That's another good point, I too am disheartened at the treatment of games as disposable entertainment. I love owning an original, boxed title, and when I truly love a game I want that to stay with me, as functional as the day I bought it. It's sad to think just how many games will only live on due to piracy.

That's why we can always have 'special' versions of games, and the physical copies of the original ones can nicely sit in shelf even after expiring.

Indeed, on the PC we have ways to preserve those games even when the publishers don't care. On consoles it's harder though, and with Diablo 3 ushering in the era of server-side singleplayer games one wonders how long we have with this as a backup plan.

Allow me to link to another analogy I made around the release of Spore. Mind you, this is about SecuROM, with all the worst aspects of that abominable DRM scheme activated, as they were set to be until the potential user base raised enough havoc online to make EA tone it down a bit.

Also, this, although I take no credit for that one.

...well what were you expecting? Mentioning that you used a crack on pretty much any gaming forum of a developer worth their salt is always an instant ban. It's basically rule one of posting in official video game forums.

We call it "copy protection". DRM generally only includes stuff where the developer/publisher can retroactively revoke/change your rights after the sale. If you buy something with copy protection, that part doesn't change. DRM is much more nefarious and there's good reason for not conflating the two.

I'm not gonna say much except thanks for actually giving that Tweakguides article on PC Game Piracy some exposure, as I think it's a good article that opened my eyes a bit when it comes to the DRM thing.

I can't feel I have or bought game with DRM.

LOL

Ignoring the consumer issues with DRM, there are plenty of reasons for publishers to not use DRM.

It has been well-established that while DRM does have an effect on reducing day-one sales, the effect is temporary, and the ensuing negative publicity, the additional costs incurred for the operation of a DRM system and the additional expense for providing support for problems with DRM offset any potential gains from eliminating any kind of piracy. It basically kills off long tail sales, which most notably Ubisoft and EA established the hard way.

There are also countless legal problems inherent in using DRM. If a legitimately purchased copy fails to activate as it should and the publisher does not ensure that the activation can be completed, the publisher is in breach of contract (the EULA) and may even fall foul of various fit-for-purpose laws such as the Sale of Goods Act in the UK. Deactivating DRM provider servers without patching the software accordingly is likely to also be a breach of contract and may fall under theft. Disclosing inappropriate information (for example, on the hardware configuration of the user's PC, or even personal details) without the express consent of the user is likely to be a violation of data security laws.

It is preventing several copies of the same game (license) being played on several machines at the same time, the same that online authentication normally tries to achieve. Sounds very much like managing of digital rights.

For the original question: I don't mind DRM, except when I do. :)

Two forms of DRM that I don't mind are CD keys, and watermarking (if that can be called DRM, maybe at least on a psychological level, ie. you just don't want to spread around digital content that could be tracked back to you). Besides them, I haven't found a form of DRM that I wouldn't mind at all. Case by case though, I might still put up with it sometimes.

I am not even interested trying to convince the publishers that without DRM they would certainly make more money, because I don't know if that is true. Maybe they would make much more money if they released all their games exclusively on OnLive service, I wouldn't really know.

I'm looking into it only from my, end-user's, point of view. All I can say is that I prefer buying my games without DRM (the kind of DRM that I do mind, ie. 99.99999% of the DRM out there).

The reasonings behind DRM are just a varied as the reasons against it, there is also an equal amount of misinformation on each side. For example I reject the assertion that the most common reasons for piracy have been refuted, those reasons still exist despite an article cherry picking examples and using them as straw men. There is not just one reason a game gets pirated, there are dozens. Just because game X has a feature that negates excuse #3 does not invalidate the excuse. More likely game X is pirated most often for excuse #s 1, 5 and 7. For example the Tweak Guide article says that intrusive DRM is an excuse for piracy and points to Crysis as an example of a heavily pirated game that did not have intrusive DRM. Another common excuse for piracy is making sure that a game works before buying it, something like the heavily graphics focused Crysis certainly would fit this idea. Here is a game that the developers are touting as the best looking game ever made, that when you upgrade to a video card that hasn't even be released yet this game will still be able to take full advantage of the GPU and produce even better graphics. At that point anyone wanting to play the game had best be sure that it will even run on their machine before shelling out $60 bucks for something that won't run unless they shell out another $300 for PC upgrades. Another excuse is that games cost too much so the article points out The Orange Box as several games for one low price on Steam but was still pirated, ignoring the fact that Steam qualifies as, and indeed is the definition of, intrusive DRM to many gamers.

