It's not about whether cracks are available. It's about whether cracks are necessary at all. I will not buy a game with draconian DRM, period. Purchasing the game then applying the crack to make the game playable just validates the habit of releasing defective products. Don't give them money for defective products.
Maybe it's time for developers to grow a pair (or two) and stop letting the publishers ruin their work. From what I understand, this is a fine example of "Faustian bargain". I don't give a damn about the publishers, but I WILL support development houses that produce quality games I want to play so they can continue to produce them.
You have no idea how many sales have been lost due to SecureROM. You have no idea how many more sales could have been obtained by not obsessing over the "hardcore gaming" crowd pirating games and instead focusing on making the "customer experience" as positive as possible.
Count me as one of the "not as important as you think you are" crowd. I've been around since the Pong days and have purchased quite a few games since then. I've not purchased Bioshock due to the DRM, nor any other game from the same publisher. And I haven't (and won't) illegally copied it either.
There seems to be quite a few of us out here. Perhaps not quite as insignificant as you think.
Because he wants to win, and that means choosing his battles carefully. Anything that even smells of security or the War on Terror can be easily twisted by the opposition, even something as innocent as not visiting the troops on the advice of the Pentagon.
Agreed. I've been using astraweb's pay-by-download for several years now and the service has been pretty good. Much better than a monthly fixed rate if your usage is low, intermittent and unpredictable. There's no pressure to use up the monthly quota as with time-based subscriptions.
No, they need to make both ('mature' movies and family movies). Letting the latter go would be a mistake.
Here's the thing: The essence of good "family movies" aren't so much about happiness, sunshine, unicorns and puppies, though there's certainly plenty of that. Good examplars of the genre are about presenting the univiersal issues in a form that nascent humans can process. Small humans (aka children) don't always have the experience to grasp the nuances that a "mature" movie presents. That comes later after life experiences teach us the hard ways of the world. But don't be mistaken - little folks have a pretty good understanding of what the world is all about. They are just in the early stages of learning how to handle it. Something like "Bridge to Terabitha" is a much better vehicle for presenting the potential bitterness of life to a small person than "Sophie's Choice".
So don't slag the family movies - they have their place, and the good ones can hold their on against most of the heralded "adult" movies. In fact, I'd say that it takes greater skill to pull off a great "family" movie than a no-holds-barred "for adults only" film. The latter takes much less thought.
I disagree with this post. I'd rather have an appropriate level of balance codified into law instead of skulking in the shadows. I'm not cynical enough to think that the balance will always favor the 'media cartels'. Even if it did, so what? Is their crap really that essential that the choice between "on their terms" and "no thanks, I'd rather do something fun" is that difficult?
As an example, I actually wish that "perfect DRM" was available. Rather than the desired outcome (huge increases in revenue), I suspect that income for the media cartels would largely remain as it is. Why? Because I suspect that rather than "each download = lost sale", only people who really want the media would purchase it. The rest of us would go do something fun, like talk to each other, have a party, go for a walk, get laid, make our own movies/tunes/books etc.
It would be quite telling if the development of perfect DRM was met with a collective yawn. Followed by a mad scrambling on the part of the media cartels to find some way to add value that people were actually willing to pay for.
No matter what level of control the "content providers" exert, as long as people have the freedom to say "no thanks" and walk away, they have no control at all.
I'll second that. With the exception of Joe Lieberman, I'm in the strange and unfamiliar position of feeling proud of my representatives (Chris Dodd, Senate and Joe Courtney, Congress). Please take the time to let them know you appreciate their commitment to the values that used to define the United States.
Yeah, but it also turns an honest man into whatever it takes to get his damned game working since he feels entitled to it (rightly so cause he did pay for the thing). AFAIK, using cracks still requires that the original game be installed, which means the DRM is already on my system, ready to be exploited. I won't place my system at risk for a tasty bit of entertainment fluff, so I honestly don't even care to buy the game at all. What's the point of buying the game and pirating 'in protest' if your system is already screwed. No thanks.
