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DRM Drives Gamers To Piracy, Says Good Old Games
arcticstoat writes "Independent retro games retailer Good Old Games has spoken out about digital rights management, saying that it can actually drive gamers to piracy, rather than acting as a deterrent. In an interview, a spokesperson for Good Old Games said that the effectiveness of DRM as a piracy-deterrent was 'None, or close to none.' 'What I will say isn't popular in the gaming industry,' says Kukawski, 'but in my opinion DRM drives people to pirate games rather than prevent them from doing that. Would you rather spend $50 on a game that requires installing malware on your system, or to stay online all the time and crashes every time the connection goes down, or would you rather download a cracked version without all that hassle?'"
I certainly agree. I accidentally bought a game with DRM and online activation that I couldn't return (brick and morter retailer while on holiday). I'm allergic to installing that crap on my system, so I figured out how to bypass it with a modified exe. Why go to all that effort? Because I should control my system, and nobody else. I won't go so far as to pirate it, but I can understand why some people would.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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Shouldn't you do that before you install the game?
Eating the brains of your enemies does not make you smarter. But it's still fun.
I prefer MegaGames.
proud caffeine whore
Then I kept doing it because I'm cheap. Guess they got to me in my formative years.
The whole Blu-ray bullshit, too.
I have a blu-ray player, but I run Linux. Playing Blu-ray in linux is difficult and error prone.
So I download the movies instead. I would happily buy them legally if I could pop them in and just play them in linux.
And the fact that the bluray rips are available with little to no effort on all the pirate sites would suggest to me that the copy protection isn't working anyway.
...DRM is bad for consumers.
I absolutely agree with them. With the big budget games I've bought previously, I've also tended to download and apply cracks to be on the safe side - not just in case their DRM screws up my system, but also to get rid of needing the disc in all the time. There has always been temptation, though, to simply screw them over like they've screwed me over in the past, and get a pirate copy of the game.
I personally have re-bought over a dozen games I previously owned from GOG.com - they've made an effort to create automatic installers for all the older games, and it's a lot easier than breaking out the discs again. Particularly for some of the larger games, like Pandora Directive, which came on 6 CDs.
People are willing to pay for things, but not for a worse end user experience.
As long as the pirates are providing a better product, they are going to win. I can't justify choosing to spend money on a worse experience. Can I get the option to pay for a valid license but then use the pirated install?
They have messed up DRM so many times and so many different ways, nobody has faith in it. In the end, the paying consumer suffers every time. Require internet for single player mode? What do you mean my media will no longer play because you turned your server off? And your secretly installing root kits?
While I don't personally install pirated games (too concerned about what else may come with it), I could see why people would if they really wanted to play game X. For me, there are enough other games typically that I'll just pass and go buy something else. I think the overboard DRM etc stuff does nothing to stop people from hacking it eventually, and just stops consumers like me, willing to pay for it, from buying the game(s) at all. And then there's also a certain about of ill will you feel towards the companies who do it -- maybe not a tangible, but I think it impacts my thinking and spending towards those publishers.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
DRM only (marginally) benefits one party, and it is intrusive to varying degrees depending on the method used. It does strongly resemble malware those respects. If I got a piece of malware on my computer that required that I connect to the internet or worse, pop a specific disc into my computer every time I ran the program, I'd be pretty pissed.
A little off topic, but did anyone see they recently added Realms of the Haunting?
Dungeon Keeper II - loved the game and bought the game. The problem is it won't actually succeed in doing the stupid copy protection CD check anymore or run properly on XP without two cracks to get it to run - so that's what I do. I'd even considered buying it again at one point but gave up after a fruitless attempt to track it down.
If DRM is a result of the publisher's distrust in me, then my boycot is a result of my distrust in them.
Registration servers down, requiring the disk be in the drive, etc...A quick trip to TPB for a cracked file and I can play with no hassles.
Retail games:
* are dangerous. They can cause damage to your computer.
* are inconvenient. You can't back them up easily, they have ridiculous requirements like online activation or always online connection.
* don't work. They're made by hurried people who are trying to rush games out the door to grab your green.
Pirate games:
* are safe. The providers are out for kudos. Nobody gets kudos from a malware loaded or bugged release.
* are convenient. You can back them up however you like very simply. Restrictions described above are not in effect.
* work. People spend a great deal of time manipulating the game to work in the modified state, often better than how it was shipped at retail.
Then use lynx.. problem solved
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I am a big fan of GOG.com, but I am not so blind to fail to notice that this whole article is just an advert for them. It is hardly "interesting to see them coming from an online game retail business" when that retail business is dedicated to non-DRM games!
I agree that intrusive DRM will drive some people to piracy, or at least stops people (like me) from buying the products (FU! EA). But I am not convinced that the number of customers lost would be more than the number gained by preventing casual piracy. DRM will never stop the dedicated pirates, it is more aimed at people who do not identify themselves as pirates but who just loan their discs to their mates.
I can't stand DRM, and piracy is too much of a PITA to bother. Games are not that valuable for me to pirate, hack, crack...whatever. No, I'll just go back to my old games I used to play 6+ years go. Still plenty of replay value in them.
