But if you put just enough of a barrier, it will keep the honest people honest.
Hypothetically, maybe. We don't know because such a thing's never been invented (and is highly unlikely ever to be). Remember, it only takes one lucky person to get the thing onto The Pirate Bay.
Do you get similarly upset with clothing stores that have security cameras all over the place, and put those anti-theft devices on their products?
I've never once had to call Old Navy and ask their permission to wear a sweater I'd already paid for. JC Penney's doesn't act like you're morally obligated to wear outfits in the way they display them. Levi's has never sued me for cutting the legs off my jeans.
As for the copy protection: sure, I can download a cracked copy... but that probably means going to some skeezy site full of porn ads and popups and the latest in browser exploits.
That's a pretty scary description of a rather mundane reality. Did someone ask you to describe it that way?
Many of them dearly love their honest customers, and truly regret the need to put this kind of crap in there (in addition to your objections, many of them feel that it sullies their vision of the game they wanted to make),
Hey, like I said, the net effect is that you're making it more difficult to use the item I bought from you. Given the choice of a free, cracked, working version off The Pirate Bay and a non-free, DRM-infected, half-working version off the shelf at Wal-Mart, there's a pretty thin line of morality keeping my wallet open. Rather than making it harder for honest folks and easier for pirates, why not make it worth my while to buy a copy? Suggestions: first month of online play for free. Toss in a figurine of the hero. Included a one-time-use code for downloadable content. Bundle it with a free strategy guide. Include a coupon for McDonald's. Heck - anything! Today's situation is only tenable until a critical mass say "ah, forget it" and permanently dismiss the idea of buying your stuff.
So... you're saying A) that you've not bought a physical media computer game in the last, oh, 10 years (at least some floppy disc games had copy protect, for that matter), and B) just because you claim to be trustworthy, the game developers should trust everybody?
A) I did, then installed the cracked version.
B) The game developers are indirectly asking why their customers resent them. I'm telling them why.
People "put up" with Blizzard trying to put down a *cheat* in their MMO because the use of said piece of software directly impacts the game experience of other players. That is not acceptable, and Blizzard is well within the boundaries of reasonable behavior to take action against it.
Screw Blizzard. They effectively made it illegal to run whatever combination of software you want to run on your own computer. They figured it'd be easier to sue you than to write a secure service.
First rule of software development: "Never trust the client application." I don't get to sue people who browse my webpages with software I haven't specifically authorized. Instead, I have to make sure that my stuff won't break, regardless of what software is accessing it. You think Blizzard should get a free pass because their stuff is shiny and you have to pay for it?
So I take it you won't play a console game unless it's on WiiWare or Xbox Live Arcade.
Sure I do, but that's inherently different. I'm not allergic to physical media, but resent having to use it when there's no useful reason to do so. Let me put it this way: I understand that a Wii doesn't have infinite storage, and in this case it makes sense to play directly off the media. The reverse situation is true on my kids' PC, where they have a 320GB hard drive but almost all their games refuse to run without the CD. Yeah, I can make (and have made) virtual drives to work around the requirement, but that's just stupid.
crackers who broke one of my games (in three days -- took me two weeks to do the protection)
Moral: you wasted two weeks of your life writing ineffective copy protection that does nothing to slow down pirates but inconveniences any customers you might have. Why?
Look, I don't want to pirate stuff. I'll happily pay to go see a movie, and I'll happily pay to buy a good game (without even downloading it first to try it!). But here's what I demand in return: treat me with respect.
Do not require me to leave the CD in. I have a bunch of games and don't want to dig around for the installation media every time I want to play it.
Skip the copy protection. We both know that I can download a cracked version off the Internet, so why penalize me for buying a real copy? Yes, I very well may install it on more than one of my computers, such as by putting a copy on my laptop so I can play it while I'm out and around. I can do that with my MP3s and movies, and I'm going to do it with my games. These are copies for my own personal use and I'll make them to my convenience. But here's my end of the bargain: I'm going to tell my mooch friends to buy their own copy.
That crap Blizzard pulled with Glider? Don't even think about it. People will grudgingly put up with it from them, but you won't be able to pull it off. This is my computer and I very well might break your program in new and interesting ways. I bought it. I can do that.
Skip the EULA. When I hand over my cash, I own that copy of the game. It's not licensed to me. It's not rented or leased to me. I own it. Don't attempt to throw extra restrictions on my use of it after the fact. Again, I'm not going to distribute your work, but you need to understand that I owe you nothing else.
