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Game Distribution and the 'Idiocy' of DRM
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.
Is crack it.
There are now two games I *really* wanted that I can't get because I don't want their DRM infesting my machine. Nor do I want to use pirated games (being a programmer myself I don't like to download illegally, I really would prefer to pay), so I don't get to play at all.
I've been a computer gamer since 1983, and this not being able to buy things because of stuff put there to stop piracy is a new experience for me.
I hope its short lived, or the number of new games I buy is going to plummet.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
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"
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?
"Penny Arcade is also running a two-part series on DRM from game journalists Brian Crecente and Chris Remo."
It's a three part series, only two parts are up. The third will be up on Monday.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
You can't protect software by disabling it. Corporations underestimate the community's ability to understand, and work around, any software problem they come across.
Remember that approach to DRM?
Even that can be screwed up. Knowledge Revolution, makers of Working Model, a kind of CAD system with a physics engine, once shipped me a program with that kind of DRM. Unfortunately, the manual was just slightly out of sync with the program; if the program wanted a page number more than halfway through the manual, it wouldn't work. It often took a few tries to get the program to run, retrying until the page number that came up was in the first half of the manual.
Actually, I'm surprised that Microsoft doesn't support some standard Windows DRM system based on their Trusted Computing Platform technology.
For game developers, the realistic solution is to either develop for consoles, or develop multiplayer versions that require a server account.
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.
"Remo recommends against a trend of overreaction to minor gripes"
That, in a nutshell, is why the industry isn't taking all the bleating about DRM seriously. DRM is a business decision. It's not there because they hate your freedom, it's there because they think it will help stop or at least slow piracy. If the world wasn't full of thieves, there would be no DRM.
Acting like DRM will go away if you cry about it is childish. It will only go away by becoming invisible. Nobody seems to know that iPhone apps are protected with DRM, nor that it helps bring prices down (although it certainly doesn't have to; PSP DRM hasn't had any effect on software prices).
The real issue is that DRM doesn't work well in the hands of software producers (audio/video/apps), because their monetary conflict of interest pushes them to wield the power of DRM to extort hight prices.
The only successful DRM comes from hardware makers (read: Apple) who balance the power to govern sales without extortion prices and without runaway piracy, because their interests are aligned with both consumers and intellectual property content producers.
That's why Microsoft's DRM didn't work; the company only cared about producers because it wasn't selling its DRM products directly to consumers, and subsequently stacked the deck against end users.
Apple carries DRM like the Ring.
The Japanese iPhone Failure Myth
There is no such thing as "acceptable DRM". By it's very existence, a non-DRM'd game will always be more acceptable than one which has added bloatware in the form of DRM attached to it.
I've always bought my games. I often download pirated games to try out, but if I like them, I almost always buy them. There are a few exceptions where I've never gotten around to buying a copy, but they are far outweighed by the number of games that I've paid for and never played, still sitting on my shelf in their shrinkwrapping.
However, a few years ago, I was so furious with the music industry selling me a useless CD that I couldn't play that I vowed never to buy another music item again. I have a whole basement full of CDs, but none of them are dated after 2005!
With the bad experience I had with Bioshock, I'm very tempted to do the same thing with games. I certainly won't buy Spore even though I'm a fan of Will Wright's games, solely because of the awful DRM. I've tolerated having to use No-CD crack up until now but if things keep getting worse, I'll stop buying games altogether and I'd encourage others to do the same.
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.
We all have accepted DRM to a POINT. Having to have a DVD in a DVD drive to play a game was a annoying, BUT it was something I was willing to put up with because it still felt like I owned the game. However, this new DRM which REQUIRES online activation AND limits instillation's on how many PC's I can play on has crossed a threshold which many of US will not accept. The game stops feeling like property we own and feels like a rental/lease.
I unfortunately bought one game with this crap DRM on it(spore) and regret it. I cannot shake the feeling that they will shut down the activation servers like walmart is going to do and the game(s) that people have bought with this DRM will be screwed over. Some people have said that they(EA) will release a patch that will fix the DRM if they did that. I say, why would they? If they are bought out, go out of business, or just decide to shut them off, what incentive will they have to release a patch for this? None, that's how much.
This has nothing to do with stopping pirates, this is about stopping resales(which is illegal). They are starting with PC users because they are a smaller test group, but their goal is to get similar DRM set up in consoles so you cannot resale your console games.
As much as I hate to say it, Spore is still hitting record sales figures.
