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[Fayrik]

I think you might be in the wrong thread there dude. You're looking for the complain about games thread.

Actually, I was complaining about the increase of popularity of DRM..
Older games have less of it...
But I guess it could go there too.

[Omegastick]

DRM is bad and big, bad, greedy-capitalist companies are taking all our money and rights... topic over.

Actually, does anyone have an idea of how we could stop DRM? There have been numerous petitions and that hasn't worked, so are there any other ideas?

[nenjin]

Show a causal link between DRM and legitimate customers choosing not to buy to publishers.

For that to work they'd have to separate their PC and console profit expectations though....and they don't. As long as console sales eclipse PC sales, and the lost business is made up for elsewhere, they'll be convinced they're making more money with DRM than without.

[Levi]

we could stop DRM? There have been numerous petitions and that hasn't worked, so are there any other ideas?

Well, if you could get everybody to simultaneously agree to stop pirating software it would probably be pretty easy.   

[nenjin]

Please. If every pirate on earth stopped pirating, right now, there'd still be DRM. They'd want it just for the assurance you couldn't pirate.

The biggest fallacy ever perpetrated by the industry is that DRM has anything to do with piracy. DRM is about defining the rules of the digital marketplace, not enforcing them. They're leaving that job up to the feds.

[Levi]

Please. If every pirate on earth stopped pirating, right now, there'd still be DRM. They'd want it just for the assurance you couldn't pirate.

The biggest fallacy ever perpetrated by the industry is that DRM has anything to do with piracy.

Nah.  If piracy didn't happen then why would the companies put in the extra effort to protect their stuff?

People will pirate anything though:  http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100576-Who-Would-Pirate-the-One-Cent-Humble-Indie-Bundle

[Fayrik]

Nah.  If piracy didn't happen then why would the companies put in the extra effort to protect their stuff?

On the flip side, if everyone just pirated DRM games then what's the point in having it?

It works both ways. Kind of.

[nenjin]

Nah.  If piracy didn't happen then why would the companies put in the extra effort to protect their stuff?

Because they're creating data, not carving a masterpiece out of stone. You can easily replicate data. DRM is more about preventing 3rd party sales and transactions, which many gamers believe should be a right, than it is about stopping pirates. You have the right to re-sell damn near anything you own....but not software, oh no. Because it exists in that magical place of non-physical reality where special rules apply.

Pirates just make a much better target than well-meaning users, who the DRM is truly targeted at. You can get well-meaning users on the side of DRM, even as it takes their consumer rights away, simply by pointing to the pirates as their reasoning. Kind of like "Well yes we're tapping your phone....but it's to stop the terr'ists!"

DRM has allowed developers to add weight to their "licensing agreements", which meant fuck all without control of the content before. In the olden days of copy protection, it was truly about verifying the customer bought the product, by making them rely on the things that shipped with the game to play it.

Now, we have software installed, servers that track our behaviors, our IPs, our registries, our installs.....

Like I said, DRM is about defining the rules of the marketplace. Not enforcing them.

[darius]

Nah.  If piracy didn't happen then why would the companies put in the extra effort to protect their stuff?

On the flip side, if everyone just pirated DRM games then what's the point in having it?

It works both ways. Kind of.

Corporations know this. Now its a limiting factor. When a new game is released sales shoot up from zero to very high number. If you can crack game in that time you reduce that "new game released" effect and thus reduce profits very much. As the time passes the sales diminish and cracks/pirated versions do not have that effect (almost all who have the money/intention to buy the game has bought it.)

Edit: ideally best DRM should be either: removed after a period (i think some starforce games did it because it was too intrusive/crashy) or provide new content for the official players that is hard to get, needs to be pirated over and over again (minecraft?) or MMO

[Sowelu]

There seems to be a widespread belief that DRM is actually hurting sales, but my intuition tells me that the lack of resalability really DOES make it the opposite.

Doesn't mean it's not sick and evil, but I do think they make more money with it.

[Levi]

Nah.  If piracy didn't happen then why would the companies put in the extra effort to protect their stuff?

On the flip side, if everyone just pirated DRM games then what's the point in having it?

It works both ways. Kind of.

Well that would be great if people only pirated DRM games.  But people will pirate everything.  The unfortunate fact is that DRM DOES reduce piracy by making everything a pain in the ass.  The more time/effort that goes into getting around the DRM, the less people will pirate the game. 

