risk taker? Philosopher? Good values? Try here
stop trying to sell games from the max price you think market can handle.
these prices are determined by BA graduates, and many of them are incapable of incorporating the fact that digital goods are not like physical goods, which are what current economics understanding has been built on in the last 300 years.
a game costs a few millions to create, but it takes no more than 0.0001 cents to reproduce, even if you use a cd. if you go for internet distribution, reproducing costs are much lower.
if companies started to sell their games from everyday prices like $10, $15, they would find that games has a much higher marginal returns allowance, and there are many people who would shell out $10 bucks for a download from internet to take a peek at a game they wont play for long, JUST to have it on their hard drives in case they may wanna play it later.
instead, they are trying to push the MAX that anyone can justify, $60-70. and voila - its NOT working.
if they went the proposed route, neither they would have to worry about piracy, nor they would have to deal with the costs of customer support.
we need a radiohead for gaming sector, thats certain now.
and for this, we have to do as much as possible to evade bad practice companies like EA.
Read radical news here
No game so far has been left uncracked on the PC, (of course not including the ones that anyone didn't even try to crack). So all your precious money and time are only spent on making your legit customers annoyed. Good game, EA.
Personally, I liked how they did it for UT, and UT 03/04, Cd is required to play for the first 3 months or so, then release a patch that removes that requirement.
Solution: Buy the game, pirate a copy without DRM.
You get your game, developers get their money.
Just don't get caught.
> 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.
Democrat delenda est
Is having no copy protection enough to call a game "DRM-free" though? (I'm just asking, wondering which kind of digital restrictions come under "DRM" and which don't.)
For example, Guild Wars has no copy protection, and you can trivially copy it onto all your machines and use any of them at any time, with any GW account (your own, a friends's, or anyone else's), without any re-registration nor any re-enabling required. However, ONCE ONLY you have to register each campaign upgrade you buy as belonging to a specific account (by entering a long key), and it's tied to that account, not to your box.
So does this upgrade-activation by key fall under "DRM", or is the game "DRM-free" because there is no copy protection?
It's just a matter of definition, but we should all be using the same definition for the discussion about "DRM-free games" to make sense.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
You could always play open source games. They are fun, they work, they are free (mostly =P), and most likely the programmers had fun programming them even without the prospect of monetary gain. Heres a nice wikipedia list of open source games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_games
"I used to be an avid PC gamer."
So did I then I grew up, gotten a job. Bills, house, etc, etc. Anyway the majority of games in my collection are older games with the occasional new one. The biggest obstacle isn't DRM but the high cost were I got one or two. That's why I wait and buy used if possible.
Solution #1 Allow users to download the game for free, but have to pay an Internet subscription to use it online for multiplayers and buy items in the game. (Like the Pirates of the Caribbean Online game does).
Solution #2 Users can buy the game with no DRM, but at a much larger fee like $100+ to cover the costs of people pirating the game from their copy.
Solution #3 Make the game web based, and users have to suffer through advertising to play it for free, otherwise a small monthly fee makes it add free. The game is released on Facebook and MySpace (like Battle Stations) and thus the game can be played by any OS user that has a web browser with shockwave flash players. The game has Action Points, to play it and the user can buy more action points or earn them by completing offers or just wait every hour for them to refresh.
Solution #4 sell the game for $35 without DRM, but each version of the game only works for a year, after that you have to buy a new version number to use it after that year. Minor version numbers do not count, only major version numbers. Year one will be the 1.X versions, year two will be the 2.X versions, etc.
Solution #5 Open Source the game and make it a free version without all of the features of the commercial version that requires a CD-Key and register an Internet account to play the game. The commercial version won't play unless the user has an Internet account set up with the game maker that they log into each time they play the game. The game server will check IPs and if the same account logs into the game server from two different IPs at the same time, the first one will be allowed to log in but not the second one, until the first one times out or logs out.
Solution #6 Sell the game and if the user does not enter a valid CD-Key that can be verified, they have to play the game with advertising and limited features, until they pay for a CD-Key online and it removes the advertising. No DRM, but the game will still play with conditions if it is pirated.
Solution #7 Stop supporting the PC and Mac, and only develop the game for game consoles. Don't release a PC or/and Mac version until you can figure out a way to make money on game sales without DRM and still stop most piracy.