Life is not for the lazy.
Which I think the developers know and don't mind much at all.
If I play it on a console I don't get malware on my PC.
I didn't buy Starcraft 2 because of the whole "you don't own it" issue.
I try not to buy games on Steam because the more games you buy on Steam, the more you stand to lose if Valve decides to cut your account off. If they cut you off because of a dispute over one game, you lose the ability to run all the games you "own". At least with other DRM schemes I don't stand to lose everything over one game, I might lose it but I can still run my other games.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
...then my boycot is a result of my distrust in them
A lot of people say that - and not just about DRM - but in the end just go out and spend the money on the DRM infestation anyway because they don't want random warez possibly infecting them with something perhaps more offensive than DRM.
Certainly there has to be a fundamental change in customer service philosophy from the game companies, but I don't think pirated games or non-existent "boycotting" will do it.
Sadly, simply selling games cheaper, DRM and all, would probably eliminate a huge percentage of the pirated game "problem". $50+ for a game? Obscene.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
DRM for the DLC of Dragon Age Origins has been preventing users from playing the game since Friday. The verification servers are having an issue preventing authorization. Still no fix in sight.
Meanwhile all of the pirates are playing without issues.
I have a friend who couldn't play some game -- I believe it was Assassin's Creed 2 -- because his internet is so unstable that he's lucky to have an uninterrupted connection for more than 15min. Unfortunately the game's DRM required a constant internet connection, and he got pretty fed up and decided to return the game. After a while he got around to trying a cracked version and was able to enjoy the full game without any interruptions. I think he just went straight to downloading for the next game they came out with, because he didn't feel like doing any research to find out if it had the same draconian DRM.
Then again, GoG's point of view is kind of skewed. The great majority of their games are cheap, making them easy impulse buys. Since they're mostly older I bet the majority of people buying them are nostalgic adults who're willing to pay for something they remember as being really great. I kind of doubt the lack of DRM factors much into the decision for most buyers.
As a legitimate consumer, I hate DRM with a burning passion because I'm the one getting punished for the actions of pirates, while pirates get to enjoy a DRM-free experience. I want to believe this is true, but unfortunately, I cannot let myself engage in argument from consequence logical fallacies nor indulge in confirmation bias. I look at the evidence, and the evidence (to my knowledge) says that DRM-free games get pirated at about the same rate as DRM games.
Someone please prove me wrong.
Well, it appears that most of the comments are from people who bought a game and were annoyed that they also had to download DRM cracks.
So yes, many people do pay money and crack it.
According to Capcom the PC follow up to Street Fighter IV ,Super Street Fighter IV, was canceled because of lots of piracy. But the sales of SFIV were excellent on the PC. OTOH, there is a vibrant modding community giving away for free costumes and pallet swaps that Capcom charges $1-$3 a pop for...
Put another way, DRM == Control
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
This is one of the reason why I shifted my gaming activities to PS3. They can put any kind of DRM crap and limitations on my console as long as it works as intended.
You can pay money and then crack it.
And then you'd be supporting the company that used the DRM. By continuing to support them, it probably won't get better, and it may even eventually get worse.
but DRM isn't driving anyone to piracy who isn't already okay with piracy from an ethical standpoint.
Except people who think it would be worse to support DRM.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
DRM didn't drive me to pirate games, it drove me to give up gaming entirely.
Even on a console, the hassles were just too much.
Game publishers think they're in the game business. They're in the fun business. If they figure out how to sell hassle-free fun on any of my several mainstream computing platforms, I will give them money. But the longer they fail, the less likely they are to ever interest me again.
If people were "against" piracy but felt driven to avoid DRMed products, wouldn't they buy the product in question and then pirate a DRM free copy?
If it wasn't just a lame rationalization for wanting to get games for free, then yes. I doubt very many people that pirate games "because of DRM" buy the game, because they just want to get it for free and they feel better about themselves if they can rationalize it.
If you choose to not buy something because of DRM or whatever else, that's fine, but then you aren't entitled to then play and enjoy the game. If you play it anyway, then you're just a hypocrite and a leech on those who do buy it legitimately.
DRM that works can reduce losses from piracy. Or maybe I just imagined all the forum posts about the "friend" who pirates everything but buys PS3 games (well up until recently).
Ineffective and DRM free games get pirated equally. Just look at what happened to world of goo:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2008/11/acrying-shame-world-of-goo-piracy-rate-near-90.ars
GOG is pulling the Slashdot free advertising lever.
But most pirates don't go on to buy the game as seen by piracy rates. For example the sales of Crysis never caught up to the number of torrents from the first year.
I wouldn't say that DRM drives people to "pirate" the games, per se, but it definitely does drive them to look for the ability to bypass the DRM for games that they own. I always look for a DRM hack for any game that requires the disc to be in my PC. My monster rig is up on a cabinet for proper cooling and the DVD drive is in no way convenient to access. Add to that the fact that swapping discs all the time is the best way to get them scratched to an unusable state.