I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but the above are my non-negotiable requirements for buying software in general. I'm not out to share copies or take anything away from you, but in return I want acknowledgment that I don't owe you any extra favors just because I bought your stuff. I'm your customer and want to have a good relationship with you, so don't treat my like an asshole just because other people ripped you off.
Our stadium has been expanded time and again, to the point that it currently holds something like 65,000 people. They have sold out every game since 1962.
Tickets have a face value of $40, but season tickets are on the order of several thousand dollars when you add in the mandatory donation to some fund or another and consider that priority goes to the biggest donors. That's my understanding, at least, not having tickets of my own.:-)
FWIW, where I live (Nebraska), season tickets are much much expensive than the sum of individual tickets. They're handed down through families and have probably sparked worse divorce custody battles than most kids.
Funny how often it works out like that. "Hey, that hurt! Wanna go listen to some music?" This wasn't one of those though.
The best part might've been at school the next Monday. He got there before I did and was telling everyone how he knocked me around. Well, he had two black eyes, a fat lip, and a limp. I had a scrape on my cheek. It was almost worth it to hear the girls giggling at him: "that's the guy you beat up? Why doesn't he have black eyes?"
In fact, they are paying a different price because they were willing to pay that price. That should be reason enough, but the situation is more fundamental. Imagine everyone on the plane had to pay the same price. Are you sure that there would be any price point which was profitable?
No kidding! That'd be like expecting to pay the same price as the person at the next table in a restaurant, or in line to buy a TV, or at a theater, or going to a football game. Just because they're getting the exact same service doesn't mean you should expect to pay the same! That's craziness and unlike anything else you spend your money on.
Also reminded me of advice about being in a fist fight (generally speaking): "Hit first and hit really really hard."
I got in exactly one fist fight in high school. The school bully was drunk at a party and wouldn't leave me alone, and within about 5 seconds there was a crowd around us. He started taking off his pullover jacket, and when it was around his head I figured I had my one chance.
I kicked him in the nuts so hard that I bruised my shin. While he was bent over with his arms and head trapped in his jacket, I hit him as hard and fast and often as I could.
It wasn't fair or honorable, but I came out OK and got the pleasant reputation of being the guy who took out the jackass.
Mega conglomerates have spent A LOT of money making villains out of unions and organized labor.
That's pretty easy when you see the jack-assery they pull. For example, I once had to sit around for 6 hours waiting for a union mover to pick up my PC and carry it up one flight of stairs. Well, I was supposed to wait, anyway; I got tired of sitting around and did it myself.
What really drives the younger generation's distaste is that we've seen their unreasonableness broadcast in all its glory. GM losing billions of dollars? Perfect time to strike for a pay raise! GM needs to close a factory to stay afloat? Sue them to keep it open! Most of us realize that companies operate on finite budgets and can't afford to pay out more than they take in. I don't know if union leadership is stupid enough not to grasp the subtlety, or if they simple don't care. Either way, they've earned their own reputation.
You have to be pretty amazingly selfish or stupid to throw that kind of cash away, no matter how much you have. It's just an insult to those living on a pittance.
Everything is. Try explaining to a starving African kid why you needed a $200 graphics card to play $50 games. For that matter, explain to them why you spend $0.50 on a pack of gum so that your breath won't smell like the food you just ate.
However, you and I live in this economy, not that one, and our spending decisions can only be judged - if that were even possible - within the context of this one. In our economy, people buy stupid crap all the time. There's no substantial difference between this and those dumb cell phone backgrounds you see advertised on late night TV.
Finally, I'd suggest that no rich people bought this (or would by it). There's a huge difference between "rich" and "happens to have some extra money today".
From this paragraph it sure sounds like the author of the article hasn't got a clue.
The co-authors of the original article are employed by IBM and VMWare. That would suggest we should at least hear them out before dismissing them as clueless.
But there is a (temporary) fix that can be patched into the OS by requiring a signature.
You say that as if that weren't the plan all along. "We made a mistake by allowing you to run untrusted code, and see what happened? This will make your computer safer and faster!"
One of Windows' great strengths is that they maintain backwards compatibility far more than a certain other fruit-themed company.
Out of curiosity, which version of Vista can run an NT/Alpha application? What's that you say? There's no CPU translation service so when they change architectures you have to throw everything away? That, kid, is why mainframers laugh at the desktop PC's idea of "backward compatibility."
I doubt that a modern IBM system has more than a few resistors in common with a 1960's-era behemoth, but it'll still run the same compiled code. I'm a Unix guy and don't ever play with big iron, but have a lot of respect for that kind of engineering.