Which brings up my next point.

When looking at DRM there is a certain threshold for what each individual player is willing to tolerate. Some people love the OnLive system and actively speak out about it becoming the future of gaming, where as most everyone else actively rejects the idea of Always Online DRM. There is a large portion of the gaming community that is comfortable with online activation, but there are still many who aren't. Then you have those who don't mind the much vilified DRM such as Securom or TAGES while some others won't touch a title unless it is DRM free. So when forming an opinion on the viability, effectiveness and intrusiveness of DRM you must look at several schemes and weigh each on it's own merit.

I am firmly in the Anti-Online Activation camp and the shining symbol on the hill for online activation is Steam. If I were to login to Steam and buy a game then that game would be tied to the Steam service and I would have no real stand to take if I didn't like Steam. On the other hand if I went to another retailer to buy a game only to find out that the game would still be tied to Steam then I fully have justification for opposition to Steam. In this day and age with so much commerce happening digitally and the availability of high speed internet; a person walking into a retail store to purchase a game has chosen retail for a specific reason. That reason may not be shared or even understood buy whatever focus group was consulted by the game publisher, but that does not make the reason any less valid nor the customer's money any less valuable. Having Steam tied to retail purchases is what I consider Third Line Forcing which is illegal under US Anti-Consumer laws. Third Line Forcing is when a product is sold with a mandatory 3rd party service. An example would be a car manufacturer designing a fuel tank to only work with pumps from a specific gas station, If you buy this brand of car then you can only ever use this brand of gasoline. This was the basis for the lawsuit against Microsoft for making Internet Explorer the default browser for all installations of Windows. This, in my mind, puts Steam one legal judgement away from complete ruin. A common Anti-Steam reasoning is what happens to your games when Steam is no more. The answer is always either that Steam is too big to fail or that they have a fully functioning fully tested contingency plan that will magically unlock every single copy of every single Steamworks game in existence as was promised by Gabe Newell somewhere on the internet but nobody can find it at the moment. Either way I'm made out to be the naive one for worrying about the failure of Steam.

Beyond that, when was the last time you saw an advertisment for Steam? Have you ever seen one? How does a company get to be number one in it's field without advertising? EA was demonized by gamers for the way it introduced Origin; by forcing it on everyone who wanted to buy the latest Mass Effect. Somehow none of these people have heard of Half-Life 2 apparently. How many times have you heard someone say that they heard about Steam, looked it up, did some additional research and after careful consideration decided to sign up for an account and purchase a game? How about someone who says that they had never heard of Steam and then they bought a game that required it? Sure they were mad at first but they already bought the game so they had no other choice, but now they love Steam! Many years ago I used to go to Blockbuster to rent movies, then one day I had added charges on my account. I asked about the charges and was told that it had to do with a new policy they had and there was nothing the clerk could do about it. I said I understood and asked if they had a pair of scissors I could use, I then cut up my membership card and left the pieces on the counter and walked out; I have never set foot in a Blockbuster again. Now if Blockbuster had someway of preventing me from ever watching movies again then I would have paid the bogus fine rather than losing out. Once someone becomes a Steam customer how do they leave the service in the event they become disgruntled? Well it's simple, they just forfeit every game they ever bought that is tied to Steam. People wonder why Steam fans get so rabid, well what choice do they have? Either they tell themselves that Steam is great and DRM doesn't matter or they acknowledge that Steam is holding them hostage by their hobby.