Most game developers are starting to look at option #7, because they ignore the Mod-chips that bypass DRM for game consoles, because most game console owners don't know what a mod-chip is or how to install one and actually buy the retail version of the game instead of pirating it. They are mostly Luddites that can't figure out how to install a program on a PC or Mac, and bought a game console instead because it was easier for them to play games on.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
a lot of other small game producers who are usually overlooked by the /. crowd
If they are already up to 1% within one week of release, what will that be up to in 6 months? How about if i want to play it again in 2 years, will i still be able to get ahold of someone at EA to get it to activate?
Electronic data is the only place where people allow this kind of crap (imagine if every time you wanted to start your car you had to present your ownership and submit to an ID scan to show it's yours, or every time you want to unzip your fly you have to swipe it with your receipt, ridiculous yes but there are equally ludicrous laws concerning software) but it's spreading wider as more and more media, communications and security are made electronic. Hell, if the DMCA were applied to something like cars, if you locked your keys in the car you would be screwed and have hope the dealer will help you, using a coat hanger to get the door open to get into your property would constitute a crime as a circumvention of the security procedures/anti-theft features of the vehicle.
DRM might make the company managers happy about protecting their investment, but it only harms legitimate users. Pirates will get whatever they want whenever they want and DRM will barely even slow them down. I used to pirate software as a kid until my income rose to the point where I could comfortably afford to spend 60$ on a game that I may or may not enjoy. Yet I still played every single game I wanted to try, without having to worry about putting the CD in the drive every time I wanted to play (often with better performance as a result) due to cracked copies, and I can think of only 2 games (out of literally hundreds that I pirated) that I could not play within the first few days of release, and I was often able to get the full version BEFORE the official release. DRM does nothing because it takes 1 person in this day and age to find a way around it and put the crack on the net, and there are plenty of assembly guru's who consider it a challenge and do it for kicks. Hell, I cracked a few games myself for my own use when I was learning assembly in College.
Everyone says that piracy is so bad on PC because it's so much easier on PC than on console, but that's not necessarily true. I know several people who can mod consoles, and once it's modded you can run any copied game, you can just rent and rip to the HDD with PS2 etc..., whereas with PC you have to find a working copy online and also find a crack that isn't infected with viruses (might be easy for those of us in the know but I have fixed a LOT of computers for people who tried without knowing what they were doing, although bittorrent sites have made it a little easier) Hell, I can mod a PSP in less than 5 minutes with no hardware changes, then all you need is a decent sized memory stick.
If the game companies want to seriously end piracy, several things need to be done to minimized the root reasons for piracy.
1. For the love of god, release finished products. Releasing a bug riddled beta and calling it v1.0, then releasing patches before the first day its out is really, really bad publicity. While patches to balance multiplayer gameplay and to fix weird unforeseeable glitches (game crashes on level 2 if your running an NVidia card with an Amd CPU during a full moon on a Wednesday during a leap year). There will always be bugs on PC due to the sheer number of different configurations out there (and many are badly maintained), but many bugs would have been fixed if the companies had a proper QA procedure. Releasing buggy software is bad, but the fact that most places have a "No PC software returns policy" is even worse. Which brings up #2
2. Allow returns/resale - If I get a game for console that doesn't work or I don't like, I can bring it to the local game shop for a refund or to sell/trade it in for credit on another. With PC I'm stuck with my $50+ coaster. A LOT of people I know won't buy PC
The US Version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R (IIRC) does not have anything, not even a CD check.
Want to stress test your video card, turn on the Dynamic lights (my agp 3850 hits 90C...yikes, but no crashes/problems --knock wood).
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Spore's DRM was so effective that the cracked version was leaked only *3* days prior to retail. The game companies are making progress!
Given how Windows is set up, there is one reason for it to want administrator privileges: To put the shortcut to the game in the All Users menu. Otherwise, users can't see the game that's installed if they didn't install it.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Back to basics bouncy platform games, simple racers etc... absolutely nostalgically brilliant (and damn cheap if you know which bargain bin to look in ;-)
John_Chalisque
Same here. As a developer, I paid thousands of dollars for MSDN Universal the year that Windows XP was released. Although I got a copy of XP with MSDN (actually 10 copies so long as they were for my use only), I never used it. I haven't bought (or otherwise obtained) a copy of Windows since, even though my in-laws work at Microsoft and could get discounted copies. I'm not interested in my software being on someone else's leash (that applies to you too, Adobe).
don't games require direct interaction with the video hardware to run?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
don't games require direct interaction with the video hardware to run?
1994 called. It wants VGA mode 13h back.
(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.
I'd be some sort of criminal if I didn't mention FreeSpace SCP, which is an open-sourced space sim with no DRM whatsoever.