Edit:  I should be clear that I am not in favor of DRM, I just understand why companies are using it.    Windows Live in particular drove me insane to the point where I never buy a game that requires windows live.

[Fayrik]

Well that would be great if people only pirated DRM games.  But people will pirate everything.  The unfortunate fact is that DRM DOES reduce piracy by making everything a pain in the ass.  The more time/effort that goes into getting around the DRM, the less people will pirate the game.

Then people need to work harder at pirating DRM, and not as much on other games. For everyone's sake.

[nenjin]

Nah.  If piracy didn't happen then why would the companies put in the extra effort to protect their stuff?

On the flip side, if everyone just pirated DRM games then what's the point in having it?

It works both ways. Kind of.

Well that would be great if people only pirated DRM games.  But people will pirate everything.  The unfortunate fact is that DRM DOES reduce piracy by making everything a pain in the ass.  The more time/effort that goes into getting around the DRM, the less people will pirate the game. 

I think I can safely assume you don't know much about the piracy scene these days, because it's anything but complicated. There are whole teams out there that do nothing but crack new releases in their free time, package them into installers, and make them almost idiot-proof to use. They do all the hard work. You'll find the necessary tools for piracy directly NEXT to the things you want to pirate.

Not to mention the fact that, of the games people pirate, you have to ask....without piracy, would they have actually purchased the game instead? For myself, I can honestly say "fuck no." There are many games I've pirated I *still* wouldn't pay for.

On top of that, there are some games I own I would have never bought had I not gotten an entirely free first look at what the game offered. As games get increasingly more expensive, reviews are increasingly biased if not outright purchased, and the hype is so thick you can't cut through it with a chainsaw, there's actually consumer protection merit in piracy, as long as you're willing to actual spend money at some point.

But bottomline. Preventing someone from pirating a product does not mean they will turn around and purchase it instead. Ergo, most of the industry protection complaints are a crock of shit. No one CRAVES a pirated copy. They often preform less well, have new and/or different bugs, and prevent you from enjoying all the wonderful features this Age of the Internet offers. On the flip side though, no one wants to throw away $60 just for the opportunity to find out if someone was blowing smoke up their ass. Spore? I rest my case.

[Levi]

I think I can safely assume you don't know much about the piracy scene these days, because it's anything but complicated. There are whole teams out there that do nothing but crack new releases in their free time, package them into installers, and make them almost idiot-proof to use. They do all the hard work.

Its true, I haven't pirated software in a long time (probably 7 or 8 years) so I have no idea how effective DRM is these days. 

Not to mention the fact that, of the games people pirate, you have to ask....without piracy, would they have actually purchased the game instead? For myself, I can honestly say "fuck no." There are many games I've pirated I *still* wouldn't pay for.

On top of that, there are some games I own I would have never bought had I not gotten an entirely free first look at what the game offered. As games get increasingly more expensive, reviews are increasingly biased if not outright purchased, and the hype is so thick you can't cut through it with a chainsaw, there's actually consumer protection merit in piracy, as long as you're willing to actual spend money at some point.

Agreed.  I wish demo's would make a comeback.

But bottomline. Preventing someone from pirating a product does not mean they will turn around and purchase it instead. Ergo, most of the industry protection complaints are a crock of shit.

Partially agreed.  Preventing someone from pirating a product doesn't mean they will not buy it either.    I'm sure a lot of people would pirate day one big release games if they could, but instead buy it because they don't want to wait for the DRM to be cracked. 

[nenjin]

Agreed.  I wish demo's would make a comeback.

This alone would make me pretty much give up piracy altogether. If devs would make actual demo builds that aren't lazy builds of the full-game. Mafia 2? It had some stupid time limiter on the demo that people found out how to disable in, oh, a day. Rather than putting the time into an actual demo build, that teases but delivers enough to make people buy, companies either don't do demos anymore, or do them in a way that makes people question the need to buy the game in the first place. Like, a demo of Super Meat Boy would be pointless because you'd get 80% of the experience just through the demo.

And then there's choosing not to release a demo because it reveals how shallow and over priced a game is in the first place....especially when so many games put everything awesome upfront, and then have 6 to 8 hours of drudgery and repetition for the remainder.

Hell, I'd even settle for some sort of "connect to our server and play the demo" set up, as long as I felt like a dev house was being honest with me, and wasn't expecting me to spend my money on faith or the rather unreliable media chatter. I simply refuse to throw my money away like that anymore. I'm not 14, and many of the games worth playing don't cost $20 anymore.