The DRM has obviously enraged a lot of us here, and I have no doubt that has cost them some sales. But I don't think "we" (meaning those who understand how much DRM can cripple a game) are the demographic that is going to make or break the game. This is a mass market game, and practically all the reviews I've seen (even here on slashdot!) ignore the DRM issue. Practically all the people I've talked to about the game have no idea what I'm talking about when I tell them about the DRM, and are in for a very nasty time the third time they need to reformat their system, or reinstall the game for whatever reason.
EA made a calculated decision here, knowing that they would lose some of our support, but if the casual gamer (let's face it, the target Spore demographic) gives up on trying to install his friend's game and buys his own copy, that's a win for EA. If a few years down the track he hits hit three install limit, what's he going to do? Buy another copy, probably. Even if he doesn't, EA has the original sale and has lost nothing. The fact that the pirates have a far superior product is amusing and ironic, but irrelevant to EA's bottom line.
Until the reviewers take their jobs seriously and start actually pointing out serious fundamental flaws in the game, companies like EA can be confident that they have made the right decision.
...the social contract that says "it's really not nice to do that". Some people use the "would you say you did that if the programmer/artist was in the room with you?" test. This test can fail. It can fail if the programmer/artist isn't really the person taking home the pay. Back in the day, it often was; but now many of them are just employees, so they might not care if you pirated the game and if they got paid barely living wages and worked 70 hour weeks, they might even applaud you. Same deal with music. This will depend somewhat on how the artists feel about their relationship with the recording industry. Any number of one-song phenoms, and even current artists with bad deals won't care, because they don't get the money anyway. Some artists who've already got their mansions won't care, and may even regard giving it away as philanthropy. Others still want their beans and aren't ready to set up "The Foundation", so they'd be pissed off.
Oh, and there is one other effective DRM and sensible, but it's only valid if the product relies on the network. Sell a userid, and prohibit multiple-logons. At that point, your enforcement mechanism is similar to an ISP abuse department. Legitimate buyers will call to find out why the service turned off, and get reminded to keep their password secure. Everybody else will shut up, or they might try but then the operator will say "you're not the registered user, piss off". Too many games are fun without network access for this technique to really impact the market.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
"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.
Lets face. DRM has been a total and utter failure. It doesn't even slow down piracy, much less eliminate.
It has trained a generation of PC gamers to download cracks to get around annoyance, it has trained a generation of cracker to provide that service. Annoy people long enough and they will eventually skip over the buying phase and go straight to the trusted download scene. After all the publishers have forced to go here for fully functional copies of their own software for years.
Consumers don't need producers, they need us. Withhold our dollars from those who push "Defective by Design" products will eventually have an impact.
In the meantime buy games that are fully usable out of the box and don't require a visit to bit Torrent to correct the deficiencies.
Stardock Boxed products and www.gog.com downloads are fully consumer friendly. Anything else?
"What are your basis for saying that loaning the game to your brother or selling it are perfectly reasonable things to do? Not that I necessarily disagree, but I'd like to know how you justify it."
Much like I can loan/sell Books/CDs/Movies. I think first someone has to justify why games are some special type of copyright material that can't be loaned/sold.
Just because publishers would like it to be so, doesn't make it so. They are attempting to end first sale doctrine exception of copyright by build walls to stop it, that doesn't mean they have the right to stop it.
You own a physical copy of a game. You can do what you want with that copy so long as it falls within the bounds of what copyright allows. Copyright only covers, well, copying. Selling the game or loaning it to somebody isn't covered by the law, and is therefore allowed.
There's a popular misconception that you do not own media, but merely license it. This simply isn't true. When you buy a game in a box you own that box and its contents. The only thing you don't own is the right to make a copy of the contents in a way that is covered by copyright law.
And that is why loaning and selling a game are perfectly reasonable.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
I don't particularly agree with loaning it to someone,
"Loaning a game" implies that while the game is loaned out, the original owner can't play it. It's your game - you should be able to damn well decide who to loan it to. If you substitute "book" for "game", it sounds pretty ridiculous.
It's only when "loaning a game" translates to "burn a copy of the game" that you run into trouble. But that's not really "loaning", is it?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
I could...eat them??
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
But the GP was saying why there shouldn't be DRM, and requiring the user to have the disc is a form of DRM. Without that, what he means is he should be able to install the game, and then lend the disc to someone. That person can install the game, and then they can both still play, because without the DRM, it wouldn't require a disc to play. It's less ridiculous if you replace "loaning a book" with "taking a book down to Kinko's to get it copied for free by my friend who works there so he can have a copy, too."