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But if you put just enough of a barrier, it will keep the honest people honest.
Hypothetically, maybe. We don't know because such a thing's never been invented (and is highly unlikely ever to be). Remember, it only takes one lucky person to get the thing onto The Pirate Bay.
Do you get similarly upset with clothing stores that have security cameras all over the place, and put those anti-theft devices on their products?
I've never once had to call Old Navy and ask their permission to wear a sweater I'd already paid for. JC Penney's doesn't act like you're morally obligated to wear outfits in the way they display them. Levi's has never sued me for cutting the legs off my jeans.
As for the copy protection: sure, I can download a cracked copy... but that probably means going to some skeezy site full of porn ads and popups and the latest in browser exploits.
That's a pretty scary description of a rather mundane reality. Did someone ask you to describe it that way?
Many of them dearly love their honest customers, and truly regret the need to put this kind of crap in there (in addition to your objections, many of them feel that it sullies their vision of the game they wanted to make),
Hey, like I said, the net effect is that you're making it more difficult to use the item I bought from you. Given the choice of a free, cracked, working version off The Pirate Bay and a non-free, DRM-infected, half-working version off the shelf at Wal-Mart, there's a pretty thin line of morality keeping my wallet open. Rather than making it harder for honest folks and easier for pirates, why not make it worth my while to buy a copy? Suggestions: first month of online play for free. Toss in a figurine of the hero. Included a one-time-use code for downloadable content. Bundle it with a free strategy guide. Include a coupon for McDonald's. Heck - anything! Today's situation is only tenable until a critical mass say "ah, forget it" and permanently dismiss the idea of buying your stuff.
So... you're saying A) that you've not bought a physical media computer game in the last, oh, 10 years (at least some floppy disc games had copy protect, for that matter), and B) just because you claim to be trustworthy, the game developers should trust everybody?
A) I did, then installed the cracked version.
B) The game developers are indirectly asking why their customers resent them. I'm telling them why.
People "put up" with Blizzard trying to put down a *cheat* in their MMO because the use of said piece of software directly impacts the game experience of other players. That is not acceptable, and Blizzard is well within the boundaries of reasonable behavior to take action against it.
Screw Blizzard. They effectively made it illegal to run whatever combination of software you want to run on your own computer. They figured it'd be easier to sue you than to write a secure service.
First rule of software development: "Never trust the client application." I don't get to sue people who browse my webpages with software I haven't specifically authorized. Instead, I have to make sure that my stuff won't break, regardless of what software is accessing it. You think Blizzard should get a free pass because their stuff is shiny and you have to pay for it?
So I take it you won't play a console game unless it's on WiiWare or Xbox Live Arcade.
Sure I do, but that's inherently different. I'm not allergic to physical media, but resent having to use it when there's no useful reason to do so. Let me put it this way: I understand that a Wii doesn't have infinite storage, and in this case it makes sense to play directly off the media. The reverse situation is true on my kids' PC, where they have a 320GB hard drive but almost all their games refuse to run without the CD. Yeah, I can make (and have made) virtual drives to work around the requirement, but that's just stupid.
crackers who broke one of my games (in three days -- took me two weeks to do the protection)
Moral: you wasted two weeks of your life writing ineffective copy protection that does nothing to slow down pirates but inconveniences any customers you might have. Why?
Look, I don't want to pirate stuff. I'll happily pay to go see a movie, and I'll happily pay to buy a good game (without even downloading it first to try it!). But here's what I demand in return: treat me with respect.
I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but the above are my non-negotiable requirements for buying software in general. I'm not out to share copies or take anything away from you, but in return I want acknowledgment that I don't owe you any extra favors just because I bought your stuff. I'm your customer and want to have a good relationship with you, so don't treat my like an asshole just because other people ripped you off.
Our stadium has been expanded time and again, to the point that it currently holds something like 65,000 people. They have sold out every game since 1962.
Tickets have a face value of $40, but season tickets are on the order of several thousand dollars when you add in the mandatory donation to some fund or another and consider that priority goes to the biggest donors. That's my understanding, at least, not having tickets of my own. :-)
FWIW, where I live (Nebraska), season tickets are much much expensive than the sum of individual tickets. They're handed down through families and have probably sparked worse divorce custody battles than most kids.
Funny how often it works out like that. "Hey, that hurt! Wanna go listen to some music?" This wasn't one of those though.
The best part might've been at school the next Monday. He got there before I did and was telling everyone how he knocked me around. Well, he had two black eyes, a fat lip, and a limp. I had a scrape on my cheek. It was almost worth it to hear the girls giggling at him: "that's the guy you beat up? Why doesn't he have black eyes?"