And a very very good game. And multi-platform. Now go download it.
Rebel Without A Pause
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 login to Steam (although my old account worked fine). It meant that lots of people who had purchased HL2 couldn't play it for two or three days, which kind of sucked.
I do like Steam, but I'll buy a game on CD (with a good old fashion disk-in-the-drive copy protection system) if it's available rather than buy on Steam.
I don't have any real problems with Steam, though. One day when Valve goes out of business, life will get a little interesting, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
I imagine Steam would be a lot less fun if I was on dialup.
Man can hack. It is a simple rule. We are flawed as beings INHERENTLY. To insist on DRM and SecuROM and serial #'s. If it has a way for PEOPLE to play it, it has a way for ANY DRM to fail. I use Steam because I like having the ability to not necessarily worry about the DRM. Its there, and accounts have been hacked from STEAM itself. However, it does allow you to play 'offline', and it does support a ton of Games these days. I personally have not bought a game in years, other than the Steam games. And even those have been 'tried' before purchase. Simply because if I play the game, and the controls, graphics, or even the Game itself Sucks, I don't want to be STUCK with it. Wait, there was a game I purchased recently, and soon found that after 5-6 hours of play, it was all the same ....Same mission, same goals, same everything, and the publisher also had a Subscription mode to buy more of the same stuff. They just recently went out of business, so had I still been playing the game, I would be kind of upset that my $50.00 was wasted, and any money spent afterwards was also wasted, because due to their scheme, I cannot even play the game now.
I think it was even an EA game. Not sure, but its these types of things that make the publishers and developers FORGET that the person BUYING the game SHOULD OWN IT, if not the IP behind it, at least the Media and Playability of the game.
All we do when we buy games is PURCHASE a COPY of The code. But they seem to have forgotten that in their haste to make cash.
It is very easy to get your 360 (insert favorite console here) modded, and after that you can play burned games. PC games are already under assault by the console market, which sports lower development costs and higher unit sales. Come to think of it, crazy PC DRM is just another nail in PC games' coffin. Of course, good PC games will always exist. But as the market dwindles my selection will get worse and worse. Pretty soon I'll just be waiting around for the next blizzard game or iteration of Civilization. Oh wait I already am.
Do you guys realize how stupid this arguement is? It just doesnt make sense. If you are really an honest person and really do have the cash, then pay for it and *then* do what ever you like to use it as *you* want. If that means paying for a licence but perfering to run the cracked for conveience then fine. Unless you do, then your rationalizing your behavior. Im not going into the pirating-is-morally-wrong debate, but be honest with yourselves at least and say "Yes, I am a pirate because I'm too cheap to pay for things I want" instead of trying to play the victim and say "I pirate, but only because game companies make me".
I fully admit to using torrents to download things. I have some VHS tapes of movies from way back when, and I'd like them on dvd. Downloaded. I bought my school textbooks but would rather just carry my laptop. textbooktorrents.com saves the day. I lost my install cd for morrowind. Got a copy. But I actually own those things, albit in a different form. Unless you really do already own it though, its meaningless if you have the money to spend or not. Heck, I would say youre probably worse because you DO have the money, but rationalize enough not to spend it.
That rant over, America's Army is a good game with guaranteed no DRM. I havent played it for a while because it is too much for my system to handle anymore, but it was a blast back in the day.
Sins of a Solar Empire by Stardock. DRM free, doesn't even nag you for a CD.
This is a spiritual successor to Homeworld. It's a 3D space RTS where the scale is truly epic, the largest battlefields involve dozens of solar systems with hundreds of planets and thousands of ships. The UI has been tweaked and polished to let you easily manage fleets and planet resources on this scale. It's incredibly impressive.
If you loved the Homeworld series you should check it out. RTS fans would love it as well.
The only downside, at least for me, is there is no campaign. Instead you have a series of scenarios. There is a vibrant multilayer community, which plays something like a very aggressive variant of Civilization, since infrastructure is incredibly important but unlike Civ the attacker is almost always at the advantage.
link
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.
What are you talking about? How is it supposed to install a ring 0 driver that lets the game company connect to your machine and delete all your pirated software? :P
Paradox Interactive not only makes DRM free games, but they are of a high quality, and they listen to what their customers say. Them and HL2/HL2 mods are the only games I've actually paid for in the last 3 years, simply because of their lack of DRM and their quality.
I have heard this all before; from so called experts hired to make up stats to justfy just about anything.
I would bet that P2P research firm was only tracking the Demo, or anything with the word spore embeded in it.