The truly honest act is not to reward the producers of this nonsense at all. Don't buy media that is DRM encumbered.
'free' had a meaning well before 'free software'....
The term has been hijacked. Not really. The use of the word to mean "gratis" is really just a sloppy truncation of 'free of charge'. Reading through the definition at reference.com, it's quite clear that the meaning of free has much more to do with liberty, freedom and unencumbrace than it has to do with monetary value. If the term has been hijacked, it's in the opposite direction from the one you are arguing.
"I'm pretty sure that if I'm a butcher I'm never going to worry about the wishes of vegetarians. Ever.:)"
Remind me never to go into business with you.
Scenario 1: Butcher to vegetarian - "How are our animals treated? We kill em!! Har har. Get the fsck out of my store, you fscking hippie communist treehugger!!!". Vegetarian leaves w/o making a purchase and vows to convert her friends and family to vegetarianism.
Scenario 2: Butcher to vegetarian - "We only accept humanely treated free-range beef w/o HGH treatment and the animals are sacrificed under humane conditions (details available on request). Vegetarian: "My mother asked me to pick up a ham for easter on the way home. Though I don't eat meat myself, I'm happy to purchase a ham for my mother from you. Thanks for responding to my inquiries. I'll take one ham, please. And could you please give me some copies of your pamphlets to give to my non-vegetarian friends? I'd like to encourage them to visit your shop."
"I guess I have to take you on your word that you don't make purchases because DRM has gotten worse. [...] So I probably don't see the same frustration you do."
I guess you do. I'm not sure why the notion is so inconcievable that it has to be openly doubted and met with skepticism. And I never claimed to be frustrated. My objection to DRM isn't just about the degree to which it inconveniences me, it's based on the degree to which I'm willing to let myself be controlled for the benefit of someone else. The latter is a much stronger motivator than the degree to which a DRM scheme causes me inconvenience.
You're assuming that attributes of a product like DRM are tightly coupled to the very nature of the product or at least have only positive or neutral effects, and can't act as a deterrent. You're also forgetting that the choice of whether to make a purchase lies entirely with the potential customer, so you always have to care what they think - that's what business is.
To paraphrase and analogize:
"If I make food from meat and you are a vegetarian who will never buy food made from meat, what do I care about what you feel about my product? You'll never be a customer".
True, because one can't really take something from meat and make it not meat, or less meat. Then you can rule out vegetarians as a customer. Whoops, maybe you can't entirely, since vegetarians might not object to meat strongly, so might buy it for family or friends. So even here "never be a customer" is an assumption that might lose you a sale.
But that's an extreme example, since DRM isn't in any way an intrinsic part of the product. It's much more like a food additive. Insert "MSG", "high fructose corn syrup", "peanut oil", "trans-fats", "pesticides", "growth hormone" or the like into the base statement. These things might have a benefit on sales (because they make the food taste better, bigger or more attractive) but can also act as a deterrent to those who object to such things. Leaving them out doesn't change the essential nature of the food, but does remove the objectional nature of the product and results in greater sales, if that's what people care about.
That last part is crucial, because even with food additives, the marketplace changed over time so businesses had to adapt. People didn't care so much about such things, now they do. I'd say that DRM is getting to be like that. As more people understand what it is and what it's effect is on a user, they care about it. The problem is, it's damned hard to discover whether a product contains DRM, since it's rarely announced on the packaging. Why is that? Probably because if people knew, they might not buy a product, or favor one with less restrictions (I wonder what effect a "Contains no DRM" sticker would have on sales?). The fact that DRM is frequently employed steathily rather than being clearly announced is telling.
"You explicitly stated that you aren't buying a large fraction of PC games and you aren't pirating them either."
What I stated was that as a gamer I used to buy a lot of PC games but I don't any longer, and that change is specifically because of the escalation of DRM, not because I don't play anymore or don't want to. The increasing levels of DRM are actively deterring me from making purchases I would normally make.
"If you refuse to buy games on the basis of the existence of copy protection but you would buy them otherwise you might be more relevant than you originally suggested, but only so much. a sale to you costs EVERY lost sale to piracy that might have been avoided by minimal DRM. That's a pretty steep tradeoff."
