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EMA Suggests Point-Of-Sale Game Activation To Fight Piracy
Gamasutra reports on a set of standards (PDF) published by the Entertainment Merchants Association to promote the use of technology that would "disable" games and DVDs until they are activated when purchased. "The effort is codenamed 'Project Lazarus,' and the EMA says it's assembled a consortium of retailers, home video companies and video game publishers to see how easily such 'benefit denial technology' could be implemented, and to evaluate possible cost-benefit analyses. The initiative is similar to security tags used in clothing retail that spill ink on garments if they're forcibly removed, thereby destroying the item. In such a situation, shoplifting is discouraged by implementing a solution that only the retailer can remove at the point of sale."
The courts may or may not agree that an unactivated game is defective and thus the consumer is entitled to a refund by law, but I have no doubt the conservation with my credit card company would go like this:
"Hello? American Express? Retailer sold me a defective game and refuses to refund my charge card. They say that since I opened it I can't return it. Their return policy does state that opened software items are not returnable, however, the item is clearly defective and I have no reason to believe another copy would not be defective as well. They've been completely unreasonable about this and I'd like to issue a chargeback."
"Okay, Mr. AC. We'll take care of that for you right away."
No kidding. This is yet another backward ass "protection" mechanism that won't actually do anything except inconvenience legit customers.
The industry needs to figure out HOW to offer the ease of use and pleasant experience of piracy. Steam is as close as we get right now.
Seriously, are these people THAT deluded that they believe this would do anything to fight piracy?
and you're truly worried about pirating, quit the futility and put out an online game. Sure, sounds like a mindlessly trivialised suggestion, but really, any online account based game has basically the least complained about, but most restrictive DRM running. You have zero ability to play anywhere but online after logging in and you don't complain about it. Genius.
Why do few people chip their xbox 360's? Because they are afraid of detection on xbox live. Same with the Wii. The only true, accepted DRM is one that protects online usage.
Not atall saying that there isn't a veritable mass of problems accompanying such a notion, just saying, look at what works, rather than this silly nonsense that makes almost no headway.
I record my sleeptalking
Only works when you had online at the time you installed the games though, I was on a university network once (dorm) and they didn't allow using Steam (or anything else except http and email), couldn't install Half-Life 2.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
at the number of big box stores which don't lock these game cards up. The problem is especially bad at Target, where more than a dozen of different games were obviously "opened" along the seam. Even after explaining it to the the customer service people I swear they didn't care or understand. I did get them to allow for my opening the box in front of them to confirm if it had a game card in it, took three of the ones that looked sealed to get it.
Stores need to understand, these things are as valuable as the gift cards they sell. They are real money.
Any subscription based game should follow the activation method, it will save a lot of grief for the customer. It really helps us more than the stores because it isn't easy to get the store to refund it (I would hate to see what BB would think if you told them the game card was missing and you had left the store already). Yet for stand alone games I don't think it is necessary
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.