The thing that will really suprise me is when these so called research firm start backing up their claim with real evidance.
TeTalon
You are either a part of the problem, or a part of the solution, which are you.
I can see your point, but that would require the game to be installed to the user's home directory (C:\Documents and Settings\user in XP, C:\Users\user in Vista) which kind of limits the game to the user who installed it. And if multiple users install it, good bye hard drive space.
That isn't really a good response to your statement, but I really doubt any company is going to take the time to install their product to your home directory when they can just as easily use C:\Program Files\.
"downloaded over 170,000 times already"
That sounds.. Really, really, low. ONE of the torrents on The Pirate bay currently 6500 seeders and 17000 downloaders.
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?
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 uploaded to the server for analysis at an interval (some every two minutes) which can make a difference between you successfully killing a player or getting choked and they kill you instead. I have heard there are a few tricks to get around that in CoD4 such as forcing the game into multiple threaded mode by configuring the graphics setting Dual-Video Cards to true even though you only have a single card with one GPU processor.
Another bad thing with Punkbuster is that if your pb client is even slightly out of date with updates such you were gaming all night and then fourteen hours later once you've woken up and decided to play the game again on the exact same server and there was an update, well you'll get kicked off with in a minute due to some communication error with your pb client of which the only fix is to manually update the pb client by running the pbsetup utility. Talk about annoying...
This space is not for rent.
Games are optional, entertainment. I've got less free time than disposable income. I have no problem shelling out for a game; but if your DRM sounds too oppressive, I'll probably just pass over your precious game and do something else. Games are supposed to be fun, after all. I don't want to waste *my* time fussing around because you don't like your customers. I would really appreciate it if the DRM used was detailed on the box, but that would just drive away sales I suppose. Did get Sins of a Solar Empire, BTW, and it is pretty great. Piracy? Right, wrong? Irrespective of the morality, DRM has not been effective, except at annoying or driving away legitimate customers.
The original Company of Heroes, which won all kinds of Game of the Year awards, shipped without any DRM.
Relic added DRM for the stand alone expansion and gold editions, but I can't think of any games with more fair DRM.
You won't find a better RTS until possibly Star Craft 2, but even Blizzard might not be able to beat it.
I heard the American publisher of Checkers just ripped off a British game called Draughts.
Why is DRM such a big problem for gaming? Maybe my usage is different than other people. I buy a game. I install it on the system I have built specifically for entertainment (HTPC+Gaming, as it were). I play it until I'm bored. I uninstall it. Or, I don't uninstall it because disk space is cheap.
I bought Spore, my wife wants to play it too. So we installed it on her PC, but she can't play online too, she'd have to play on my account - which is fine and all but I really feel upset that with Spore and the other games (like Quakewars ET)
Buying 2 copies of the game so we can both play online is a bit much. I'd gladly pay an extra 1/3 of the cost of another copy.
This can't be said often enough:
If you don't like the DRM and want to teach the game company a lesson, you should stay completely away from the game. Don't pirate it.
By pirating a game, you hurt the game company less than by not playing it at all. Pirate players sometimes cause extra sales or adds value to the game in mods or forum contributions. Non-players don't.
By not pirating a game, you will also not give the game company statistical ammunition to add even more DRM to their next release.
So to send a clear message that you don't want DRM:
1. Buy as many DRM-free games as possible.
2. Don't buy any DRM-infected games.
3. Don't pirate any DRM-infected games.
And preferably tell the game companies that you did 1 instead of 2.
Bit like Lemmings with physics. I'm not an affiliate of any sort, just someone who pre-ordered, played the beta of chaper 1 and loved it. :)
http://www.2dboy.com/
Unfortunately, though, having "gone gold" means "will be available in November", AFAICT. *sob*
golly
http://golly.sourceforge.net/
is DRM free.
And as Conway, Guy, and Berlekamp describe in "Winning Ways", the game is not a two-person game, not a one-person (solitaire) game, but a zero-person game. But totally addictive and fun. People have spent decades playing it.
In the long run it doesn't matter a whole lot because being so incompetent opens up opportunity for a new up and comer who 'gets it' to grab everyones attention and loyalty. Happens in any and every industry.
The one I got off of usenet hasn't asked me to activate any... oh, wait, nevermind, nothing to see here. Move along. Move along.
Of course we would copy a car and all those other objects, if they could be copied by mere bit replication. They can't (yet), so we don't.
Bit replication is a million miles from theft, and at least one billion people in the world understand that difference and so bit-replicate freely.
