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PS3 Piracy Threats Cause Phone-Home DRM
Stoobalou writes "The last time game developer Capcom tried to impose Internet-based copy protection on one of its games, it was forced to backtrack over a storm of complaints. In that instance Final Fight: Double Impact was hobbled with a piracy-busting scheme which phoned home every time the game was booted, but Capcom forgot to mention that little nugget of information to potential purchasers — an omission which eventually led to the DRM scheme being hastily withdrawn. The company has decided not to repeat the mistake with its latest release, Bionic Commando Rearmed 2, by making it clear that the game won't work unless it gets a sign-off from the company's servers."
Well, that will be a game that sells well.
No, privacy threats plus Sony's willingness to impose phone-home DRM plus consumers' and legislators' willingness to accept DRM were all contributors.
The piracy "threats" (which aren't even a threat to begin with) don't cause anything.
Stupid publishers cause DRM and lose customers. End of story.
I'll just repackage your stupid game and remove this phone home garbage.
Pirates will pirate.
Buyers will buy.
But DRM makes buyers look into piracy.
Okay, the article's about the PSN but it doesn't say whether or not they're gonna apply the same kind of DRM to other servers Ubisoft-style on PC. Steam should be DRM enough for these games companies.
The pirates will have a work around for this about a week after it comes out. It's the non-pirates that will have problems with it.
That's okay, we can just patch it out while we're removing the rest of the DRM.
-The Pirates
The odd thing about this is that even with the release of the console's important keys, it's still not practical to pirate PSN games. You can pirate PS3 games that come on a disc until you're blue in the face, but the tools don't exist to do so with newer PSN games - as a result only a small number of them can be pirated at the moment.
Either Capcom knows something we don't know or they're preparing for the inevitable, because right now you'd be hard pressed to pirate BCR2 even without phone-home DRM.
I have made bad experiences with this kind of copy protection on the PC (Spore). I'm a busy person and when I want to play, I want to play immediately---no delay, not even just 10 seconds, is accptable. Unfortunately, in the case of Spore for some reason the server was occasionally down. (Of course, in this particular case it didn't make much of a difference, because I didn't really want to play Spore after I tried it anyway.)
If this scheme seems to work other games will follow - as will other publishers.
So by avoiding buying the games you are sending a clear signal to the publisher that this is method that isn't acceptable.
And what happens if there is a DoS attack on the servers?
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
But DRM makes buyers look into piracy.
This. Also, instead of investing so much money into DRM research, they could just cut game prices and see their sales go up. $80/60euro per game? Please.
Even corporations.
Let's boycott Capcom's games, Capcom's gadgets, and Capcom's websites.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
If pirates are getting better service than paying customers, what do you expect?
"And what happens if there is a DoS attack on the servers?"
They already have your money at that time, they likely wouldn't care.
Another reason it's not acceptable is because I often take my console with me to hotels, whether it's the PS, the Nintendo, or the Xbox, and often they don't provide more than one internet line (which is used for my laptop).
Also the kids in my family don't have their consoles connected online, so that means we'd all have games that refuse to play because they cannot "phone home" to the Game manufacturer's website.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
It just went through the hassle of dealing with Steam support because I was unable to access my account to play Civ V.
Response time was a little over 24 hours and they call this customer service.
This was the last time I purchased a game with DRM because only pirated DRM games are customer friendly!
Everyone who buys Wild Hunt will receive 16 specially prepared DLCs absolutely for free, regardless of platform.
But with they can stick that game where the sun doesn't shine, for me. I hope it sells really bad.
When a pirate throws a game at their console they get: a working game, with no call-home, most likely no requirement for stable internet connection, and a hassle-free gameplay experience. A legitimate user gets: a mostly working game, with call-home, requirement for a stable internet connection, and definitely not hassle-free gameplay experience should there be issues with the connection.
Basically, this won't affect pirates at all. There is simply nothing stopping from someone releasing a crack for this game and it'll work just as peachy as ever. It's only legitimate customers being hurt here.
When are game companies going to learn?
I have a collection of old game systems and enjoy playing them regularly. I just can't get my head around these current schemes. I am I right that it will be impossible to collect something like the PS3 and this Capcom game and play it 15 years from now, unless Capcom still has exists, the PS3 can still connect to the net, and Capcom still has their DRM servers running? It's incredible.
