Can You Fight DRM With Patience?

As modern DRM schemes get more annoying and invasive, the common wisdom is to vote with your wallet and avoid supporting developers and publishers who include such schemes with their games. Or, if you simply must play it, wait a while until outcry and complaints have caused the DRM restrictions to be loosened. But will any of that make game creators rethink their stance? An article at CNet argues that gamers are, in general, an impatient bunch, and that trait combined with the nature of the games industry means that progress fighting DRM will be slow or nonexistent. Quoting: "Increasingly so, the joke seems to be on the customers who end up buying this software when it first comes out. A simple look back at some controversial titles has shown us that after the initial sales come, the publisher later removes the vast majority of the DRM, leaving gamers to enjoy the software with fewer restrictions. ... Still, [waiting until later to purchase the game] isn't a good long-term solution. Early sales are often one of the big quantifiers in whether a studio will start working on a sequel, and if everyone were to wait to buy games once they hit the bargain price, publishers would simply stop making PC versions. There's also no promise that the really heavy bits of DRM will be stripped out at a later date, except for the fact that most publishers are unlikely to want to maintain the cost of running the activation, and/or online verification servers for older software."

Comments

You aren't fighting if you are giving up

[BadAnalogyGuy]

How does waiting for a publisher to loosen DRM equate to fighting DRM?

Gandhi and King taught non-violent resistance, but you can win against human beings. You can't win against a profit motive.

Re:You aren't fighting if you are giving up

[PopeRatzo]

I agree with Opportunist. DRM keeps me from buying games, too. And I doubt very much that he and I are so unique that we're the only ones.

Remember, we killed DRM in music. It looked for a while like we were going to have to accept DRM when buying music, and today you can buy any music you want without it.

Re:You aren't fighting if you are giving up

[NickFortune]

However, most people seem to suggest that fighting DRM with piracy is a good option.

I don't think "most" people suggest that. In fact I can't recall seeing anyone suggest resorting to piracy as a strategy for changing the behaviour of games publishers. What I have seen is an awful lot of people declare their intention to download rather than put up with various DRM schemes. I think that's a difference worth noticing.

The important thing isn't that it's a good idea or a bad idea. The key point here is that the games comnpanies are teaching the wrong lesson here. DRM is teaching a generation of game players that buying games == "problems" while priating games == "it just works".

Re:You aren't fighting if you are giving up

[russotto]

And piracy advocates are teaching that same generation that "if you don't agree with it then it is fine to break the law, even for the flimsiest of excuses". Neither side is really helping civilisation in that case.

The question is who is to be the master. Are individuals the servants of "civilisation", or does "civilisation" exist to serve the individuals? If it is the latter, it is the law which is the problem, not those breaking it.

When your opponents control the law, a stance like "one shouldn't ever break the law" is completely disarming. It is very easy for them to manipulate things so that all opposition is ineffectual, illegal, or both. So unless you want to say that those with the best lobbyists automatically win, don't try and raise the law to the level of something sacred.

DRM On Games Will Stay...

[pandrijeczko]

Games have become such huge business surrounded by such huge marketing hype that the games companies can now basically do what they like.

They don't care about the "intelligent gamers" who sit on the fence for a while after a game is released, read reviews & see what problems there are before they think about buying it - they're interested in the fanbois and the screaming kids who force their parents to queue up at midnight on release day, ultimately it's about how many copies are sold in the first couple of weeks.

Screaming kids don't care about DRM and fanbois will find a way of rationalising the inconvenience of DRM into something that is good.

I'm still disgusted with myself that even though Fallout 3 is one of the best and most absorbing games I have ever played, I still put up with having to insert my game DVD into the drive every time I play it, even though I log into Windows Live each time and have already purchased some of the DLC.

With that said, I waited about a year after release before I bought it and even then the game was suffering from some fairly bad crashes due to bugs in it.

Who's blaming who here?

[Opportunist]

Hold on a second: Is that summary supposed to tell me "go buy the DRM infested crap or else publishers will stop making PC games"? How about NOT infesting it with "you are a criminal and if not, prove it" DRM that makes me NOT want to buy the game? I want the game at release. Hell, who doesn't? I also do not mind paying 50 bucks for it. Or 60, now that the Euro is getting weaker too. But I DO mind the infection of my machine with something of dubious quality that gives me no net benefit whatsoever. I'm not gonna bend over and pray they use a little lube this time.

And now I get told "if you don't bend over, they'll stop making games for you". Are you fuckin' kiddin' me? Make games that I want to buy and I'll buy them! Stardock is a good example. I don't care if they cost 20 bucks or 60 (ok, a bit, but it's certainly no showstopper for me), I'm not waiting for games to get to the bargain bin. I'm waiting for a game that doesn't ram stuff up my ass that I dunno where it's been before.

Prime example, R.U.S.E. It sure looked like a good candidate for my next RTS. I liked the beta. But, Ubi, sorry, no deal. Take out your "stay online to play single player" copy protection, I'll buy. Leave it in, I will not.

It is that easy.

So please don't try to guilt-trip me with the notion that if we don't swallow that crap they'll stop making games for PC gamers. If anyone is to blame for that, it's the idea that gamers are criminals. Unless they can prove themselves innocent.