True, and that's the dilemma. A purchase is at its core a moral act: mutually beneficial exchange of goods. I can tolerate minimal DRM because it detracts little from my benefit while providing a company the benefit of more sales. I just refuse to place the need of a company for more sales above my need to recieve a product of quality.
Thanks for the lecture, sonny. I understand the purported arguments and rationalizations in favor of DRM. No, I haven't "grown out" of games. I play nearly every day (either older games, games w/o intrusive DRM like Introversion's stuff, or FLOSS games). I have grown into an income that lets me buy what I want, when I want it.
"If you wouldn't pirate it or buy it, then who cares what you think?"
You weren't listening. You should care what I think because I have abstained from buying games that I WOULD buy because they contain ever more potent DRM. I represent a lost sale based on a feature of the product that devalues it for me. How does that land me in the "irrelevant" group exactly?
"I would bet that the mere absence of DRM isn't what brought you to sins of a solar empire."
Again, you weren't listening, because that statement is correct, so fails as a challenge to me. If SOASE sucked, I would NOT buy it just because it lacks DRM. That's just stupid. But I would REFUSE to buy it if it did not suck but contained DRM. Because DRM diminishes the overall value of the software for me.
Yeah, and it also sucks that you aren't getting any money from me because I won't buy your game due to DRM. Which is the point of TFA. I've been playing PC games since the late 80s and used to buy nearly every game on the shelves (there weren't that many). I don't any more, primarily due to DRM. I'll probably never play Bioshock or lots of other games, not that I care anymore at this point. (No, I don't pirate them - I don't buy and don't play.) And I'm not alone. So did stopping teh evul bootleggars get you enough sales to make up for the ones you lost? Plus some extra to cover the money spend on DRM? If not, or if you broke even, then you wasted your time and money that could have been devoted to getting sales from me. Which, if you did a good job, would have guaranteed you a sale on your next title too. So what did chasing down the bootleggers gain you exactly?
I *will* buy Sins of a Solar Empire. Not because of the absence of DRM, but because it sounds like a good game that I would want want to buy, and there's no DRM to turn me away. If I like it, StarDock just found themselves a new long-term customer. One that you could have had. So "Bull" right back at you.
"Did someone threaten to sue him unless he pulled the code down?"
Unknown. I do find it interesting that any trace of the project has apparently been erased from SF. Making a project inactive on request is possible, but that doesn't remove all traces as far as I can recall. Even the SF search engine turns up nothing. It seems like active work was done by SF staff to remove the project and associated artifacts (release files, forums, mailing lists, CVS) entirely. That suggests compliance with a takedown request of some sort, one that had to be taken seriously.
I just read through most of "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Taubes), and he makes a convincing case for the notion that fat is not the evil we've been taught to believe by the medical community and the popular press. I'll be reviewing the original literature source Taubes himself used (one of the benefits of access to Medline etc) to make my own conclusions, but the facts point to excess carbohydrates, not fat and inactivity as the cause for the current obesity epidemic.
One should of course take this with a grain of salt (watch the blood pressure) - nutrition science is terribly complex. But I prefer rigorous analysis of the facts over "buy my diet book because I need to pay the rent and get on Oprah". The fact that the book is a painstaking slog through the research data is almost enough by itself to convince me to take it seriously - the target audience is definitely not the "just tell me what to eat" crowd.
I think the OP may be referring to the practice of audiophiles listening to tube amps, not the tube amps that musicians use. The fact that nobody gets this underscores the assertion that "no more than a tiny, tiny fraction" does this.
Your post triggered a somewhat tangential thought on my part. It's interesting that the original printings are given such high value, since they are essentially mass market copies. It's really the original art which is priceless. I think back on all the times when I wished I owned Amazing Fantasy 15 when what I really want now is Steve Ditko's original art. (Looks across the room at the white long boxes full of 40 year old mass market copies in plastic bags and sighs).