Not only that, but I've had several games that actually would not run on my PC until I circumvented their DRM. I've even bought one game that I've NEVER been able to play. I believe it was Space Rangers 2, supposedly a surprisingly good game, but I'll never know. I paid $40 for it at a retail store, took it home, and the early version StarDock DRM fully prevented not only that game from running, but several other retail purchased games from operating properly. Took me 3 days to get it off of my system, and I've since thrown the disc away. I bought Battlefield 2 + all the expansions through the EA online store, and I think it took 3 months for me to get it to let me actually log in without crashing. When people who actually paid retail money for your game STILL have to "steal" it in order to play it, something is horribly, horribly wrong.
Many does not mean all people for all games.
Yes, people will pirate a game because it is free. Hell, I did that a lot when I was a student. Then I started to get some disposable income and I began to buy my games because I knew that it was the right thing to do. There are a lot of people out there who want to do the right thing, but resent being treated like a criminal for wanting to play a game. GOG fills their needs.
There are others reasons to pirate software than DRM, and that is why I said that it drives SOME people to piracy, not all.
I play on the couch anyways so saying goodbyte to pc gaming wasn't a big deal. A combination of Steam/GFWL annoyances and developers focusing on consoles made me switch over.
You put the game in the console and play it. What is the problem?
Oh, we drive you to piracy with our slow bloated crushing DRM
And then sweep you up in the civil suits and threatening letters we send
Don't say the games we make are awful and bad...
And you will not pay a cent after you played that pirated copy you had
See, the developers won't make our product that sells as good
As last years model, even though we copied it as best we could
So, it's no longer our business model to please the masses
Now take the position while we give it to you up the... Error 402: PLEASE CHECK YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION TO CONTINUE PLAYING
Most piracy is driven by avoidance of payment as seen by the heavy piracy of DRM free indy games like world of goo. If everyone was like you then DRM wouldn't exist but sadly that isn't the case. When it comes to the pc there are plenty of people that can afford the games (and high end gaming rig) but choose not to pay for them.
http://www.binplay.com/2011/03/comments-from-crysis-2-pirates.html
Looks like Rockstar is losing their interest in the pc anyways.
As part of the collective that makes up the gaming marketplace, we really have no one else but ourselves to blame for the continuing existence of DRM. If we don't buy the games, Big Gaming makes no money and is forced back to the drawing board. Piracy is a response to TWO things: unreasonably high prices AND artificial tactics like DRM designed to protect those unreasonably high prices.
We don't need laws or lawyers or politicians to stop this greedy behavior. All we need are education of the market and effective boycotts. The "market" can't fix everything, but it - WE - can damned well fix this. I am not a Libertarian, so sorry if that sounds like a Libertarian refrain.
To paraphrase the author, "What I will say isn't popular..." ... here on Slashdot, but I'm going to say it anyway. DRM in and of itself does not drive people to pirate games. I say this as someone who used to courier gigabytes of warez a month back when a 14400 baud modem was considered lightning fast, and the only way to get "0 day" warez was to download them from Europe and take advantage of the fact that their day started before ours.
People pirate software because they are cheap, unethical bastards. I swapped warez because I was a kid and my parents couldn't afford to buy me all the new games. I justified it to myself because a lot of the times the games sucked, and I would have been upset if I had actually spent money on the games. However, even as a punk ass, thieving teenage kid, I still bought games from studios that put out quality products because even back then, I understood that studios need support to stay in business.
DRM being a source of piracy is a load of crap. People are stealing because they do not care. They should just come out and admit it. They couldn't give two shits about the coders and project managers, marketing people, game testers and everyone else who is trying to make a living by putting out what they hope will be fun, enjoyable, entertaining software. Sure, there are some flops. Sure, it would be nice if you could "try before you buy", but lets face it, that is not and cannot ever be a viable business model. It takes too much time and effort to get a game out the door. A company can't put out a half assed game and tell the public, "If you like this, buy it and we'll keep making it better." Look how much people whine about DownLoadable Content (DLC). "It should have been included in the first game. Damn game studios, nickle and diming me death." Look at how people whine about WoW "Damn Blizzard, expecting me to pay every month. Those servers should be free damn it!"
It's really easy to put the blame for a-moral, anti-social behavior on the others. It takes some real strength of character to look at yourself in the mirror and acknowledge that you are ripping someone else off.
Frankly, I'm sick of it. In theory geeks should be some of the smartest, most enlightened people around. In reality, they're just as a-moral and pathetic on certain subjects as "Joe Sixpack" and the rest of the stereotypical personifications of lame behavior that they rail against on a regular basis.
Before people go nuts on this post, realize that I'm not saying I support DRM, or root kit like behavior, or software phoning home. I'm saying that using those as an excuse for piracy (the gist of the article) is a load of crap. If a person does not like DRM, don't support publisher. If you buy a game, and want to download a no-CD crack, or download a modded exe to get rid of some phone home behavior, I believe that is your right as a consumer. Go on with your bad self, DMCA be damned. But don't pirate a game, and try to justify it as anything else besides outright theft.