In fact, they are paying a different price because they were willing to pay that price. That should be reason enough, but the situation is more fundamental. Imagine everyone on the plane had to pay the same price. Are you sure that there would be any price point which was profitable?
No kidding! That'd be like expecting to pay the same price as the person at the next table in a restaurant, or in line to buy a TV, or at a theater, or going to a football game. Just because they're getting the exact same service doesn't mean you should expect to pay the same! That's craziness and unlike anything else you spend your money on.
Also reminded me of advice about being in a fist fight (generally speaking): "Hit first and hit really really hard."
I got in exactly one fist fight in high school. The school bully was drunk at a party and wouldn't leave me alone, and within about 5 seconds there was a crowd around us. He started taking off his pullover jacket, and when it was around his head I figured I had my one chance.
I kicked him in the nuts so hard that I bruised my shin. While he was bent over with his arms and head trapped in his jacket, I hit him as hard and fast and often as I could.
It wasn't fair or honorable, but I came out OK and got the pleasant reputation of being the guy who took out the jackass.
Every discussion on here contains a long thread debating some meaningless point of the actual topic.
That's the only reason I still come here: to hear subject matter experts in fields I'm not in discussing the finer points of their crafts.
Mega conglomerates have spent A LOT of money making villains out of unions and organized labor.
That's pretty easy when you see the jack-assery they pull. For example, I once had to sit around for 6 hours waiting for a union mover to pick up my PC and carry it up one flight of stairs. Well, I was supposed to wait, anyway; I got tired of sitting around and did it myself.
What really drives the younger generation's distaste is that we've seen their unreasonableness broadcast in all its glory. GM losing billions of dollars? Perfect time to strike for a pay raise! GM needs to close a factory to stay afloat? Sue them to keep it open! Most of us realize that companies operate on finite budgets and can't afford to pay out more than they take in. I don't know if union leadership is stupid enough not to grasp the subtlety, or if they simple don't care. Either way, they've earned their own reputation.
You have to be pretty amazingly selfish or stupid to throw that kind of cash away, no matter how much you have. It's just an insult to those living on a pittance.
Everything is. Try explaining to a starving African kid why you needed a $200 graphics card to play $50 games. For that matter, explain to them why you spend $0.50 on a pack of gum so that your breath won't smell like the food you just ate.
However, you and I live in this economy, not that one, and our spending decisions can only be judged - if that were even possible - within the context of this one. In our economy, people buy stupid crap all the time. There's no substantial difference between this and those dumb cell phone backgrounds you see advertised on late night TV.
Finally, I'd suggest that no rich people bought this (or would by it). There's a huge difference between "rich" and "happens to have some extra money today".
From this paragraph it sure sounds like the author of the article hasn't got a clue.
The co-authors of the original article are employed by IBM and VMWare. That would suggest we should at least hear them out before dismissing them as clueless.
But there is a (temporary) fix that can be patched into the OS by requiring a signature.
You say that as if that weren't the plan all along. "We made a mistake by allowing you to run untrusted code, and see what happened? This will make your computer safer and faster!"
It would only work on the sort of Neowin-reading "power users" who turn off security features to gain (perceived) speed and convenience.
That's a pretty roundabout way of saying "everybody".
MediaSentry and DRM: good enough for the Commies!
One of Windows' great strengths is that they maintain backwards compatibility far more than a certain other fruit-themed company.
Out of curiosity, which version of Vista can run an NT/Alpha application? What's that you say? There's no CPU translation service so when they change architectures you have to throw everything away? That, kid, is why mainframers laugh at the desktop PC's idea of "backward compatibility."
I doubt that a modern IBM system has more than a few resistors in common with a 1960's-era behemoth, but it'll still run the same compiled code. I'm a Unix guy and don't ever play with big iron, but have a lot of respect for that kind of engineering.
not a gamer- those are consoles for children to *play* with.
True. I was just thinking the other day, "this interactive graphical program is just too much fun and un-chorelike to be a game."
My other pastimes include swimming on asphalt because water is too cool and refreshing to be enjoyable, and skateboarding on cinderblocks.
Parent thinks this is Fark.
On an Amiga, sure.
How do we know this really is Slashdot?
I would have replied earlier but I'm a cowboy who needs to slow down.
I guess that's how we know it's really Slashdot.
If I were not a gamer I would not have Windows installed on my computer at home.
Correction: if you were not a PC gamer. I'm a gamer with a PS2, Wii, and DS; I don't own a Windows PC and don't miss it.