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DRM Drives Gamers To Piracy, Says Good Old Games

Posted by Soulskill on from the internal-dissent dept.

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?'"

10 of 642 comments (clear)

  1. Yup by Kell+Bengal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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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    1. Re:Yup by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Informative

      As a PC repairman I'd also like to point out that some of the nastier DRM can completely brick your system forcing a reinstall or in some cases even destroying hardware. How is that possible you ask?

      Simple: In the first cases many versions of Safedisc, Starforce, and secuROM will attempt to install X86 Ring 0 code into an X64 kernel which as anyone that knows anything about OSes knows that is a BIG fricking no no with a capital B for bad. Now not only does this malware install X86 ring 0 code into an X64 OS, causing all kinds of instability and system problems the uninstaller will NOT remove it and it can't be safely uninstalled from the OS, even in safe mode. So if you don't have a Windows Live CD like I do or have a dual boot setup you WILL be uninstalling and reinstalling. I hope you have your data or a separate partition or drive.

      Second I have found when you mix differing versions of Safedisc,SecuROM, and Starforce (since often it will force you to have multiple versions, since they don't recognize each others "security") there is a serious risk of throwing any burners on the machine into PIO mode which happens more often with XP, although I have seen it twice so far with Vista as well. Since modern burners aren't made to run that slow what happens is every burn comes out useless until the drive motors burn out bricking the drive. I can't count how many nice new DVD burners I've shitcanned because of this problem, it really bites XP customers in the ass.

      So my advice is this: If you are on an X64 version have disc images of the OS which is good advice anyway, along with using a site such as GameCopyWorld to hack the .exe BEFORE launching. What I've found is much of the ring 0 crap that breaks machines isn't installed until first launch, so by hacking the .exe one can bypass the crap before it can do any damage.

      Second if you can buy from GOG which has NO ring 0 crap, but if you have to play one that has nasty DRM buy the game but play the cracked game instead as this allows you to again bypass the bullshit and still play the game. For an example I bought Bioshock II recently for $10 (yeah I know its a shit game, but it was $10 and I missed doing the Plasmid/weapon two step) but after reading all the horror stories of nasty DRM and GFWL having to be installed (shudder, what a POS service! MSFT needs ro STFU and realize their shit will never be as good as Steam already!) I left the one I paid for in the box and got the cracked version which works perfectly without all the crap.

      TLDR? If you want a faster game running better on a more stable system then pirate the fucker. hell it doesn't matter what you do anyway as they'll use any numbers they pull out their ass to justify giving us shitty console ports anyway.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    2. Re:Yup by shentino · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You'd think that Ring 0 hacks would constitute unlawful modification of the OS itself.

      Where's Microsoft in this?

    3. Re:Yup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm going to repost my previous comment to another story.

      I've downloaded some ~20 cracks for PC games. I've cracked about 6 games using my own (not-quite-expert) REing skill.

      I verify each crack I download. So far none have been fakes or malicious. They've fallen under two categories.

      • [Conditional] JMP manipulations only: hex editor spots these immediately (e.g. 0x75 -> 0x74). Always safe. Most cracks fall under this category. Standard examples: Mass Effect 2, Oblivion.
      • Unpacking. Typically this means the entire code section is replaced (and data/imports sometimes). Must dump@OEP to compare. SecuROM falls under here.

      I haven't bought a game yet which uses some of the more modern DRM techniques (e.g. remote server emu).

      Usually, if you stick by the dedicated release groups, you can be certain the cracks are safe. All crackers pour over their releases to see what they did -- their reputation would irreparably tank if discovered.

      For each new crack released for a semi-popular game there are at least a dozen unaffiliated crackers looking over their work, especially if it's an attempt at a previously uncracked DRM scheme. Malware would be noticed immediately.

      Once you know even the basics of REing it's utterly trivial to verify most cracks. Most of them can be analyzed in under 10 seconds with a hex editor that can compare binaries. The more complicated DRM is still easy to vet, because you only need to dump the packed exe/dll (doing whatever steps that might entail) to compare it... you don't need to personally repair the IAT or anything like that.

      Maybe you won't believe it but prestige matters to game cracking groups. Malware is very rare. It's nothing like you see with the shareware scene.

  2. Not just games, either... by drunkennewfiemidget · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Not just games, either... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes mod down yet another complaint about how Linux is shit - maybe no one will notice.

      No one who uses and advocates Linux thinks that a flaw in Linux created this situation. That's because they are acquainted with the facts. The fanboys who vent their nerd rage at anyone who slams Linux by modding them down would not interpret the comment as a slam against Linux. If anything it's a slam against the big media companies. Shit man, the guy said he uses Linux. Compatibility with Linux is important enough to affect his purchasing decisions. Think about that a moment.

      I'll explain the part you don't seem to know about. It's not exactly Linux's fault that the owners of Blu-ray use strong encryption to lock it to set-top players and closed-source platforms like Windows. Maybe you have a legit complaint about Linux but this isn't one of them. The only reason you can play it at all in Linux is because a weak implementation of this encryption caused the keys to be released.

      If you really don't like this the people to complain to are the companies that license Blu-ray. Not the Linux developers. If you don't care that much then what are you complaining about?

      Now, consider this. Maybe the reason he was at first modded down is because he accepts and maybe even advocates piracy. That's a polarizing topic. I don't agree with them but there are people who think it is always wrong no matter what the excuse and that it's illegal for good reason. To them his tacit acceptance of piracy really might be offensive tho honestly I wish they'd grow a pair and argue their case instead of abusing the mod system. It's an alternate explanation that more plausibly fits the facts and it didn't occur to you because you were stuck on your little anti-anti-anti-linux rant.

      Seriously man, if you ever wonder why great, meaningful, edifying, constructive discussion can be so hard to find it's because people like you are destroying it. I know you don't set out to do that but brother, that doesn't mean you aren't.

  3. Re:Not news, just an advert by proxy318 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    it is more aimed at people who do not identify themselves as pirates but who just loan their discs to their mates.

    And what's wrong with that? My friends and I lend each other books, movies, etc. all the time. If I buy a game, why can't I lend it to a friend when I'm done playing it?

    --
    Saying your "phone ran out of batteries" is like saying your "car ran out of gas tanks".
  4. Re:DRM benefits one party, and it's not the buyer by Nemyst · · Score: 5, Insightful

    DRM only benefits one party, and that's the DRM software provider.

  5. too late... by dhaines · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  6. Re:Pipe Dream by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    l2 play games. dozens of hours is most definately a thing of the past. now they want you to spend $50+ for a game that you can completely conquer in 6-8 hours. back in the day games were created that took so long to complete you just plain never got around to it, now the company spends eleventy billion dollars on 16 minutes of cinematic footage that, if you're honest the vast vast majority of you press every button on your controller or keyboards to skip it. we need less "video cut scene designer guy" and way way way less "poorly trained sales/management types that think theres actually some kind of effective drm available on this planet/ greedmaster guy" and replace those with "guy who makes the character actually walk properly on the ground and not slide like gumby guy", "old timey manager that understands that you make a quality product and people will want to give you their money instead of having to trick them", and a S--t Ton more cowbell