I play console games because of worry of what PC games will do to my computer. (And because I swap OSs periodically and don't feel like reinstalling or having games that only work when running Windows)
I gave up on DS games because frankly, the enfored stylus control system ruined many games.
I'll happily play the 360 over the Wii to not have to deal with a clumsy stick based interface. (That said, Nintendo was smart enough to give you the CHOICE on how to control Super Smash Brothers and Mario Kart)
Nintendo thankfully provided us a slider on the 3DS controlling the 3D effect. (Tried it at Wal-Mart, apparently I'm immune to 3D, I get double-vision and an instant mild discomfort. I was really looking forward to having a 3D camera, hopefully the next system does 3D in a different manner, I had no problems with the Virtual Boy.)
Many otherwise good games periodically lose their fun with enforced mini-games. (There's at least a handful of games that are NOTHING but mini-game collections out at any given time. If I want to play a mini-game, I'll find it myself. I like platformers but not FPSs. If I can't get any further in a platformer until I get through a shooting challenge, the game is going back on the shelf, or to gamestop where someone will buy it used instead of new. Annoying games make the jump from "original sales" to "resales" faster because of availability. Also, if you do this with 1 game in a series, why should I get any of the sequels?
Nintendo came up with a good idea in one of the recent Mario games adding an auto-pilot of sorts that would help the less skilled/patient with challenges, but why would you want to skip the gameplay you specifically paid for? I would however be more than happy to skip what I didn't go out looking to buy that's holding what I did hostage. (I'm looking at you, Mega Man 8 with your "jump, jump, slide, slide".
On the other hand, Bowser's Side Story is beyond me. (Apparently I can't properly blow into the microphone. It only registers once every few times and it's not due to any lack of volume. Experimenting with different sounds, hissing, yelling, solid tones etc hasn't helped.) There's no way around it. Minigames to unlock the Bowser battle are annoying as anything and have to be repeated every time I die at Bowser. (No save after the minigame and before Bowser.) The 1st DS Zelda was a pain in the butt despite being overly easy from the horrid controls. The 2nd with the train mini-games got put up. (Surely they learned their lesson after the 1st and will offer d-pad control, nope. I should have borrowed before buying, no more Zelda.) The World Ends With You, put aside almost immediately. If I can't see the screen and control at the same time, I'm not interested in your game. Why would Phantasy Star Online (in offline mode) not let me pause to use the bathroom? Mario 64 had extremely annoying parts (the slides) but you could choose to go after a different star. Don't have Sonic speed-run reflexes? Much of (the original) Sonic could be walked through. Don't want to deal with Chaos Emeralds? Don't bother. It only changes the ending. I never bothered with Boktai, why would I want to plan WHEN I play? The game is there for me, not vice-versa.
Who wants to pay $30 - $50 for frustration when there's good games out there whose challenge is the gameplay, not bad controls or filler.
The hacking mini-game wasn't worth it to me in Bioshock, didn't matter, you could get enough ammo w/o hacking. (In normal difficulty, haven't tried others.)
A good $20 comedy on DVD will keep me laughing (happy) for ~ 120 minutes. A riveting book has no issues. (with the exception of cliffhangers in a series) Why should I buy a game that's as much frustration as joy? If the jumps are hard, fine. If the boss takes 100 hits to kill, fine. If the boss requires a DDR like minigame, the game's not worth playing. (Goodbye Ephemeral Phantasia) You don't need filler, I loved Portal and Braid. Neither was that long. Portal w
...how big piracy was even before DRM. People are attracted to piracy because it's free, not because of copy protection.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
tl;dr: nintendo fanboy likes comedies more than most games.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
In high school I used rosetta stone to learn Russian. incidentally, it was around the same time I started trying out linux. Due to teaching myself drive partitioning and my own inexperience, I really screwed up my hard drive a couple times. So I would have to re-install everything, including rosetta stone. I didn't know it at the time, but it came with exactly two licences, so the internet activation only worked twice. After the third time when I found that out, I ended up calling their technical support. After spending 30 minutes on the phone with a hard-to-understand foreign person, I still wasn't getting anywhere. He said I'd have to provide proof of purchase (which I didn't have, because the school bought the software) and maybe he'd be able to get me another licence.
I was pretty fed up at that point, so I decided for the first time to give piracy a try. It was perfectly ethical; I was just trying to be able to use the software that had already been paid for. I couldn't believe how simple it was, just download a small crack from the pirate bay, and everything worked perfectly. DRM was the very thing that introduced me to piracy. I personally still wouldn't take anything without paying for it, but I can easily see how someone might start pirating their media solely because of DRM.
Anybody want a peanut?
Allow me to present you a counter example: Games for Windows Live.
Let's say you're (like me) buying a game. It just happens to include this GfWL "protection" that keeps you from playing it until you jumped all their hoops. This looked a bit like this for me:
1. WTF, I need a Windows Live account? *sigh* ok, let's create one. One should add that back then their page was slow and ... well, let's say not QUITE intuitive. It almost seemed that they're the only online service that does NOT want you to sign up. But ok, I jumped those hoops and handed every kind of info but my shoe size to MS.