Law is meant to represent the needs and desires of everyone, not just the content providers. And when it doesn't do so, then the public doesn't feel obliged to follow it.
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.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Cheers to that! Years ago in my household, when we set out to upgrade our aging win95 system, we learned about the XP "Genuine Advantage" nonsense. Our dislike for having to "ask permission" is what led us to search for alternatives, and we upgraded instead to a then-unfamiliar-and-scary OSX system. Fast-forward several years, and the windows systems across the family have been forgotten, donated, or discarded; Macs have taken over. (Most of the folks didn't know or care about the XP activation, but it was the reason Apple got their foot in our door in first place.)
2. Allow returns/resale
That sort of thing has got me thinking. If you bought a two slice toaster and only one of the sides toasted, you WOULD return it, and I think (I haven't checked, but I seem to remember something about it) it's illegal for the store to refuse to give you a refund or replacement of the faulty item. Why does this not apply to software?
If I got some software, with my computer meeting the minimum requirements, and the piece of software was so buggy it was practically unusable, why am I not able to return it like I would return a faulty toaster?
... 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.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
While it may not have DRM in the US, in the EU you can only buy a DRM-boxed version. Yeah, propably the developer will say the publisher required this, but what do I care?
Not bought.
This is fucking hilarious!!! Stupid niggers with no sense of humor.
Yeah, my karma sucks....but so do the mods.
In my experience these guys don't put any DRM whatsoever in their games, they have a very good customer support and their games are generally of high quality (gameplay). That being said, the stability of their games sometimes leaves to be desired, but are still worth their money. Take a look at this thread if you don't believe me.
You can find them here. Please respect these guys when you're interested in their games, and actually buy them, instead of downloading from some p2p network.
Dwarf fortress.
A great game, DRM free, cost free, free download, free support, free updates...
When all games use the donations business model the world of gaming will be much better.
Yes I know it means low budget games. Big budget!=quality
This model is working NOW, today
games companies are the first to bitch when m$ changes something in DirectX, by freeing themselves from a specific OS (and DRM) they would win more customers, have less technical support headaches and take (partial) control for themselves of their environment.
there are thousands of windows applications that don't work on Linux - thankfully
Open Arena totally kicks ass: http://openarena.ws/
personally i run linux now even on what used to be my Windows gaming tower (of noisy inferno) and i tend to play more and more opensource or at the very least completely DRM free games. Lately i have been playing toribash, its a simple, not graphically fancy game, but it is quite challenging and imaginative; also it allows me to plan fancy and vastly deranging (to my opponent) street fighting moves :D
that said, will wright should quit EA,
they clearly butchered his game by using greedy DRMs he could do so much better without them...
http://www.kruhm.org/
Stardock - www.stardock.com, and www.impulsedriven.net - offer their games DRM-Free and electronically distributed.
THQ strips the copy protection from their games after a couple of patches, or releases them without one alltogether. (Examples: Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander)
I don't mind DRM as long as it doesn't overstep its bounds.
I think that Valve's "Steam" DRM system is fine -- it checks that I am who I say I am, and in return, it helps me to install my games and keep me in touch with my online buddies. All parties are happy.
On the other hand, Sony's malicious SecurRom "rootkit" runs completely counter to the notion of keeping all parties happy. It specifically sets out to impinge upon my rights (by disabling access to my CD-ROM drive and so forth), and that drives me bonkers. I refuse to play any games which stoop to such antediluvian methods.
Exactly! Thanks. Well Said.
That is why i purchased Sins of Solar Empire. And that is why i purchased Crysis, uninstalled it and returned it to store once i read about the SecurROM. (stores here by law have to accept opened Computer CDs if the buyer says it doesn't work on his Comp. EULA is not applicable here: its governed by Contract Act and Sale of Goods Act which allows a buyer to sample the goods before paying for the same.)
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
I reinstall windows a couple of times each year and I usually install the games I really like every time. Like Fallout and Fallout 2 for instance, and if they had the same silly activation limitations I'd frankly have needed a hundred activations.
I had a lot of problems with both bioshock and mass effect, so I'll frankly never buy another game with activation limits.
I've never downloaded any game illegally, but I think I'll enter the whole piracy scene by downloading spore.
Savage 2
has no DRM: download the Linux or Windows client, check out the demo, create an account ($20, once) and play for as long as you want from any computer. It is independently developed/published/distributed by the nice folks at S2Games.
You can play Savage 2 as a RTS (if you are the team's commander) or FPS (everyone else). It's pretty addictive, but you have to spend some time to master the melee system.
