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Game Distribution and the 'Idiocy' of DRM

Posted by Soulskill on from the completely-neutral-titles dept.

In light of the increased focus on the DRM controversy in recent days, Ars Technica did an interview with execs from CD Projekt's Good Old Games about where the problems are with current DRM implementation. "For me, the idiocy of those protection solutions shows how far from reality and from customers a lot of executives at big companies can be. You don't have to be a genius to check the internet and see all the pros and cons of those actions." Penny Arcade is also running a three-part series on DRM from game journalists Brian Crecente and Chris Remo. Crecente talks about how some companies are making progress in developing acceptable DRM, and some aren't. Remo recommends against a trend of overreaction to minor gripes.

15 of 271 comments (clear)

  1. First thing I do with every game I buy. . . by krunk7 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is crack it.

    1. Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . by electrictroy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >>>Remo recommends against a trend of overreaction - "-look how many people buy music through iTunes, whose DRM mechanics are hardly lenient."

      Over-react? I still play games that are nearly 25 years old (Pirates, Silent Service, and Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising). Any system that effectively makes the game unusable after just 5 years is not acceptable in any way, shape, or form.

      Itunes? How about Google or Walmart? When they deactivate their services, and make my rather-expensive music suddenly stop working, I think I have a right to act peeved about it.

      --
      The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
    2. Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . by NitroWolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Who said anything about returning it?

      I buy games I play to support them. If the CD in the drive thing is easily fixable and I still retain full functionality then it's something I'm willing to deal with *most* of the time. If it's something as hostile as to how many machines i can install it on and it phones home every time I fire it up for no reason other than to verify it's authorized, then it can piss off.

      Although, as time wears on, I'm getting tired of having to play a cracked (and thus having to jump through hoops to patch) version - it's becoming not worth the money to buy even those games. Stardock seems to do rather well without copy protection - I bought their games, so did many others.

      The problem is not pirates, as Stardock clearly demonstrates. There are many other factors that are far larger problems than pirates. DRM inconveniences the legitimate users far, FAR more than it causes a problem for the pirates. That being an indisputable fact, why have it?

      The only copy protection that is really needed is of the physical media. Make it so Joe-Sixpack can't burn off a quick copy for their buddy and you've done all you can possibly do to prevent piracy. Anything beyond that is completely, utterly meaningless. This is an absolute, it is not an opinion or a theory. Once Joe-Sixpack graduates from the baseline "I put CD in drive and click copy, if it doesn't work, I can't copy it," to the "I go online and download this crack," or "I go online and download this torrent," Joe-Sixpack is already far, far beyond the effects of DRM.

      It's a small step, but once that step is made, you can't stop that person. You can appeal to their sense of morality, but you can't physically stop them. Game developers need to put no, or bare minimum copy protection on their games. Then use that money saved from not having to develop useless DRM and make a good game. Works for Stardock!

    3. Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . by MagdJTK · · Score: 4, Insightful

      look how many people buy music through iTunes, whose DRM mechanics are hardly lenient

      Remo saying "iTunes is popular, so maybe you should get over DRM" is a bizarre argument. I would bet that most people who buy 128kbps tracks from iTunes wouldn't even know what filetype they were receiving and, if pushed, would probably guess mp3 because they don't know better.

      I'm not having a go at non-geeks, but if iTunes had a massive warning on every page about how you'll have difficulty playing your music on anything but iTunes and an iPod, I'm sure sales would plummet.

    4. Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . by dinther · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Where did the guy say he owns it?

      "I've been playing Spore recently"

      doesn't say he has a copy. Maybe this guy has friends who own it and let him have a go.

      But don't let that get in the way of you making your moral speech mate.

    5. Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . by Fweeky · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Essentially it lets you install it on 5 unique PCs.

      There's no standard for defining what makes a "unique PC". Anything from a HD/GFX card upgrade to an OS reinstall or BIOS update could make one of these ad-hoc systems decide it's no longer on the machine it was installed on.

      And guess what gamers tend to do quite a bit?

    6. Re:First thing I do with every game I buy. . . by Stormwatch · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just buy it, put it on your shelf still sealed and continue playing your cracked version.

      Which sends EA the message: "sheeple are accepting DRM, we can keep doing it."

      --
      Circumcision is child abuse.
  2. They're starting to get it... by Naughty+Bob · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I saw a good quote from a games company's enlightened Chief Executive recently -

    "DRM can encourage the best customers to behave slightly better. It will never address the masses of non-customers downloading your product."

    Why the others haven't understood this I don't know. And note the 'DRM can encourage...'. I'd say I'm a good customer (I spend a bunch anyway), but I'm increasingly drawn to warez, because they - and I can't believe I'm writing this - are less likely to screw my gaming PC. What is the world coming to?

    --
    "Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
  3. There is no acceptable DRM. by NotInfinitumLabs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    DRM takes control of the product away from the consumer and put it in the hands of the media owner. When you buy any DRM-encumbered media, you don't control that media. The way you use that media is determined by the content owner. Don't have an HDCP-compatible monitor? Well, I guess you can't view these discs in HD the way they were intended. Don't have a fairplay-compatible MP3 player? Tough, you can't listen to the music you bought and paid for. The hilarious thing is that every single DRM scheme ever invented has been circumvented by pirates, and only legitimate, law-abiding consumers have to put up with this. Why buy media which is just going to impede your efforts to use it, when you can download it and play it any damn way you want to?

  4. Re:well yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because if you do that you send the signal you accept DRM. Do that, and we'll never be rid of it.

  5. Re:Pick one: DRM or logging&prosecution for pi by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Talk about false dichotomy.

    It'd be like "Either I can rape my kids, or have no children". Guess what? There's a third, and very palatable answer. We'll let YOU figure that out, if you are mentally able.

    --
  6. Re:well yes by Spatial · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, that's the problem. It's why they don't give a shit in the first place - they've already got your money, so why improve or even care?

  7. The notion of "moderate" DRM is a curious one. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The idea that DRM can be moderate seems fairly sensible on the surface(some DRM schemes are more restrictive than others, therefore the less restrictive ones must be moderate, and everybody knows that moderation is good!); but in a more important way, it is nonsense.

    A DRM system consists of a locked box and a key. In order to be effective, the system must simultaneously know the key, while preventing the user from knowing it. This means that the DRM system must deny the user access to some or all of his own system. There is absolutely nothing "moderate" about being locked out of parts of your own memory space. In this sense, all effective DRM systems are absolute. If DRM is working, it isn't your computer, period. Some DRM systems are more indulgent than others about what and how they restrict; but that isn't the same thing as moderation.


    Note: there are some DRM systems that don't control the user in this way, and might be said to be genuinely moderate; but none of them are effective. Further note: my opposition to DRM is no more an endorsement of piracy than my opposition to mass surveillance is an endorsement of murder.

  8. Re:DRM: the precious by DanWS6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To quote someone...

    "Modern DRM isn't about stopping piracy. It's about stopping the game from being resold at used games stores so EA doesn't have to compete against their own games with the average customer."

  9. DRM encourages customer to download cracks. by guidryp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "DRM can encourage the best customers to behave slightly better. It will never address the masses of non-customers downloading your product."

    Seriously, WTH is that supposed to mean? By better it means, not loaning it to your brother, it means not being able to sell it. All perfectly reasonable things.

    DRM definitely does encourage customers to visit the pirate sites to get proper usability back by downloading cracks (AKA no cd cracks). Eventually you are going to lose a number of customers who get fed up and cut out the middle man (the producer) and start with the cracked version. After all you trained them for years this is where you get the full value product.