We're so sorry that we created such an awful DRM system without telling you what we were doing ... to fix that problem and regain the trust of our customers we will now tell you exactly how badly our DRM system will screw over legitimate users. But at least we know that no one can find any way to crack the airtight PS3 security lockdown.
And next time we come out with a game we'll make sure to have a completely non-invasive DRM scheme that simply involves implanting a CAPCOM chip in your frontal lobe so that you can be our very own little Bionic DRM Commander.
This is getting old. I'm a legit non jailbroken owner of 2 Ps3 consoles. I've always been in favor of opening the system up and once they removed the OtherOs function I felt it was right, but now I'm getting pissed. Constant updates, everything comes as a required update. Anytime I feel like playing a game for a few minutes there's a freaking psn update required. Half of them strickly anti-piracy. Now some games are implementing online DRM. Now if the game has decent multiplayer functionality I'd almost agree with it, but I like to solo play like anyone, so forcing my psn to be logged on to play an offline game is lame, but I can get past it if the game deserves it.
But the fact that all of this effects me a legit player, while none of this will in any way stop the pirates. The pirates will find a way around it, just like they did with Ubisoft. So one of the other posters is correct, keep it up sony, Cinavi, constant updates, online DRM, keep doing it and you are isolating your legit customers who are actually buying your physical discs. We can easily switch teams and play for free and you can just suck on it.
I think this method is more to prevent game sharing then piracy.
Most PSN items can be installed on up to 5 consoles, so that account doesn't have to be logged in. DLC costs are a lot more palatable when you split them 5 ways but still get the same product. With this new account requirement the practice will go away.
Well said Mykos...
No idea why publishers are so obsessed with DRM.
So either it really does increase sales, or they are crazy.
No one spends millions on some tech (DRM in this case) when there is no return.
I'm not supporting this BS BTW, just wondering why.
Mostly because everyone thinks they got the silver bullet.
How can you blame these poor little companies for implementing DRM? If one person copies a game, all must suffer! If you were a legitimate buyer, you'd know that...
Oh, and, this is all Geohot's fault, not the people implementing the DRM or removing the features to feed their paranoia! That's right. All buyers must receive defective products because some people copy games. This makes sense to those of us who don't steal profit that doesn't yet exist.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
For some reason, control is more important than profit to some companies.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Would you buy a game called Bionic Commando Rear Med? It sounds like a Hemorrhoid Medicine or Mechanized Prostate exam. I bet this is referes to the advanced rectal cancer screening practiced by Goatse. Perhaps it a deranged euphemism for some sexual assualt. perhaps the game "turd burgular 2" was taken.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I buy. I have 2 PS3's in my home one for the kids and one for me. I game on the average 5 to 10 hours a week.
It was fun at the beginning with OtherOS. In regards to peoples complaint about pirates and cheating, I find it's more an issue of poor development. I do not see any noticeable change. Sometimes I'm in a game of BC2 that I can't seem to hit anything even when I empty 100 rounds in the back of some unsuspecting chap. Other times it feels that every confrontation I'm in I win. This applies to almost all MP games, CoDMW, MAG and so on... It's nothing new and it has not changed much since the jailbreak.
I bought the systems for entertainment and in most cases to clear my mind form the day to day issues. Since Sony removed the Other OS I find the PS3 more of a means of frustration than a means of entertainment. Most of the time I have under an hour to play. These constant updates take over 15 minutes to complete and won't work in the background. Once installed and rebooted you go through a 2 to 5 minute wait just to get in to load the game and view all the ads. Once you're finally in you get a no games available message. It used to happen occasionally. Since the last update it seams to happen 4 out of 5 times. I initially thought it was my cable provider until I started researching on the net.
My PS3's are no longer entertaining for MP purposes. I'm not alone, most of my friends got fed up before me. I'm not interested in SP games with the same problems. It's time to jailbreak and pirate, in this way I will still get some entertainment from my console. All this to say I will never purchase anymore products from Sony let alone any draconian DRM laden sh1t unless the attitude changes.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
No you're not and that's the problem. By not buying the game you're sending a clear signal that you found a way to pirate it and so they need to add even more draconian anti-piracy measures to their next release.
Hi Ubisoft!
Interesting anecdote; I've always purchased games, right the way from the original Worms on the PC (on floppy disks, came with an "un-photocopyable" code book) all the way through to Prototype. NOT ONE game on my various computers over the years up until that point was unlicensed.
Games I now have which are unlicensed:
- Mass Effect 2
- Command and Conquer 4
- Assassin's Creed 2
What do they have in common? They all work without an internet connection.