A while back at a LAN party I lost the box and instruction book (along with the key code) to my Empire at War game. So now, two years later, when I wanted to play again I figured I was SOL. I sent one email to LucasArts asking for a new code, to which they replied asking for everything I could produce on the game (scan's of the CDs, receipt, box, instruction book, etc.)
I replied with a picture of the CDs and explained that I'd bought the game way back and didn't have anything else. They replied back with a new key code. No money, and no more questions asked.
Some other game houses should take a lesson...
People tend to avoid free games so here are some links: http://wz2100.net/ excelent RTS. http://www.alientrap.org/nexuiz/ Quake like FPS with fancy graphics. http://www.warsow.net/?page=home Fps with emphesis on acrobatics. Freespace 2 open http://fs2source.warpcore.org/install.html . http://www.wesnoth.org/ a very highly rated turn based stratagey game.
170000 downloads? It wouldn't surprise me. The first thing I'll do if I ever buy the game is download a patched version that eliminates the DRM, or at least removes the necessity of having the CD in the drive, if that is one of the restrictions. Downloads does not equate to "unpaid for". And I'll certainly eliminate the "3 install limit". No sense in bugging EA on the phone when I eventually reach the fourth time building a system. It costs them money and me time. We both win. It's almost a courtesy to patch such an awful bug.
It's unfortunate that EA was stupid enough to pay for the useless DRM snake oil in the first place, but that's their problem.
Anyway, the only DRM I'll accept is the one-time, "enter key code at install" kind, because that is simple and I can easily make sure I archive the key in a safe pace in case I have to install it again. It's like a "proof of purchase". I'm fine with that. From what I've read and seen, Steam is almost acceptable too, because it can run in off-line mode after the initial registration, but I haven't actually tried it myself yet. I'm not comfortable with having to do on-line registration at all.
There's really no need for copy protection in a subscription based model; Blizzard makes much more money selling monthly subscriptions than they do on the games. I'd really rather not see all the games go to a subscription setup though, that would make it really hard for new developers to enter the mix, and we'd probably see even more EA-style regurgitation sequels.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Check out Depths Of Peril. DRM free and TONS of fun. Think Diablo, with a fascinating and challenging strategic competition between factions.
I take another approach, if I really want the game. I buy the store copy, then download the pirate copy. The store copy goes into a closet (usually unopened), while the pirate copy gets installed on my computer. I'm absolutely guaranteed that there will be no friggin' DRM to worry about, and the game almost always works as well as the store copy (sometimes better).
anti-piracy will eventually kill all participants.
windows? made popular through piracy.
counter-strike? made popular through piracy.
adobe photoshop? made popular through piracy.
these 3 franches/products has been leading markets for years, and they all only but gained their success due to piracy.
in making a software unprobable of piracy, you are limiting it's market. the less people who has access to it, the less popular it will be. the more people who has access to it, the more popular it will be. it's fucking basic logics.
No, games require indirect interaction with the drivers to run.
I'd say that such a scenario is in the extreme minority. Why not just put "Install so other users can access? If yes, please input administrator credentials now."
I shall not reveal who I am because I am ashamed that I bought Spore. I love it, and love to play it, but I feel just so dirty for getting in bed with EA.
Anyway, Spore did turn me into a pirate of sorts. But it's not what you think. Once I installed the bloody thing it turned out I could no longer play Civ4 because the game would not find the disk in the DVD drive. I reinstalled the drivers for said drive 3 times and still nothing. Finally I had to go and get a no-cd crack for Civ4. Silly isn't it?
This is what EA is really trying to end. First Sale Doctrine, meet activations....
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/ea-second-hand-sales-are-a-critical-situation
No, that means the *installer* needs admin privileges.
And if it were actually correct, it would ask whether to install for All Users or just the current user. So the only time, ever, a video game should need administrative permissions is while being installed after the user selected "install for all users."
That said, most actual games released require administrative permissions when run for various reasons:
* Punkbuster is a piece of shit and requires admin; therefore, all games utilizing Punkbuster need to run as admin.
* Most DRM schemes involve fiddling with other running software and drivers in such a way that they need admin access. For example, to determine if a "banned" virtual CD program is installed before the game runs.
* A lot of game developers are fucking terrible at their jobs, and just don't give a shit whether the game runs as a normal user or not.
What's really upsetting is the games that get it SO CLOSE to being perfectly correct, then snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. For instance, World of Warcraft, which is 95% there, except Blizzard then decided to put the Add-Ins folder in the Program Files folder! Fail, Blizzard.