Slashdot Mirror
It's not about whether cracks are available. It's about whether cracks are necessary at all. I will not buy a game with draconian DRM, period. Purchasing the game then applying the crack to make the game playable just validates the habit of releasing defective products. Don't give them money for defective products.
Maybe it's time for developers to grow a pair (or two) and stop letting the publishers ruin their work. From what I understand, this is a fine example of "Faustian bargain". I don't give a damn about the publishers, but I WILL support development houses that produce quality games I want to play so they can continue to produce them.
Fsck you, "The End Of Days"
You have no idea how many sales have been lost due to SecureROM. You have no idea how many more sales could have been obtained by not obsessing over the "hardcore gaming" crowd pirating games and instead focusing on making the "customer experience" as positive as possible.
Count me as one of the "not as important as you think you are" crowd. I've been around since the Pong days and have purchased quite a few games since then. I've not purchased Bioshock due to the DRM, nor any other game from the same publisher. And I haven't (and won't) illegally copied it either.
There seems to be quite a few of us out here. Perhaps not quite as insignificant as you think.
Yeah, I did that a few days ago. No reply yet. I'm not sure this avenue will yield any results.
Because he wants to win, and that means choosing his battles carefully. Anything that even smells of security or the War on Terror can be easily twisted by the opposition, even something as innocent as not visiting the troops on the advice of the Pentagon.
If for some reason I wanted to transfer sensitive data across any border, I would think ssh would provide superior security.
That's what they want you to think.
Agreed. I've been using astraweb's pay-by-download for several years now and the service has been pretty good. Much better than a monthly fixed rate if your usage is low, intermittent and unpredictable. There's no pressure to use up the monthly quota as with time-based subscriptions.
No, they need to make both ('mature' movies and family movies). Letting the latter go would be a mistake.
Here's the thing: The essence of good "family movies" aren't so much about happiness, sunshine, unicorns and puppies, though there's certainly plenty of that. Good examplars of the genre are about presenting the univiersal issues in a form that nascent humans can process. Small humans (aka children) don't always have the experience to grasp the nuances that a "mature" movie presents. That comes later after life experiences teach us the hard ways of the world. But don't be mistaken - little folks have a pretty good understanding of what the world is all about. They are just in the early stages of learning how to handle it. Something like "Bridge to Terabitha" is a much better vehicle for presenting the potential bitterness of life to a small person than "Sophie's Choice".
So don't slag the family movies - they have their place, and the good ones can hold their on against most of the heralded "adult" movies. In fact, I'd say that it takes greater skill to pull off a great "family" movie than a no-holds-barred "for adults only" film. The latter takes much less thought.
I disagree with this post. I'd rather have an appropriate level of balance codified into law instead of skulking in the shadows. I'm not cynical enough to think that the balance will always favor the 'media cartels'. Even if it did, so what? Is their crap really that essential that the choice between "on their terms" and "no thanks, I'd rather do something fun" is that difficult?
As an example, I actually wish that "perfect DRM" was available. Rather than the desired outcome (huge increases in revenue), I suspect that income for the media cartels would largely remain as it is. Why? Because I suspect that rather than "each download = lost sale", only people who really want the media would purchase it. The rest of us would go do something fun, like talk to each other, have a party, go for a walk, get laid, make our own movies/tunes/books etc.
It would be quite telling if the development of perfect DRM was met with a collective yawn. Followed by a mad scrambling on the part of the media cartels to find some way to add value that people were actually willing to pay for.
No matter what level of control the "content providers" exert, as long as people have the freedom to say "no thanks" and walk away, they have no control at all.
I'll second that. With the exception of Joe Lieberman, I'm in the strange and unfamiliar position of feeling proud of my representatives (Chris Dodd, Senate and Joe Courtney, Congress). Please take the time to let them know you appreciate their commitment to the values that used to define the United States.
Amen. Don't buy it.
The truly honest act is not to reward the producers of this nonsense at all. Don't buy media that is DRM encumbered.
The term has been hijacked. Not really. The use of the word to mean "gratis" is really just a sloppy truncation of 'free of charge'.