So what advantage does Steam hold for publishers? They all know that there are people who will refuse to buy games irrevocably tied to Steam, that there are those who would have bought the game but will pirate it instead due to Steam, so why do it? Well any game sold on Steam has a certain percentage of the net profit taken by Steam before being passed on to the publisher. If all copies of the game require Steam then that percentage is much smaller. If the publisher feels that they can alienate a small percentage of their consumer base and still come out ahead then it is worth it to do so, after all they are in the business of making money. If there is enough backlash to show that the decision creates a net loss then they will drop the DRM.

That's the funny thing about it. If you went to the official forums and announced that you had the game running in Linux, or on an older laptop, you would be peppered with questions from people who want to know how so that they can do the same. Mind you these are the actual requirements for playing, minimum RAM and CPU speed and OS file registration. But announce that you figured out a way to play without the artificial requirement of online activation and you are a filthy stinking pirate who deserves to be attacked by rabid squirrels until you die of gonorrhea and burn in Hell!!

I didn't even read the whole thread because i'm really tired of DRM discussion. It's just useless, some people hate it, some don't mind at all. And we can't know for sure if publishers lose money or make more money with DRM. There aren't any sales data to prove this. DRM doesn't stop piracy, but being DRM-free doesn't stop it either (The Witcher 2 was one of the most pirated games last year, not to mention all the GOG games appearing on warez sites).

While i would prefer every game to be DRM-free, i can totally understand the reason publishers use it. Piracy is a huge problem in the software market. I can't really blame publishers for trying to protect their IPs, even though DRM doesn't work. I think some people are a bit unfair when it comes to publishers/developer's decision to use DRM. When they do, they are not trying to fuck up their consumer, but to protect their IP.

When we don't agree with a DRM method used, the only thing we can do is vote with our wallet. Just don't buy it. Of course, pirating is NOT a valid method of boycott. It just doesn't work, some people use DRM as an excuse for piracy.


I don't care that much aboutDRM. The only DRM methods that were a bit excessive on MY experience were uPlay and Starforce.



By the way, why is everyone downrepping the OP? Seriously, why? He isn't trolling or anything, he just came here and posted his opinion, and he even searched for reliable information to improve his arguments. This forum keeps getting worse. We can't even share our opinion without getting downreped.

DRM/"Copy Protection"/"Whatever you want to call it" isn't about stopping Piracy with a capital P.

Hobbyist will keep cracking DRM schemes and people that just won't pay for intellectual property ever (I know some friends that are like that) will know where to look for them.

DRM is meant to stop people that are not quite principled enough not to pirate, but not quite knowledgeable enough to find illegal distribution points from passing along copyrighted stuff to their friends.

Those who will never or seldom pay for games shouldn't even enter the equation.

The question as to whether or not to distribute with DRM, from a monetary perspective becomes the following:

Do the principled people who would normally not pirate a game, but might pirate it or just not buy because of DRM (or an outrageous price scheme) outnumber those who would pirate it if they could amongst their circle of friends, but are not knowledgeable enough to find a pirated copy on the internet.

For the music industry, the answer must have been yes (I think there were a lot of well known distribution points for free music), because many distribution points now distribute DRM-free, but are games there yet?

Morally, there is no doubt in my mind that DRM is wrong for content that isn't dependent on a client-server architecture (basically, the bulk of products that have a one-time cost).

I was looking for the source of this, any idea? Edit: 2 or 3 papers refute this, so I don't think what you are saying has been shown at all.

Also, there seems to be a common argument going around that DRM does not work, because it always gets cracked. I think a lot of people even here, can tell you it is a strawman argument as even the hardcore DRM companies like Securom have stated its purpose is to prevent zero-day sales and delay the inevitable cracking. Not to stop piracy completely.