Comment of the year
It's now called Bos Wars.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Piracy is just the scapegoat publishers use to justify DRM. Pirated versions of Spore were available even before the game was in store; DRM is useless in preventing piracy, if anything, it provokes piracy, and the publishers know this.
The actual goal of DRM is to prevent second-hand sales of games. Publishers know that they can't convert pirates into paying customers, but they can convert people who pay for second-hand games into people who pay for new copies. So that's what they're doing.
Lot's of alternate places to get the patches (legally)... Although they refer to them as 'Bonus packs'.
pirated games.
> 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?
Because I find command line faster an more intuitive than a GUI that crashes
all the time. As far as Bash is concerned. Although *nix GUIs tend to be a
bunch more stable than NT GUIs, and I do use Fluxbox. And it's usage security
of the computer where I am concerned. If Windows wonks up on me, I need a fast
way to go back to work, the two ways I know how are restore (wipe everything)
or use *nix. And if I could just use *nix, why don't I?
If I don't have a mouse, or don't even need it for simple operations, I don't
need a GUI to boot up and take so much time to load.
GUIs are good for user friendliness, I will admit. However, there's a point
where user friendliness dramatically decreases in the presence of hundreds of
buttons and menus. There's a point in CLI where user friendliness increases to
the long-time user, especially when I need a quick script to do a repetitive
task, such as test a filename using regexp and moving accordingly, or unzipping
every file in a folder individually to a different folder.
They have their uses.
http://sourcemage.org/ - Have fun
Well, may I be the nth to say "welcome to the eighties"?
Athy, athier, athiest.
I think all the games from the Swedish company Paradox Interactive are DRM-free. (Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Victoria, Hearts of Iron...)
At least the ones I've been playing.
They seem to be thriving also. I'm not sure though, but they seem to have been growing more than one would expect from listening to the pro-DRM people.
We would most certainly have bought our copy of Spore by now had they not put DRM in. Our family has been looking forward to it for months, but we won't be buying it now that I know that crap is in it.
I've paid for all the games our family plays, and I barely put up with CD checks (though honestly I get a NoCD patch as soon as I can, nobody likes having to hunt up the CD every time). But no way am I going to give money to someone who's spending it on DRM.
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.
What makes a game single-player? For example, even the version of Tetris that uses only one well isn't single-player, as one of the screens involves comparing your score to those of other players on the Internet.
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.
This should be easy to circumvent, at least on new Sony PCs. Require a Blu-ray Disc in the BD-ROM drive, and make random accesses to all 50 GB of it. If the player tries to install the game without requiring the CD, that's 1/5 of the PC's 250 GB hard drive eaten up.
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).
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.
It doesn't work for software because software is licensed on a "as-is" basis. Meaning no warranty for fitness of purpose or usability.
I started playing it recently, and I just donated the amount I would've paid for a pathetic bundle of minigames called Spore.
I've got your emergent gameplay right here!
I love Red alert series always have, but new one comes with drm limiting to 5 installs. And then it has to authenticate against a server that in 5 years may be gone means I am renting a game for a undetermined term of time. So at that poing I will look for say the Sins of Solar Empire game, amazing game drm free and sold huge numbers. I understand the idea of DRM but it DOSE NOT WORK its hacked then the copy on torrents ends up being better/more stable then the one you pay for. DRM hurts paying customers and pushes more to hacked copy's.
I would love to find a site organizing a boycott email/snail main campaign against EA. The amazon rating for Spore has been a big hit to EA and should have opened there eyes.
Here is the problem that the companies don't seem to get. Security is a balancing act. When you ratchet up security too much, user friendliness goes down. That has two effects. The first is that people do not use the product. The second is that it drastically increases the number of people that bypass the security. This is the case here. The game is reportedly quite good. However the draconian approach to DRM means that fewer people will actually buy it, and more people, including a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise, bypass the security by downloading illegal copies. The DRM technique in this case is somewhat self-defeating. Now some might say that the company does not care, that they just want to ensure that they make money. However this doesn't ring true, as they would have made more money without the DRM. Many people who would normally buy the program are illegally downloading it because they do not like the DRM. The DRM development also cost money. So, in this case, the DRM may actually be a money loser.
Open Source: Eroding the Digital Divide
---By pirating a game, you hurt the game company less than by not playing it at all. Pirate players sometimes cause extra sales or adds value to the game in mods or forum contributions. Non-players don't.
Bull shit. I want a game. Instead of buying it off the shelf, I download it in the fixed, nonDRM version. I pass on the image to all my friends who want to play it. Nobody ends up buying legit game.