By what name do you wish to be mourned?
Most reasons why someone doesn't purchase a particular game can be boiled down to one of the above. If I simply don't purchase a game, there's no guarantee which of the five basic reasons was the reason why I didn't purchase it. In the case of Bioshock, it was the DRM itself, but I haven't told 2K games why I haven't gotten it. From their perspective, it could be any of the above reasons, when in fact it is because of the DRM.
If I don't buy Bioshock, I have sent the same message to 2K games as has the guy with a five year old Dell POS with a Celeron and Intel Integrated graphics, the MMORPG-or-bust gamer, the broke college student paying for school by himself, the living-under-a-rock gamer whose last purchase was DOOM, and the "gamer" whose entire software collection comes from Limewire, when the reality is that my reasoning isn't any of those. The problem is that I've got their statisticians and marketing folks grabbing their magic 8-balls trying to figure out why my software shelf doesn't have a copy of Bioshock on it; odds are that I probably have been categorized in their pirate category.
In the case of Spore, EA games is being told that they've gone so far with the solution with reason #5 that DRM has become their reason #6, and it's a reason that they can very easily overcome. This backlash that TFA advises against is actually working because if every one of the 1-star comments on Amazon is a single lost sale, that's 2,578 lost sales as of this writing. That's something that EA's bean counters can't otherwise explain away. The fact that EA has changed a policy at all is a step in the right direction (they're not going to abolish DRM overnight - SecuROM is on the other side of the fence convincing them that DRM does indeed work).
For me, if I lent someone my copy of StarCraft, it meant I was no longer able to play the game while my copy was loaned out. And naturally, loaning a console game is truly "loaning" for most people. That's what I was thinking of.
But you're correct, of course. If you're talking about pure digital content that can be completely installed on and run from the hard drive, then there's no such concept as "loaning" the software to someone. It's always a copy. And then the problem gets a bit more nebulous.
Ultimately, though, PC game developers are going to have to face up to a hard truth: they're relying on the good will of their customers to pay for a product that they could, without too much technical difficulty, get for free. This means that developers need to focus two aspects of game development:
a) They must forge a relationship with their customers, so that their customers are enthusiastic about supporting their development efforts with their money. Blizzard and StarDock operate on completely different scales, but both companies have very loyal customers who are willing to part with their money, with the understanding that it will likely go to fund further development of products they enjoy.
b) They can provide online services to enhance the game, and thus provide an incentive for legitimate purchases. Obviously, an MMO is the most extreme example of this, where the entire game takes place online. But matchmaking for online play, quick and easy patches, online bonus content... these are all ways of enhancing the player's experience as well.
The sad thing is, Spore has integrated online content. EA could have simply used the same method Blizzard and Stardock have used successfully - you must have a legitimate CD-Key to connect to online services. Now, they're simply alienating potential customers, and those who were determined to obtain the game without paying would have done so anyway.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Saw this on USENET (yes it still there)
Maybe if company agree to this sort of thing then worries about DRM wouldn't be such a problem.
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1) Right of Free Use: If you limit number of installations, the publisher MUST provide a "revoke" tool.
What it entails for the publisher:
The Publisher is allowed to limit the software's installation to one or more computers based on their hardware configuration and registered online ("Activation"). They must provide a free stand-alone tool, preferably on the same distribution medium, that the User can use to de-authorize previously activated computers. The total number of Activations and De-activations must be unlimited in number, but can be limited as to number of uses in a particular time period.
How It Would Work:
When you install a game, the software must be activated online as is the standard practice today. However, what this Right provides is a method for the User to de-activate an installation so the software can be transferred to another computer, either due to hardware failure, upgrade or resale. This tool needs to be provided free to the user, preferably on the CD/DVD with the game (or downloaded if the game is purchased through digital distribution) and must be stand-alone. De-activation would require proof of ownership (the CD in the drive and the CD-key should be enough), and would display a list of all computers authorized to run that software. The User could then select the computers to be de-activated. Note that this tool does NOT have to be run on the Authorized computer, or require the Authorized software to be installed. In order to prevent misuse of this tool, the Publisher can allow only a certain amount of Authorizations/ DeAuthorizations per day/week/month, but cannot limit the TOTAL amount of de-Authorizations.
2) Right of Activation: If the publisher requires Activation, they must provide some assurance of method to bypass this should the method of Activation no longer be available.