2. Ok, start... what do you mean, no connection? Ok, let's dig out the homepage, what holes do I have to punch into my firewall so this software can communicate with its master?
3. Punched holes... still not working. I will shorten it here, an hour later and still no connection.
And so I sat here and pondered. If I wasn't such a dumb, honest idiot, I would now have 60 bucks more and a game that works. Since I am, I have now 60 bucks less, a Windows Live account that I neither need nor want, a firewall I have to reseal (and let's hope I don't forget anything), about 2 hours of time wasted and STILL no working game.
By the time I was also so pissed at the game that I didn't even want it cracked anymore. But can you somehow imagine why people'd feel, in such a situation, entitled to say "screw you" and download a cracked version? And why they simply forgo the nasty, useless part (i.e. buying the game and trying to get it to work) the next time?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Stealing is stealing, but copyright infringement isn't stealing.
Abusing the language doesn't make me feel that piracy is any worse, it just tells me that the opponents know that it isn't considered serious enough on its own.
We are all God's parents.
DRM on many games effectively kills: "buy used, play, sell" scheme. Try to do it, with, say, Starcraft II, that not only requires online activation, but is bound to your account.
So those, used to pay for games, have to pay more. And since it happens in the name of "fighting piracy" this aspect of DRM is often overlooked.
...drives me away from reading it. Sorry.
...it's all about preventing used game sales.
DRM doesn't prevent piracy, never has, never will, and everyone knows this, including the game companies. The money that is lost to piracy is 99% imaginary money that was never going to be spent in the first place, so the game companies don't really care about piracy, even though that's their cover story for why they use DRM.
DRM does effectively prevent used games sales. When a used game is sold, the game company sees money trading hands that they think should be theirs. It's their end-run around the First Sale Doctrine. This is also the real reason you're seeing such a big push for books to go electronic; book publishers can't put DRM on a physical book, but they can on their ebooks.
I know I've downloaded No-CD fixed .exe files for games that I actually bought. If that doesn't tell the game publishers something, I don't know what will.
I've been saying this for years: If you want to lose the "war on piracy", the absolutely best way of doing that is making the legal, bought copy less convenient than the pirate copy.
If one option you have is to go to a brick-and-mortar store, or order a CD/DVD online and wait for 1-2 days, paying some $50, then paying some more for DLC that really should've been in the main release, then spend 10 minutes entering a 243-character ID number badly printed on the inside of the case, half covered by some advertisement sticker, then have to enter your private details that they have no business of knowing, registering some online account, and having to have an active Internet connection every time you want to play, so the rootkit they installed can check you're legit, after crashing your PC a couple times and requiring you to uninstall a few perfectly legal and useful tools because it has decided they're evil...
Or, you go to some random torrent site, download three seperate releases because you know at least one is fake, but the other two are fine, have all the DRM crap removed, and you're up and running within a few hours and without all the hassle...
Seriously, which option would a rational being choose? Ignore the legal and moral, because if you feel compelled to "do the right thing", that's not a rational decision.
Yes, I am exaggerating, but not really all that much. Fact is that for way too many games these days, the torrent is simply more convenient, less hassle, less invasive(!).
And, as I keep telling to game publishers, you can't change the pirates' side of the equation. You can change yours.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I purchased GTA3, Vice City and San Andreas and played them all to completion, so I was really looking forwards to GTA IV. Problem is that I don't have a home Internet connection*. Now, over two years later, I haven't brought or played it. Every now and then I take a look online for cracks, but I haven't found any that will allow installation and play without an Internet connection.
I had also purchased and enjoyed Half Life and was looking forwards to Half-Life 2. Over six year later, because of DRM, I have not brought or played it.
I hope that one day these games will be re-released without the DRM. The publishers really should do this as anyone who wants to pirate them will have already done so by now.
* I work long hours, have a fast Internet connection at work; and can transfer files as needed. A home Internet connection would cost me about 300GBP (500USD) for the first year, which is too much just to activate a few computer games.
The real problem is that developers and publishers are having real trouble making money from PC games more than for any other platform, and part of the problem is undoubtedly piracy. What they need to do is attract more paying customers. Ineffective DRM certainly isn't the best method for doing that, but not including DRM isn't going to work magic either.
For the paying customers it doesn't seem that DRM is a real turn-off. It's rather telling that the most successful games in recent years have had the most restrictive DRM. The relatively safe DRM on consoles seems to be attracting big bucks. And the anti-consumer DRM-encumbered iPhone has been a surprising success for game developers.
I would have no problem with DRM that just requires a serial# and that doesn't even try to prevent you from backing up your discs. I would have no problem buying such a game. I haven't seen games like that for more than a decade though. It wouldn't solve the resale problem for the publishers though. They can't stop the new owners from using the serial # from the previous owner. So most publishers would never go for it. Intrusive DRM has too many checked boxes for the publishers.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
If you choose to not buy something because of DRM or whatever else, that's fine, but then you aren't entitled to then play and enjoy the game.