Next, you claim that mindshare is some sort of plus. Stupid marketer. It costs for server hardware. I'm using their resources, bitching about a game I didnt even pay for. I end up downloading patches either directly, or hacked. I end up costing them more money because they have to put up resources for ME.
And I download all the mods I want. If some are allowed to charge for them, I download them anyways. I got the game free, mods are "free" too.
---By not pirating a game, you will also not give the game company statistical ammunition to add even more DRM to their next release.
I didnt know we sent statistical info describing what pirate games we play. And more DRM is good anyway. DRM harasses the real customer... the one who paid. When they quit buying, the product will dry up.
So sing, dance, play with your kids, whatever.
If I write a song and sing it in public, how can I be sure that I didn't accidentally infringe the copyright in some song that had been played on the radio a decade ago? (Bright Tunes v. Harrisongs) If I choreograph a dance, how can I be sure that my dance notation doesn't infringe a patent? (Konami v. Roxor)
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.
In effect, you propose a copyright for the life of the artist plus 0 years. So how would you handle a collaboration among a dozen or a thousand artists? And how would you handle the case of hiring a hit man to free the copyright in a work?
Forcing artists to make their work free to all is basically one step shy of slavery.
As is forcing artists not to publish at all, which is what an overly broad definition of derivative work does.
The Sins of a Solar Empire executable can be run regardless of weather Impulse (formerly Stardock Central) is installed or not let alone running, If I install Gal Civ 2 or SOASE from the disk I am not required to activate it or install Impulse before running the executable. What Impulse is required for is downloading the game (if not installed from the optical disk) and updating the game. The Activation is performed by Impulse and not by the game. My copy of SOASE, has never activated successfully but it doesn't stop me from playing, I've sent the error logs to Stardock Support (as I was instructed to do when the error occurred) and they more or less told me to ignore it (the response was: activation server was having a problem)
I've tried copying SOASE and it works, I'm just not able to update it until I install Impulse.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
This might have been mentioned... and it may seem moot seeing the topic is 3 days old, but does the "170,000" downloads include those just to bypass the DRM--either because they bought the game and don't want DRM, or won't buy the game because of the DRM.
Paradox Interactive's games are all DRM free. And yet, a lot of us register our games on their forum, because we consider owning their games a reason for proud.
I can't tell you how nice it is to copy my Hearts of Iron 2 installation folder on a USB stick and carry it with me, playing everywhere I can.
Probably no one will respond, and will probably get no points as I am posting this 3 days after the story came out, but I truthfully do not think its that big of an issue. Last big game I bought was Bioshock. I had to type in the serial number during install, and then it activated once on the internet. *Gasps* Oh no, its evil, it has DRM! Seriously, I have had to reinstall Windows a couple of times, cause I am always effing with stuff on my computer and not because of Windows issues, and never had any issue reinstalling it.
I bought Half-Life 2 through Steam. I am sure there are some DRM issues there as well.
And if I do not like having to insert the disc to play, I just head over to GameCopyWorld and download the NoDisc patch.
Of course, I am not much of a PC gamer anymore. I can pay hundreds of dollars to keep my system up and running, trying to find the right wireless keyboard and mouse combo, and the right settings for exporting to my HDTV without killing framerate, or I can just buy the game on my PS3, XBox 360 or my Wii. Especially with the PS3, I tend to get as good, if not better graphics, than the PC and not have to worry about the drop in framerates (unless it was just crappily coded, I have seen a couple of those).
I have been thinking of picking up Spore. Those I know who have picked it up are claiming its not that bad on the DRM side. Yes, it activates over the internet, and only has three installs, but everyone I know who has picked it up claims that is three installs in 10 days. After ten days, it resets itself, and you can do another three installs in the next ten days, or whatever. Whether or not that is true, I do not know, but this makes sense.
DRM has never kept me from buying a game, and quite frankly, I like it MUCH better than the old ways of copy protection. I used to hate it in the early 90s when I get halfway through a game, then have to go digging through my filing cabinets and such to try to find the instruciton manual for a game to look up something for a copy protection scheme, hoping that I did not throw away the manual. There were quite a few games I never completed because of that. I am still wanting to know whatever happened to Roger Wilco.
All id Software games are DRM-free. Native clients for Linux too. Even on Windows, after the first update, it doesn't ask you the CD.
All Epic games (the Unreal series) are also DRM free. There is a native client for UT99, UT2003 and UT2004. They say a Linux client is coming for UT3 too.