What it entails for the Publisher:
The Publisher is allowed to require the User to Activate their software through the method of their choice. But if that method should no longer be available (be it due to technical or financial reasons), they must ensure that the user can continue to use the software they paid for even though the Activation service is no longer running. This assurance can take many forms; a legal promise to release a patch should the Activation Servers be taken down and a waiving of rights to take legal action of any third-party who rights software to allow the same, or a universal "key" that is held in escrow, to be released only should the Activation servers go down, that allows installation and use of the Software without Activation.
How It Would Work:
Basically, the Publisher needs to provide the User with a "back-door" that can bypass the Activation requirement should they chose to no longer allow Activations, either because it is costing them too much money or they are no longer in business. The best way for the User is if the Publisher has a patch or some sort of universal serial number that allows the User to bypass Activation; this patch/key is held in escrow until the Activation Servers go down and is then released to the general public. Of course, this may dramatically compromise the usefulness of the DRM, so other methods can be used, for example: providing source-code and funds that can be released to pay a programming team to successfully develop a patch after the fact. Alternately (but least palatable to the User) the Publisher can simply promise to release code and not prosecute should a third-party (e.g., a "cracker") want to develop some method to bypass the Activation (but, note, they must provide enough code to make this a possibility)
3) Right to Privacy: Any data-collection from these activation services will be opt-out (except as what is required for activation), will not be matched to any personally identifiable information
I've said this a few times before, but Steams' subscriber agreement says no such thing. Games on Steam are sold as single payment subscriptions. I don't own the orange box, I subscribe to it!
I'm not really worried about it though, Steam is such a valuable asset that even in the very unlikely event that Valve goes under whoever bought it would keep it running. It is a bit annoying how this'll kill off the second-hand market but I guess in future all the decent old games that today you'd get in second-hand will be available at GOG!
Nick
Your friends don't equal 99%.
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Why don't publishers give up a little profit and put games on SD Cards? Look how cheap an SD Card reader is. With a little code judo, you can tie a game to the SD Card it's placed on. (The SD Cards have secure areas, and mfg registers and stuff.) Every copy of a game would be different. In essence, watermarked. What do you get?
Using an SD Card could make PC Games more like console games.
The problem is DRM and other protection mechanisms are unpopular, but in many areas it is clear that piracy is allowed to run rampant that there will be no sales. This is especially true for "popular" software.
There are some people that claim not to pirate - but it is certain they have some software they didn't pay for. Maybe someone just gave it to them or maybe their morality is a little more flexible when it comes to certain things. The problem is that for the last 20 years or so piracy has become pretty mainstream. Why would anyone pay for something when the same thing (sometimes better) is available for free? I'm not talking about free open-source here, I am talking about pirated software. Literally everything you could ever ask for is available for free by anonymously downloading it. So why would anyone pay? It is just a little too easy today and really there is no putting the genii back in the bottle. Piracy is here to stay.
The goal of a lot of pirate web sites and such is to make it impossible to obtain revenue from music, movies, books, software and anything else that can be put in digital form. While I believe these evangelists are few in number, the Internet provides them with a strong presence. Often, the pirate sites will come up first in Google before the publisher's web site. What does that say about popular software? There are some people that will pay - shareware has run at about 5% of users paying for over 20 years. But that is as far as it goes. Name one business that can exist with 5% of the revenue they had last year.
Face it, in the near future every piece of software will be available for free. The only question will be if anyone finds it profitable to publish software. Offhand, I would say the number of players will be very limited. Most software will be a web service where the user never gets to hold anything on their computer. Open source will have a role, but probably not much larger than it is today.
Any spore installation (or any other program for that matter) is copied millions of times in the course of normal use on a single computer (regardless of whether money was given to some 3rd party). It is loaded from the hard disk to RAM, occasionally swapped back to disk and vice versa. What makes this copying "OK" and other copying not "OK"?
It's because of stupid semantics arguments like this that barely-readable legalese EULAs crop up. If you know that things get copied back and forth from HDD to RAM, you should also know the difference between copying back and forth to RAM for the purpose of execution or backup and making a separate copy on (semi-)permanent storage to hand the data over to somebody else. Pretending it's all the same is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst.
...don't know what DRM is and they don't care. MOST people don't know how to get a cracked copy of a game or even how to install a no cd patch. MOST people pay $49 for a new game at a big box store, bring it home, install it on their computers, then play the game. All this uproar about DRM really isn't warranted for MOST people. So while it's fun and all to sit and preach from our tech-savvy high-horses, we aren't MOST people. Interestingly enough, the DRM employed by these companies keeps MOST people from making easy and illegal copies and giving them to their friends.