Captcha: Garbages
While I agree with the sentiment of your post, it's preaching to the converted here I think. The problem is all the people out there who buy games without really giving a crap about the important issues. Fallout 3 and New Vegas for example. Horribly buggy on the PC upon release, still crashing to desktop regularly despite a swathe of patches and no-one is really that up in arms about it (probably because it's still a good game despite the bugs). Similar case, and something on British news today - Black Ops. Released with what seems like a hastily cobbled together multiplayer framework that left a significant proportion of the player base unable to use the multiplayer aspect of the game at all, and it's still like that today. The publisher gives assurances about working with gamers to fix it, but what they'd really like is for everyone to just shut up and swallow the pill. As long as there are people out there willing to for out £40-50 on a game that's broken at release, or has intrusive DRM stuffed everywhere, this kind of behaviour and this approach to selling games will continue.
This is why is adamantly defend Valve and their "it'll be late but by God it'll work" approach to releasing games, arguments over Steam as DRM aside.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
So an MSOffice flaw announced and this is enough to hack Windows, eh?
But DRM makes buyers look into piracy.
So true. The first thing I do after buying a game that requires online activation, is to search for a crack. I like to own what I buy. No publisher is trustworthy enough to expect their DRM servers will be up and running in a year or two. No crack, no sale.
While I'm looking for a crack, I might as well grab the DLC off pirated sites too, because in the case of EA and the like, they each require online activation and there are no separate cracks.
Results? Lost sales if the game has no working crack for the current patch because I'll buy something else. Plus lost sales for DLC because I already paid for the full game and don't want to lose the DLC because they go out of business or decide to turn off their servers. I really want to pay for games but lately all that rent-only DRM crap makes it harder and harder.
Also the kids in my family don't have their consoles connected online, so that means we'd all have games that refuse to play because they cannot "phone home" to the Game manufacturer's website.
Ditto with My kids.
They don't have internet-connected consoles, so how are they supposed to play Capcom games? I guess Capcom lost several million customers with this decision.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Pirates will Pirate .....
Buyers will give up and do something else
The last DRM'ed game I bought took so long and so much hassle to get updated, running etc that it was easier and less hassle to download a hacked version and play that rather than the legit one I owned ...!
DVDs are the same, the legit ones have so much unskippable rubbish on them that I consider getting a pirated version so I can watch the movie I have payed for ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
It's 24 hours longer than it had to be, as if it were not Steam DRM but an actual game purchased and owned by Skylinux.
And that's his point. 24 hours wait because of DRM is 24 hours wait longer than if there were no DRM, why does it matter that it would be 20 days if it was Ubisoft?
Actually, the Sony forced firmware updates stopped me from purchasing new games.
Capcom on-line activation guarantees I wont buy their product regardless.
Buyers WONT buy.
This is an interesting point. Technically (perhaps not legally but I don't know if this has been challenged in court yet), if you have already purchased the game does it matter if you download a hacked version because it's easier to play?
I regularly do this with PC games that require the CD be in to play, I will purchase the game and then download the No-CD crack for it.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
You seem to think this is something that they experimentally test in a lab and determine to be true or false. Reality is that game launches are so unique depending on so many factors both internal to the game and external in the market that nobody really can measure it. The same game has never launched at the same time in the same way both with and without DRM - and if you did that'd be pointless because it would essentially be like launching without DRM.
Publishers do things they think contribute positively into this mix. More marketing is better than less marketing, less bugs is better than more bugs but many things are unknown like if they'd gone with game play style X instead of Y. Or whether they should apply DRM and if so what kind. That is in fact just guesswork, sometimes educated guesswork and sometimes just pure belief.
It's a little bit like your health, very complicated thing. Everybody knows some things are healthy and some things are not, but some things are more belief than anything else. For example what the best way to lose weight is, I've heard roughly as many theories as the number of people I've talked to. Same with exercise and how you should exercise. People are more acting out of belief than fact, and game publishers are just like that.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It would be nice if people didn't buy it and capcom got that message; however that isn't going to happen. If the game sells well, capcom will hail it as a victory and this method will spread to other games quickly. If the game doesn't sell well, capcom will likely attribute the lack of sales to things other than the DRM.
PS2 was the last actual games console, IMO. Since then, nobody has made an actual games console. The instant 'consoles' started practically requiring internet connections and firmware updates, they stopped being game consoles, and became something else. The console is dead. Long live the console!