Why not? Maybe I think I am entitled to play the game, but not to enjoy it. That is easy enough these days with all the dumbed down console ports. I played Crysis 2 for about 15 minutes before nearly falling asleep. I'm sure it's great fun for the console kiddies, but I found it dreadfully boring and rather ugly as well. I wouldn't buy that game even if it were DRM free. The best copy protection, perhaps the only truly effective one, is to make a boring, crappy game. And game developers these days seem to be quite proficient at that.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
The world of goo is a bad example. It sucked. Who would pay for a game like that? Maybe with monopoly money. Lack of DRM is not the only requirement for selling a game. It also has to be fun to play. A better example would be Crysis. It sold like 3 million copies or so despite the fact that it was ridiculously easy to just download a free-as-in-beer cracked version. The fact is that PC games can make a hell of a lot of money even if they are also massively pirated. So far no DRM (that wasn't backed by proprietary hardware) has stopped piracy for more than maybe a week or so. Usually it takes no more than 24-48 hours from game release day. Of course unpopular, obscure software can remain uncracked for years, but that is because it is too obscure for crackers to care about. Those are the kinds of apps that I am forced to crack myself.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
I think that some people just like teh challenge of getting around it aswell. I've got stuff before that i shouldn't of. just to see if i could get it to work...
I can't even be bothered downloading a crack these days, i just go back to playing all the older games from pre-2005 that I haven't completed yet.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
An interesting counterpoint to your post is: DRM or no DRM, you are not a customer, but you get a copy any way. So they haven't lost any sales by not implementing DRM, as all DRM ends up being cracked and people like you will pirate it any way.
All DRM does is increase development and maintenance costs for the DRM code/servers - money that could be better put to use by either reducing the purchase cost or making the game better so those who ARE potential customers feel more inclined to purchase.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
of reading a PCGamer review that actually suggested using a exe stripped of DRM, because it would improve game performance noticeably. And that was back when Morrowind was first released. And DRM have only gotten more invasive since.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
After doing assessment I generally moved how I tend to do things over to Steam.
1. Steam has proven to be nice. I hate DRM, but steam is more than just invasive DRM. Its DRM that gets out of the way most of the time *and* has some nice things that are positive as well as negative.
2. I can buy a game, and put it on my PCs. Yes, I can only log in one at a time and play, but there is only one of me. Re-installing the game on machine rebuilds is easy and the games are patched for you.
3. I *actually* grew to like steam. I still hate DRM, but Valve and the people at Steam deserve serious pats on the back and kudos for actually making something thats good for game dev and for customers. I still regard steam as DRM, but its tolerable DRM, and its easy, and it stays out of the way.
4. Fair prices, AT least as competitive as any outlet, with masses of good value, special deals, weekend deals, and cheap back catalogue
5. 99% of people here thinking the cracks and keygens and exe's are better than DRM - wrong.
6. Malware is so bad, and security tools only shield you to a limited extent and can only shield you in limited ways.
7. Botnets, virii, malware has reached a level where its economic to infest your pc. The risk element is far larger, and thinking DRM is worse than the elevated risks means you should try and avoid both where you can, not avoid one over the other. Anyone downplaying the malware issue and current state of play has no idea what they are talking about and should promptly shut up.
If game devs build round steam, then I have no real problem buying the game from them and accepting its level of DRM.
The only think I'd like to see is the ability to buy more simple activations on games that have 3-4-whatever activations, and more friend packs where I can buy 4-8copies for friends and give it as presents.
We`re all equal
For one part because I've been looking forward to it, and even more so because the company respects me enough as a customer to not try and bog down my system with crapware. Such a perspective deserves to be rewarded with high sales numbers to prove a point to the gaming industry.
Everyone who read Tolkien did not pay for the Lord of the Rings. In fact, I suspect over 50% of those are old copies people lent, borrowed, inherited or even purchased from someone else. None of these were any profits to the publisher.
Just because someone read a book you wrote, does not automaticly make him your customer. But the more readers you have, the more customers you'll get. Same with everything else, be it games, music or movies.
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
It can take a lot of shenanigans to get i76 running right, but the fans have put together a zip file with the appropriate tools and a launcher to help.
Here is the community thread for the launcher:
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/interstate_76_arsenal/updated_new_i76_arsenal_launcher_with_automatic_workarounds_2_versions
The natural place for information is in the public domain. We grant a temporary monopoly for creators to encourage them to create. The current continuously extended copyright system has badly broken this, and damages everyone.
As for the state of Slashdot, that is the nature of popularity. Shrug.
@#$#@$ Lightning dodging.
That you're a cheap, unethical bastard. However, this doesn't mean everyone is.
This is not Insightful, this is Arrogant.
Software piracy has been going on pretty much as long as there has been commercial software. DRM may well indeed be a contributing factor in today's climate, but it's not at the core of what makes people pirate software.
I believe quite firmly that the most significant reason that people pirate stuff is simply because they can... and that they know that there is exceedingly unlikely to be any negative consequences whatsoever.
The DRM is intrusive, the price is too high, and other often-heard excuses for piracy may very well be individually true about the products, but they are still little more than rationalizations that people utilize to justify their activities.