Reading through the definition at reference.com, it's quite clear that the meaning of free has much more to do with liberty, freedom and unencumbrace than it has to do with monetary value. If the term has been hijacked, it's in the opposite direction from the one you are arguing.
"I'm pretty sure that if I'm a butcher I'm never going to worry about the wishes of vegetarians. Ever. :)"
Remind me never to go into business with you.
Scenario 1: Butcher to vegetarian - "How are our animals treated? We kill em!! Har har. Get the fsck out of my store, you fscking hippie communist treehugger!!!". Vegetarian leaves w/o making a purchase and vows to convert her friends and family to vegetarianism.
Scenario 2: Butcher to vegetarian - "We only accept humanely treated free-range beef w/o HGH treatment and the animals are sacrificed under humane conditions (details available on request). Vegetarian: "My mother asked me to pick up a ham for easter on the way home. Though I don't eat meat myself, I'm happy to purchase a ham for my mother from you. Thanks for responding to my inquiries. I'll take one ham, please. And could you please give me some copies of your pamphlets to give to my non-vegetarian friends? I'd like to encourage them to visit your shop."
Who is the better businessman?
"I guess I have to take you on your word that you don't make purchases because DRM has gotten worse. [...] So I probably don't see the same frustration you do."
I guess you do. I'm not sure why the notion is so inconcievable that it has to be openly doubted and met with skepticism. And I never claimed to be frustrated. My objection to DRM isn't just about the degree to which it inconveniences me, it's based on the degree to which I'm willing to let myself be controlled for the benefit of someone else. The latter is a much stronger motivator than the degree to which a DRM scheme causes me inconvenience.
You're assuming that attributes of a product like DRM are tightly coupled to the very nature of the product or at least have only positive or neutral effects, and can't act as a deterrent. You're also forgetting that the choice of whether to make a purchase lies entirely with the potential customer, so you always have to care what they think - that's what business is.
To paraphrase and analogize:
"If I make food from meat and you are a vegetarian who will never buy food made from meat, what do I care about what you feel about my product? You'll never be a customer".
True, because one can't really take something from meat and make it not meat, or less meat. Then you can rule out vegetarians as a customer. Whoops, maybe you can't entirely, since vegetarians might not object to meat strongly, so might buy it for family or friends. So even here "never be a customer" is an assumption that might lose you a sale.
But that's an extreme example, since DRM isn't in any way an intrinsic part of the product. It's much more like a food additive. Insert "MSG", "high fructose corn syrup", "peanut oil", "trans-fats", "pesticides", "growth hormone" or the like into the base statement. These things might have a benefit on sales (because they make the food taste better, bigger or more attractive) but can also act as a deterrent to those who object to such things. Leaving them out doesn't change the essential nature of the food, but does remove the objectional nature of the product and results in greater sales, if that's what people care about.
That last part is crucial, because even with food additives, the marketplace changed over time so businesses had to adapt. People didn't care so much about such things, now they do. I'd say that DRM is getting to be like that. As more people understand what it is and what it's effect is on a user, they care about it. The problem is, it's damned hard to discover whether a product contains DRM, since it's rarely announced on the packaging. Why is that? Probably because if people knew, they might not buy a product, or favor one with less restrictions (I wonder what effect a "Contains no DRM" sticker would have on sales?). The fact that DRM is frequently employed steathily rather than being clearly announced is telling.
"You explicitly stated that you aren't buying a large fraction of PC games and you aren't pirating them either."
What I stated was that as a gamer I used to buy a lot of PC games but I don't any longer, and that change is specifically because of the escalation of DRM, not because I don't play anymore or don't want to. The increasing levels of DRM are actively deterring me from making purchases I would normally make.
"If you refuse to buy games on the basis of the existence of copy protection but you would buy them otherwise you might be more relevant than you originally suggested, but only so much. a sale to you costs EVERY lost sale to piracy that might have been avoided by minimal DRM. That's a pretty steep tradeoff."