...but rather a result of Sony's strange DRM implementation.
The way it's designed, the full version of a game can be downloaded in up to 5 different consoles. People noticed this, and started abusing this system by creating "sharing groups" of five people using a single account for purchases, therefore getting their games for 1/5 the cost.
Publishers obviously didn't like this, which lead to this "Phone Home" stupidity.
My sig became obsolete, and I lack the imagination to create a new one.
This game is only purchasable on consoles that are currently online. If your consoles have never been online, then... no problem!
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Amen bro. This is especially true for Asian companies in general, and Japanese companies in particular.
I work for LG (electronics repair) and they have a very strict way of doing stuff. If you screw up, even a single digit in a 20-digit serial number, they cancel your order, don't pay, and bill you for the parts you used for them. Sony has a similar policy. It's fine by me, I just overbill them as much as I can. In the end I get more money from them than if they tried to do things right (and let you, you know, fix errors and resubmit your order?).
I think it's because of the Asian mindset (or stereotype?) of hard-working people who don't complain, and the social scale system. Anyone more important than you must exercise his power over you.
Then they try the same in the West and it usually doesn't go very well.
The sooner these corporate idiots get this the better. I don't mind shelling out for a game, but if it has invasive DRM? You can forget it. I think the ONLY DRM I don't mind is Steam, because instead of being annoying as hell, it's convenient.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Once upon a time the reliance on physical media was enough to keep most customers honest.
In the day of the internet and digital distribution it would be stupid for a company trying to produce a multi-million dollar game to not spend the thousand or so dollars to put some measure in place to prevent would be customers from accuiering free copies from the internet instead of paying for a legitimate copy from the publisher.
The basic concept behind DRM is just:
if (game_is_legit) then game_on()
else die()
The tricky part is finding an unintuitive and effective thing to put in as "game_is_legit" which is why most implementations tend to be some combination of annoying to legitimate customers and ineffective at preventing piracy, but to ask why publishers want to prevent their million dollar investment from becoming freely available to everyone with a search engine is to demonstrate staggering ignorance.
Do you realize, that Sony CEO is an american?
Why does this sound like a request for an 8-month long DDoS attack coming from Capcom?
They are all convinced they are super smart industry leaders. As such, it is impossible that people might not think their game is not worth $50-$60 and not play it. So clearly if they haven't sold a copy for every man, woman, and child with access to a TV and electricity, the difference is clearly piracy.
profits fall, blame it on piracy. Plus you can dangle 'lost sales' figures in front of investors and say you'll get all that money once you implement phone home.
One of the keys to selling that people always forget, it doesn't have to be true as long as the person buys & you've got enough plausible deniability to beat back the lawsuit.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Yes, the CEO since 2005 is American, but I seriously doubt Sony's corporate culture is. You don't really think he makes every single decision for each division, do you?
There is a war going on for your mind.
And what if my console is not connected to the internet? If I had one, it wouldn't be!
Pirates will pirate.
Buyers will buy.
But DRM makes buyers look into piracy.
Worse, it makes buyers consider avoiding your pain in the arse game pirated or otherwise. It's suppose to be fun, not a bunch of hoops to jump through. Idiot executives have forgotten that.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
What happens in a year or two when Bionic Commando 3 comes out and they shut down the Bionic Commando 2 phone-home servers?
What if you are non-technical and didn't bother to, are afraid to, or can't hook your console up to the internet?
Don't buy this game.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
The publisher gives assurances about working with gamers to fix it, but what they'd really like is for everyone to just shut up and swallow the pill. As long as there are people out there willing to for out £40-50 on a game that's broken at release, or has intrusive DRM stuffed everywhere, this kind of behaviour and this approach to selling games will continue.
Yep. Once they have your money they can tell you to get stuffed. Most people won't fight, so even giving refunds to a vocal minority doesn't bother them at all.
No one spends millions on tech with no return? Evidently you are unaware of just how military research budgeting was conducted during the Cold War.
And what happens if there is a DoS attack on the servers?
You're being way too optimistic. Try this question.
And what happens when Capcom finally decides to turn off the server that gives you the ok to purchase the game(s) you rightfully purchased.
It -will- happen. Especially since this is on a console that will eventually be making Capcom ZERO new cash once a new console generation has begun. Heck, they would have incentive to turn off the server on purpose at that point. Just to make people rebuy the remixed/whatever versions of the same game on the next console.