Most software... and computer games in particular, are a luxury, not a necessity. There is but one justification that I have ever heard for piracy that I do not have a problem with, and that is if it is otherwise unavailable in any capacity... such as if the game has been abandoned, or the hardware is no longer available so emulation is one's only option to play the game.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I'm in my 30's and reasonably well off financially. I pirate some games and buy others, and I'm happy to support the people who can't afford games. If some kid or student can't afford it, I think it's better they pirate than do without. It's not like I (or the game publisher) lose anything if they can't afford to buy the game anyway.
...if piracy rates are about the same for non-DRM as for DRM games, what possible motivation would publishers have for not including DRM in their games? Yes, the cracks appear very quickly, but as long as the game is uncracked in the first critical hours of release, there will be some impact on their bottom line. So as things stand right now, there is a slight benefit to having DRM, and a negligible benefit to not having DRM.
In their place, who wouldn't make similar decisions?
If non-DRM games get pirated at the same rate at DRM games, what motive is there to produce DRM-free games? The pirates have been undermining our case that it would be in the publishers' interest to keep DRM out of their games, but right now we cannot make a reasonable case that removing DRM would necessarily result in more sales.
Thanks for the attempt to help, but it doesn't work on X64, nor does it really work on anything faster than a low end dual or a P4. it is starting to look like i76 is just one of those games that simply can't be played on a modern system which is a damned shame as from what I remember it was a fun as hell game and started the whole "cars with weapons" phase, ala V8 and Twisted Metal on the PS.
Sadly I believe that unless someone can come up with a DOSBox style emulation that can give us a Win98Se with a MOR late 90s GPU included that many win9x games are gonna simply be lost forever. I know that one of the games that I practically lived on during that period, the excellent MechWarrior 3, is no longer playable as on anything but win9x you have a "bouncing bug" where vehicles will bounce 1000s of feet in the air before the game CTD, and I've run into serious show stoppers in plenty of other games of that era, such as memory access crashes because Win9x didn't protect the memory like a modern OS and therefor it was easy for games to write out of bounds.
Hopefully someone will come up with an emulator strictly for the Win9x era, as the win2K era games can be played with WOW and DOSBox takes care of the DOS era so that is the one era we have left with no real workaround. Considering this was to many the "golden age of PC gaming" with so many excellent games being released it would be a damned shame if they went the way of the 8 track simply for lack of decent emulation.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I used to think the same as you until Steam came along. I assumed that enough people would boycott it and it would fail. But it didn't. It has been a great success, and in part has revitalised PC gaming. This shows that a huge number of people will accept some levels of DRM in games.
DRM has to work to some extent for virtually all the publishers to continue to use it. The games publishers have access to the real figures, so they have more of an idea of whether it works or not. People posting on slashdot just have their assumptions based on....
DRM doesn't drive anyone to piracy, people use it as an excuse to steal.
I've bought 200 games in the last decade. Over 100 on Steam, dozens on CD/DVD. I mention this only to establish my general willingness to spend cash on gaming.
Recently I've been playing Dragon Age: Origins. Bought the Ultimate edition on Steam. What I didn't realise is that it checks EA servers to see whether the DLC is valid or not. Obviously it is valid, I bought the Ultimate edition..
The EA servers died on Saturday. Without those servers, I can't access that game content.
The servers were dead Sunday.
The servers were dead Monday.
In other words, someone's sold me a game, which the publisher has unilaterally taken from me, without provocation, without justification, without reason. Whether it's through incompetence or malice, I am unable to enjoy the game that I bought.
EA refuse to refund me, as I didn't buy directly from them. I'm waiting for Steam's response to my refund request.
I fully expect Steam to decline to refund me. When they do, I will be hunting down a pirated version of the game. It's the only choice I have to play the game that I bought.
THE ONLY CHOICE.
Tell me again, how DRM doesn't drive people to piracy.
So far as I have noticed, every tool you have mentioned is for Windows.
Have you tried playing this game under Wine on a Linux machine? For the multi-core problems, you can build Wine without threads support which will confine it to one CPU. There are probably easier ways to arrange that as well. Wine also gives an option to select which version of Windows you are presenting to the application, from Windows 2.0 (not a typo) to Win 7. Generally, any behavior Wine exhibits that differs from the way that the relevant version of Windows would have behaved is considered a bug and fixed.
I have no idea if that would work for this game but I generally have excellent luck with Wine and Windows games though for most, you do have to crack the DRM simply because Wine won't allow programs to install Windows device drivers or otherwise to sink their hooks into the guts of the system. Something like the Sony rootkit wouldn't work under Wine for that reason. If you are concerned about other malware you can create a separate restricted user account for Wine that doesn't even need to have network access.
If you don't have a Linux system handy, trying this out would be as simple as booting from a live CD. Knoppix would be a good one to try.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I wouldn't be surprised if it did work to some extent, since finding and downloading a pirate copy is beyond the skill of many users.
Most piracy is driven by avoidance of payment as seen by the heavy piracy of DRM free indy games like world of goo. If everyone was like you then DRM wouldn't exist but sadly that isn't the case. When it comes to the pc there are plenty of people that can afford the games (and high end gaming rig) but choose not to pay for them.
