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Shadow Warrior 2 Developers Say DRM Is a Waste of Time (arstechnica.com)
zarmanto writes: Ars Technica reports that one particular game studio might finally get it, when it comes to DRM'ed game content. They're publishing their latest game, Shadow Warrior 2, with no DRM protection at all. From the article: "We don't support piracy, but currently there isn't a good way to stop it without hurting our customers," Flying Wild Hog developer Krzysztof "KriS" Narkowicz wrote on the game's Steam forum (in response to a question about trying to force potential pirates to purchase the game instead). "Denuvo means we would have to spend money for making a worse version for our legit customers. It's like the FBI warning screen on legit movies." Expanding on those thoughts in a recent intervew with Kotaku, Narkowicz explained why he felt the DRM value proposition wasn't worth it. "Any DRM we would have needs to be implemented and tested," he told Kotaku. "We prefer to spend resources on making our game the best possible in terms of quality, rather than spending time and money on putting some protection that will not work anyway." "The trade-off is clear," Flying Wild Hog colleagues Artur Maksara and Tadeusz Zielinksi added. "We might sell a little less, but hey, that's the way the cookie crumbles! We hope that our fans, who were always very supportive, will support us this time as well," Zielinski told Kotaku. "...In our imperfect world, the best anti-pirate protection is when the games are good, highly polished, easily accessible and inexpensive," Maksara added.
but i do want them to have my money now.
Although I would like to add, good to see more developers/publishers who see that DRM is a waste of time and only hurts legitimate customers.
"You had $5,000 to spend on a home computer, yet you pirated/stole the software."
Yes.. because they *had* 5000$. They *have* no more money. It's really not that difficult to understand.
Mostly random stuff.
They treat games like necessities because there is a set of gamers that treat it that way. They'll jump through all sorts of hoops to get access to the games, signing up for special accounts on the publisher's web site or even paying for that right, and then end up playing the game for a week at which point there's another must-have game around the corner. Game publishers are generally not aiming at the discerning consumer market segment, they're too busy raking in the profits from this year's Assassin's Quest #27.
This means that if I want the DRM-free game, I can buy it from the developers instead of having to get it from TPB.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
> This developer doesn't get DRM
Actually you're the one who doesn't get it. The developers only have a _fixed_ amount of time.> That means they can spend their time:
* Making the game better (which benefits everyone)
* Waste their time on shitty DRM which will be "kracked" on day zero -- DRM only hinders honest people -- it doesn't stop the pirates.
You're right that DRM only stops people who don't know. But it isn't that hard to google a krack for your favorite game. Back in the day gamecopyworld was THE place to find the .exe without the crappy copy protection.
> and I don't understand why people dislike it.
You're probably too young to remember that when games used to come on CD-ROMS that there was always problems of compatibility. One CD-ROM drive could read the game, another couldn't. I had one game that copy protection prevented the cut-scenes from playing!? WTF. I downloaded an .exe with the copy protection remove and I could watch the cut-scenes. Go figure.
Also, games should NOT be installing a kernel driver -- who is going to verify that it -still- works with the next version of Windows??
DRM is just more crap that could wrong.
DRM wastes developer time when they could be making the game better.
DRM causes future compatibility problems.
> Maybe everyone complaining about it uses Linux?
Maybe you're assuming.
I've shipped enough professional games to know that DRM causes problems for legitimate customers. Conversely, not having means zero problems.
Any developer relying on DRM for sales has a shitty game. Make a better game and you'll get those sales.
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What is either a coincidence or perhaps a trend, both CDPROJEKT RED and Flying Wild Hog are Polish companies.
Piracy used to be rampant in Poland, partially because people were too poor to spend $60 on a game, but partially because some games were never published in Poland and thus unavailable legally. Publishers of localised versions were using most outrageous DRM solutions - as a result many games I bought 10-15 years ago are unplayable today.
Guys running game companies in Poland today suffered these issues when they were kids, which might explain their stance.