Yep - I've never pirated a console game and never plan to. Have something like 50 games between 2 consoles.
So with this DRM I get to play the game until they decide to stop supporting its phone-home feature? No thank you! Thankfully, there are plenty of games to choose from.
I agree. The PS3 will be the last console I will buy. I used to be a big PC gamer, but the PS2 lured me to console games. Now, all these consoles feel like limited, and artificially restriced versions of their PC brothers with overly expensive games (for what they give back). Before, the console games had the advantage of being easier to get up and running and having very few bugs. Now, they seem to have all the negatives of PCs and retain all the negatives of consoles.
I have about 10 games on the PS2 and 20 on the PS3, but after getting burned too many times (EA!!) I have completely stopped buying games. I rent the occasional one with the idea that if it is good enough, I will buy, but after 15 rentals over the past year, I haven't bought one.
Capcom and Ubisoft used to be favorites of mine 2-3 years ago, but today, I see them as no better than EA. Infact, I no longer risk it on ANY game publisher. I am probably going to go back to the end of my college days where I buy the PC game, but also go download the hacked version cause it is SO much better.
And what happens if there is a DoS attack on the servers?
Let's find out, shall we?
Another comment mentioned that we are just preaching to the choir. The only way that the average Joe will know about this and understand the potential impact is if his game doesn't play. It needs to be demonstrated to him, particularly on launch day.
So either it really does increase sales, or they are crazy.
No one spends millions on some tech (DRM in this case) when there is no return.
They see a game on bittorrent, they assume that it has been downloaded eleventy million times and nobody there is paying for it. They then assume that had that game not appeared there, they'd have more money in their pockets. Essentially, yes, they are crazy.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Nintendo is forcing me into piracy.
I've got a Wii. I've chosen not to homebrew it for multiple reasons. Nintendo, however, had other plans. My guess is that they don't do a check on the firmware upgrades when they get downloaded. (They might do a CRC, but they sure don't MD5) For whatever reason, I often get a "The System Files are Corrupted. Refer to Troubleshooting Guide" when I boot it up. It can reboot sometimes, but I'd say it works about 25% of the time.
I called Nintendo and they suggest that I format the Wii to fix the problem and back up my games first.
The problem is that Mario Kart and Smash Brothers can't be copied unless I hack my Wii first. I'll be damned if I am going to do all those races and fights again to unlock a bunch of things on the game. I'm not 15 anymore -- I'm in my mid-30s and I have other things to do with my time than placate Nintendo's insane ideas of copy protection.
So that was it, Nintendo. While I'm at it, I might as well plug in my nearby storage drive and back up the disks so the kids don't scratch them.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
To every person who bought for other OS.
And should not be allowed to do business in USA until then.
One good thing does come of DRM.
It leaves file-sharers feeling even more morally justified.
And what happens if there is a DoS attack on the servers?
Forget about that, what happens if I want to play while not connected or during an internet outage?
~Syberz
I find the continuously chanted mantra of, "New Vegas is horribly buggy on PC" a bit odd. Perhaps I was simply incredibly lucky, but I played through the entire game, starting the day after it was released, visiting most of the areas available, and never had it CTD or fail to function on a single occaision. I know five other people who own New Vegas for the PC, and none of them has had any stability issues or game glitches either. That was all without modding, though. Obviously, when you have 20 GB of mods the engine can easily become horribly unstable, as anyone who heavily modded Oblivion can attest.
Then be careful which PC you buy... don't get one with a Sandy Bridge chipset for instance. Make sure it doesn't have any kind of hardware DRM (Trusted Platform Module for example)
I have had almost 0 bugs in fallout. I wasn't even aware there was issues. Which is surprising considering it's Bethesda.
Anyways, people on the computer have been neaten down for years with the trend of releasing buggy software.I mean, now its even expected. Something that would have been really embarrassing 20 years ago.
The good news is that pretty soon console will be in the same boat~
And yes, Valve is awesome. I also love steam. It's a great step towards no DRM.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Except there is a lot of data about releasing in general, None of which shows the no DRM hurts. Some of which shows not having DRM eve helps..
But people get hung up o what they 'feel' is wrong and let that drive there business decsions.
So they would rather spend money trying to present unethical behavior then actually sitting down to make a smart business decision.
I wish business decisions where cold, dry decisions. They are not.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What's that comment about them coming for the communists, but I wasn't a communist, then they came for my XBox but I had a PS3 and then they came for me and there was no one left to fight for me?
