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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."
Make the games good, remove the damned drm and make them affordable. How is that difficult to understand?
I will buy games after a half year or so, so that there is a good no-cd crack and the price is about half. I can't afford $60+ on a game. $20, ya no problem. I'll wait for the price drop, but drm, shit that's a deal breaker, I won't even bother with a hacked version.
I'm not anti-social, I'm anti-idiot.
This sounds like a solution for people who steal keys out of retail boxes.
If the key isn't activated due to a sale, it can't be used online.
I see no problems with this. I hope they don't think it will actually affect single player game piracy.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
So basically the pirates will have a version that has nothing to trip people up but the legit customer who happens to not get activated by the minimum wage clerk is screwed and must wait AND waste gas to take it back? Yeah, please video game industry, make it easier and easier to justify piracy. I have plenty of money and like to support the people who make games I enjoy but it's really easier to just pirate this stuff since the game industry is more and more anti-consumer all the time.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
However, not everyone has an internet connection. For those who do have an internet connection, blocking it from being accessed is just a short hosts file edit away. From there, a single crack and your game is playable single player. It also requires all servers to be hosted by the game maker and their licensees because otherwise the server software will be cracked within two hours of it being released to the public (that's actually assuming the crackers are lazy). This is highly unlikely to work.
Remember, no refunds on opened software. Have a nice day, thank you for shopping Super-Duper Mart!
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
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.
But it's not similar at all. Similar would be putting an acetone-filled tag through the hole in the CD that only the retailer can remove, to destroy it if it's shoplifted.
The reason the difference is important is this scheme isn't to fight shoplifting, the theft of a physical item. This is to fight copyright infringement, and it's like fighting people who make cheap knockoffs of designer clothes. Admittedly, this is much easier to do on a large scale than copying a physical item, but the scale of it does not magically make it become theft.
And the other part of where the analogy breaks down? I don't need an internet connection to put on my clothes after the retailer takes off the tag.
I know a number of retailers stop this problem by using locking DVD cases that set off the door alarms. Usually the ones that have another alarm if someone stomps the case open. Shopperinc.com, the first site I hit on Google offers plenty of low cost ways to ensure that either a would-be shoplifter is going to have to be good at sneaking in the key equipment needed, or be able to run through the exit with security guards hot on their trail (and risk robbery charges as well as larceny).
Since effective technological measures are in place for this, why bother with screwing around with CD keys?
It is a *lot* harder to shoplift successfully media in one of these cases than it is to hit the usual sites, download a patch or a torrent. This is the old security adage of why add layers of protection to a door when the burglar can just enter through the window?
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
How is it aimed at all at piracy? Pirates don't use activation keys, they use cracks. It's a shoplifting measure at most, and retailers already keep games and keys behind the counter with empty boxes on the shelves. It's a solution to a non-existent problem that will just cause more hassle for the legitimate consumer and be bypassed as usual by pirates.
It's pointless, pirate buys one copy breaks the protection than uploads that to the web. Congrats EA, you've managed one additional sale at the expense of many dozens of sales to people who now are unable to run the software.
All games have to be played online. There won't be single player games anymore, there'll just be web based games or virtual worlds you can play single player-style or massively multiplayer style, but in either case the data for the game world will only be on the server.
Then there'll be web based word processors where you can only store your data online, and you have to pay for it. No method to download it to your hard drive, but you can email it to people and they have to pay to use the app you need to read the document. If you need to move your data around in other ways, you probably are a pirate (in their mind).
The RIAA and MPAA then pull all their content and make it available only online. For a fee. You'll never touch that data again without the authorization of the server. (I actually see this coming first.)
In short, I could see companies making sure all of their copyrighted data is only available on their servers.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
*HEAVY SIGH*
This is NOT DRM The story is NOT ABOUT DRM. DRM is not the issue.
This is about preventing shoplifting.
Is it not possible for there to be ANY story ANYWHERE on-line about games, without people gushing about how they hate DRM, even when the story is NOTHING to do with it?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
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.
This is about preventing shoplifting.
You prevent shoplifting by putting the games behind the counter and putting the empty boxes on the shelf. It's low tech, reliable, and not a lot more manual than activation.
Provide the dealer with a printed card the size of the jewelbox they can put on the shelf without having to open the game and put the CD into storage like they do now. Problem solved, cheaply.
I hereby donate this idea to the public domain.
Post whoring on the back of a frist psot...
So what they're suggesting is that the game dev put something on your computer which will render the game unplayable until you activate it with the game dev? At which point some bits will be flipped on your computer, making the game playable?
How will this not be cracked in like three days?
Who's got the checklist? We need to mail one off pronto to the head of the EMA and tell him that this simply will not work any better than current DRM...
2^3 * 31 * 647
Perhaps they should rename it "Project Assfuck" - after all, that's what it's doing to the consumer.
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.
Uhm... those tags come off if you get a rare earth magnet (say, from an old hard drive or something) anywhere near them.
Not that we're supposed to know how things work... after all, knowledge is evil, the almighty corporations want us to be dumb and stupid and drink Brawndo.
Seriously, now. This will not only be cracked damn quick, but it'll fail the first time someone has a non-'net-connected home box (dvd player, console, etc) and they'll get up in arms about it. Plus, it's already been tried once, remember Circuit City and Divx?