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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little nugget of information to potential purchasers — an omission which eventually led to the DRM scheme being hastily withdrawn.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."
No, privacy threats plus Sony's willingness to impose phone-home DRM plus consumers' and legislators' willingness to accept DRM were all contributors.
Pirates will pirate.
Buyers will buy.
But DRM makes buyers look into piracy.
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.
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.
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
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.
That's the whole plan: they don't want you to be able to play it 15 years from now, they want you to keep on buying.
As for the DRM itself: sure, they _could_ release an update a few years from now that would disable the call-home feature. But there is no guarantee that they will. And even if they did then you'd have to go to lengths to preserve a copy of that update in case you have to re-format the HDD or something because it simply won't be available on any live servers anymore after so many years.
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.
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!
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.
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