As I recall it goes something like this:
"First they came for the communists, but I wasn't a communist, then they came for my XBox but I had a PS3, and then they came for me and there was no one left to fight for me."
Bow-ties are cool.
Reason is that it is an acceptable compromise. I want games with no DRM, unsurprisingly. I think it is a waste of money and it does not enhance my experience as a paying customer. However I understand that publishers are paranoid. Ok well I'll meet them half way. I am not going to be a zealot and demand NO DRM EVAR!!!!11 so long as they meet me half way and make the DRM something that doesn't cause me trouble.
Steam's DRM is pretty good like that. The only downside to it really is that you have to be logged in to Steam. However that's not a big downside since Steam provides services to the game. Also it allows you to install it as often as you like, on an many platforms as you like and so on.
As such it is a pretty reasonable package. Valve did a good job of integrating the DRM such that it doesn't really matter to users, that you don't really notice it. It is just a natural part of Steam and it doesn't intrude.
I'm ok with that, and I'm glad that they are giving publishers something that keeps them happy without screwing over the users.
Bug-free at release is a different issue. Because there's good reason to believe in that "they will address this". That a few companies fail to deliver eventually is not changing the fact that the majority improves.
DRM -with only the exception of one company I can name, Egosoft- does not get addressed. It stays.
That makes it clear why people are definitely more willing to accept the earlier than the latter.
Consoles should not have any sort of 'phone home' DRM.
I'll give a relevant anecdote. A snowstorm knocked out our Internet (to 98% packet loss) for a few days. Thus my housemate and I could only play SC2 vs computer (despite being on same lan), couldn't play any steam games since offline mode wasn't working right (something about no local login credentials) until a brief spurt of connectivity allowed it to authenticate.
But all my PS3 and PSP games worked fine. It's one of the rare areas where PC gaming elitists don't have a leg to stand on. If this sort of DRM is allowed then there is even less of a reason to get console games.
You are either being extremely sarcastic or you are a complete idiot. I really can't tell.
These constant updates take over 15 minutes to complete and won't work in the background.
PlayStation Plus subscribers get automatic downloads of demos, patches, firmware, etc.
PlayStation Plus
Downloads can be scheduled as you like.
Firmware upgrades are not installed automatically. For more details:Support: System Software Updates [Automatic Downloads]
I simply cannot understand why game companies continue to pursue these kinds of tactics. They're obviously not idiots so why would they put all the time and effort into these kinds of DRM/phone-home technologies when they KNOW that a crack will be released a few weeks after the game comes out. So, as many posts have mentioned before me, you're only annoying the people that actually purchased the game.
What if a buyer has a laptop and they want to play somewhere other than home without internet access? They can't, yet the pirates can.
If the assemblies are available to experienced crackers it's a waste of time, therefore degrading the product for everyone.
Translated to corporate jingoism: They'd rather maximize current revenue streams instead of exploring possible pitfalls in forward strategic planning.
I have a PS3, (CECHExx) I have never had any problems with the software. Once the OS option was removed there were more annoying updates, but I still have no problems with the system. For the annoying constant updates I blame the people who keep hacking there PS3's and then posting it all over the net. Don't blame Sony for defending it's investments. They put allot of money and hard work into making the PS3 and it's games. If you tell every one how to steal games then you can't be surprised when security measures are taken against you. On a similar note I feel the hackers should be rewarded with payments for there work, as long as they do it respecting the company who's software / hardware they are having fun with (not go posting it all over the net).
by Slashdotters who want to believe that key release didn't cause any real damage.
http://www.binplay.com/2011/01/mw2-ruined-by-ps3-jailbreak.html
Don't you mean usually doesn't work?
Does no one remember how bad nagware/shareware used to be? The scene in Futurama with the Lucy Liu bot wanting to register is a prime reminder of that.
Companies want profits (and indirectly less piracy), legitimate consumers want games they can play without DRM, and pirates want free games because they're either poor or cheap bastards. I don't mind paying for games, but where is the middle ground so everyone wins? How can people convince companies that DRM is not all that useful/necessary while convincing pirates (with money) that paying is a good thing sometimes?
In all honesty though, DRM isn't a big problem for me, yet. Sure, I cringe at the thought of these phone-home apps not working if I go offline, but it's not like they're nagging me or anything. Plus if it ever turns out they were collecting data somehow, I can always join the inevitable class-action lawsuit afterwards. May not pay much, but would be satisfying nonetheless.