I'm not so sure about that. Studies on music piracy in multiple countries show that the people who pirate the most music also spend the most money on music overall. It seems that people pirate music mostly for convenience and to get access to a wider range of titles, not to save money. That's also supported by the fact that the music industry's total revenues, if you include independents, collections agencies like ASCAP, and sales of downloadable music, have increased substantially during the period 1999 - 2009, the same period during which music piracy exploded. It's only the traditional music publishers, that spend large amounts of money on advertising and try to charge $15+ for pieces of plastic, which are in deep trouble.
I wouldn't be suprised if people pirate games mostly for the same reasons: convenience and to get access to a wider range of titles. Sure, there are people with $2000+ gaming rigs who are too cheap to buy most of their games, but many of them may be too cheap to buy most games even if they had no access to pirate copies.
Because most people pirate dozens of games and only play one or two of them. It's just so easy and convenient to pirate - just click a link on Pirate Bay, and then click OK on the dialog box that your BitTorrent client pops up. When you're out of disk space, just delete the games you tired of after five minutes, or, in most cases, didn't even bother to install.
I can honestly say there's no chance in hell I would have bought most of the games I downloaded. But since I became an adult and got a steady income, I've bought most of the games I've played for more than an hour.
It's meaningless to compare the number of sales to the number of pirate copies. The number of pirate copies has no relation to the number of potential customers.
Piracy came first, but DRM may very well make it worse.
Then why do game publishers still use DRM? Well, it could be because it stops you from (legally) lending the game to your friends, and from (legally) reselling it when you're done with it. It allows the publisher to circumvent your fair use rights and get paid more times for the same game.
Game publishers have been trying to squash the used game market for one or two decades - they've (unsuccessfully) argued in court that the reseller is infringing their copyright when he/she sells a used game!
*raises hand*
I don't care if the parent is an FBI agent, since it's still legal to circumvent access protection in order to play a game here in Sweden. How would I play games on my CD-less netbook without no-cd cracks?
I think DRM is a pain in the ass and I can understand people who won't buy games that use it, but you don't have an innate right to own a game.
Does the game producer have an innate right to stop me from copying the game?
If not, the game producer can put as much DRM on the game as he/she wants, and I can remove the DRM and copy the game as much as I want.
Personally, I think copyright should be balanced to maximise the benefit for society as a whole, not to maximise the profits of the creators, artists or publishers. And I believe the most beneficial for society would be something like five years commercial copyright, and free copying for private, non-commercial use.
There's a third option, besides making a pirate go legit or making a legit customer go pirate: making a legit customer abstain from the game because of the DRM. Those are the people the game publishers lose money on.
Of course DRM isn't the cause of piracy. But if a supposed anti-piracy measure doesn't do anything to reduce piracy, and in fact may increase its slightly, I think it's worth noting.
Unless the game publishers are total idiots, it could mean the main purpose of DRM is not to stop piracy, but to stop legal lending and reselling.
...for all those people on Pirate Bay downloading GOG games? I know there's a forum post somewhere at GOG where the new justification (once DRM is no longer an easy excuse) is that the games don't come with physical CDs and manuals, so they don't want to waste their money on a download. Good grief.
The sad truth about copy protection in all of its forms is that it only hassles honest users. Pirates are never deterred or hindered. In fact, pirates welcome each new copy protection scheme as a challenge to be overcome in an enjoyable momentary diversion.
In contrast, copy protection all too often prevents honest customers from using the products they pay for. SecuROM, for example, rendered the Atari version of the game Armed Assault unusable with the very first 1.08 patch. The only way that honest customers could continue playing the game was to download a cracked version until the 1.12 patch stripped away the copy protection completely and made the game completely diskless. Many honest customers had the exact same experience with Neverwinter Nights and NWN2.
Requiring constant internet connection is a non-starter for those customers suffering with unreliable ISPs like Comcast. Limiting re-installation is completely unacceptable, period.
All customers have fundamental rights when purchasing a product that the product::
- Is fit for its intended purpose;
- Matches its description:
- Is of satisfactory quality to function for a reasonable time without defects.
Copy protection simply has a very high rate of violating these rights with no deterrence or hindrance to real thieves.
The real consequence of copy protection is not honest customers resorting to piracy after paying for a copy of a game. The real consequence is lost sales to honest customers like us who research games before we buy and refuse to purchase games that are highly prone to either never work right or stop working.
- Cardhu
"DRM Broke Dragon Age: Origins For Days": Ars Technica reports that a server problem with the DRM authentication servers has caused Dragon Age: Origins players to be locked out of any saved games that include downloadable content. The story is here on Slashdot.
"Gamer Banned From Dragon Age II Over Forum Post": A Dragon Age II gamer banned from BioWare’s forums for an allegedly inflammatory post has been locked out of the (singleplayer only) game for the duration of the ban. This story is also right here on SlashDot.
The question is - why does anyone in their right mind pay for any products with DRM? If the majority of the public would simply act in their own interest and boycott DRM products, DRM would abruptly disappear.
- Cardhu
... from xkcd.com: http://xkcd.com/488/