True, and that's the dilemma. A purchase is at its core a moral act: mutually beneficial exchange of goods. I can tolerate minimal DRM because it detracts little from my benefit while providing a company the benefit of more sales. I just refuse to place the need of a company for more sales above my need to recieve a product of quality.
Thanks for the lecture, sonny. I understand the purported arguments and rationalizations in favor of DRM. No, I haven't "grown out" of games. I play nearly every day (either older games, games w/o intrusive DRM like Introversion's stuff, or FLOSS games). I have grown into an income that lets me buy what I want, when I want it.
"If you wouldn't pirate it or buy it, then who cares what you think?"
You weren't listening. You should care what I think because I have abstained from buying games that I WOULD buy because they contain ever more potent DRM. I represent a lost sale based on a feature of the product that devalues it for me. How does that land me in the "irrelevant" group exactly?
"I would bet that the mere absence of DRM isn't what brought you to sins of a solar empire."
Again, you weren't listening, because that statement is correct, so fails as a challenge to me. If SOASE sucked, I would NOT buy it just because it lacks DRM. That's just stupid. But I would REFUSE to buy it if it did not suck but contained DRM. Because DRM diminishes the overall value of the software for me.
Yeah, and it also sucks that you aren't getting any money from me because I won't buy your game due to DRM. Which is the point of TFA. I've been playing PC games since the late 80s and used to buy nearly every game on the shelves (there weren't that many). I don't any more, primarily due to DRM. I'll probably never play Bioshock or lots of other games, not that I care anymore at this point. (No, I don't pirate them - I don't buy and don't play.) And I'm not alone. So did stopping teh evul bootleggars get you enough sales to make up for the ones you lost? Plus some extra to cover the money spend on DRM? If not, or if you broke even, then you wasted your time and money that could have been devoted to getting sales from me. Which, if you did a good job, would have guaranteed you a sale on your next title too. So what did chasing down the bootleggers gain you exactly?
I *will* buy Sins of a Solar Empire. Not because of the absence of DRM, but because it sounds like a good game that I would want want to buy, and there's no DRM to turn me away. If I like it, StarDock just found themselves a new long-term customer. One that you could have had. So "Bull" right back at you.
(Looks down at lap) Thanks to Viagra, nothing. Same as it ever was.
"Did someone threaten to sue him unless he pulled the code down?"
Unknown. I do find it interesting that any trace of the project has apparently been erased from SF. Making a project inactive on request is possible, but that doesn't remove all traces as far as I can recall. Even the SF search engine turns up nothing. It seems like active work was done by SF staff to remove the project and associated artifacts (release files, forums, mailing lists, CVS) entirely. That suggests compliance with a takedown request of some sort, one that had to be taken seriously.
I just read through most of "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Taubes), and he makes a convincing case for the notion that fat is not the evil we've been taught to believe by the medical community and the popular press. I'll be reviewing the original literature source Taubes himself used (one of the benefits of access to Medline etc) to make my own conclusions, but the facts point to excess carbohydrates, not fat and inactivity as the cause for the current obesity epidemic.
One should of course take this with a grain of salt (watch the blood pressure) - nutrition science is terribly complex. But I prefer rigorous analysis of the facts over "buy my diet book because I need to pay the rent and get on Oprah". The fact that the book is a painstaking slog through the research data is almost enough by itself to convince me to take it seriously - the target audience is definitely not the "just tell me what to eat" crowd.
I think the OP may be referring to the practice of audiophiles listening to tube amps, not the tube amps that musicians use. The fact that nobody gets this underscores the assertion that "no more than a tiny, tiny fraction" does this.
An example of this behavior - a tube amplifier for the iPod: http://www.goldster-audio.com/concertino/product.en.html
Your post triggered a somewhat tangential thought on my part. It's interesting that the original printings are given such high value, since they are essentially mass market copies. It's really the original art which is priceless. I think back on all the times when I wished I owned Amazing Fantasy 15 when what I really want now is Steve Ditko's original art. (Looks across the room at the white long boxes full of 40 year old mass market copies in plastic bags and sighs).