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borisburke: How do you support the devs of a game that is exclusive to Steam?
I don't.

If a game is only available in DRM-encumbered form, I will not buy it unless and until there's a DRM-free release. Otherwise, the devs have not produced an acceptable product, and hence don't deserve my support.
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borisburke: The guy that invents the ever lasting razor dies poor. Why? Because you can't charge too much for a razor, and once everyone has one, they stop paying. So where's the incentive to invent an ever lasting razor?

It's capitalism 101 guys.

Games used to be finished products that you buy and own (really, I'm serious). But that's not profitable enough. How do we change the model so that we make more money and die rich?

Look at what happened to printers. You used to pay quite a lot of money for a printing machine, and it made a reasonable profit. But What if you beat the competition by underselling your machine and locking your customer into ridiculously expensive ink?

That's what DRM is. The software industry's solution to the razor problem.

EDIT: Sorry for the rant.
How does selling DRM'd games make more money? It's not like a razor which wears down. In order for that to be profitable, games with DRM would have to completely lose all support on a regular basis to be unplayable (and even then they would not necessarily be unplayable. For instance, when Games for Windows Live got axed, you could use the product keys to get a Steam version of the game). It does make absolutely zero economic sense to financially support the DRM-infrastructure for years in the hope to double sales numbers once your business shuts down.

What really causes a steady stream of income are all those stupid subscription services. They are not some exploitative scheme though but instead exist because sadly, an overwhelming amount of customers explicitly demand and support precisely that.
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borisburke: The guy that invents the ever lasting razor dies poor. Why? Because you can't charge too much for a razor, and once everyone has one, they stop paying. So where's the incentive to invent an ever lasting razor?

It's capitalism 101 guys.

Games used to be finished products that you buy and own (really, I'm serious). But that's not profitable enough. How do we change the model so that we make more money and die rich?

Look at what happened to printers. You used to pay quite a lot of money for a printing machine, and it made a reasonable profit. But What if you beat the competition by underselling your machine and locking your customer into ridiculously expensive ink?

That's what DRM is. The software industry's solution to the razor problem.

EDIT: Sorry for the rant.
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InSaintMonoxide: How does selling DRM'd games make more money? It's not like a razor which wears down. In order for that to be profitable, games with DRM would have to completely lose all support on a regular basis to be unplayable (and even then they would not necessarily be unplayable. For instance, when Games for Windows Live got axed, you could use the product keys to get a Steam version of the game). It does make absolutely zero economic sense to financially support the DRM-infrastructure for years in the hope to double sales numbers once your business shuts down.

What really causes a steady stream of income are all those stupid subscription services. They are not some exploitative scheme though but instead exist because sadly, an overwhelming amount of customers explicitly demand and support precisely that.
Their argument is, drm slows down the availability on pirate sites, so they get more sales. It’s false of course, most games are up on other sites immediately now other than denuvo. It’s all a bit chicken and egg really, which came first drm or the pirates
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borisburke: The guy that invents the ever lasting razor dies poor. Why? Because you can't charge too much for a razor, and once everyone has one, they stop paying. So where's the incentive to invent an ever lasting razor?

It's capitalism 101 guys.

Games used to be finished products that you buy and own (really, I'm serious). But that's not profitable enough. How do we change the model so that we make more money and die rich?

Look at what happened to printers. You used to pay quite a lot of money for a printing machine, and it made a reasonable profit. But What if you beat the competition by underselling your machine and locking your customer into ridiculously expensive ink?

That's what DRM is. The software industry's solution to the razor problem.

EDIT: Sorry for the rant.
Fortunately for capitalists, there will never be something such as an "everlasting razor" (b/c of physics) and when it comes to games and profit, we used to pay 60 bucks (back when 60 bucks was worth a lot more) for games that were shorter, simpler and a whole lot cheaper to make. Releasing a game that is "broken" or buggy at release would generally make it a lot less profitable than a "complete" game. Besides, nowadays games become cheaper fast after release.

Here in Sweden, you can buy CP2077 for about 20 euros now. It's still 60 euros on GOG. Same thing goes with just about every AAA game (excluding Nintendo).

Don't get me wrong, I despise DRM, crappy DLC and microtransactions as much as the next guy but there is no point in believing in conspiracy theories. We get tremendous amounts of entertainment for less money compared to 10 years ago.
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dtgreene: I don't.

If a game is only available in DRM-encumbered form, I will not buy it unless and until there's a DRM-free release. Otherwise, the devs have not produced an acceptable product, and hence don't deserve my support.
I was confused by his question. If a game that I'm interested is not available the way I want it to be I'm no longer interested. Point blank. Plenty of other games to find made the way I like them to be made.
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timppu: ...I have already bough far more DRM-free games from e.g. GOG, than what I can hope to play the rest of my life...
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borisburke: Me too. Partially because I'm afraid that all games will be online DRM in the future. I'm grabbing, and archiving the games I can before I can't get games any more (without online DRM).

Owning a finished game is an old concept. The next generation will not know what you mean by 'owning a game'.

We let this travesty happen, and we are culpable.
I think you both perfectly describe the customer profile I have an affinity to. Well... with a lot much smaller library butI hope one day to reach your archive numbers :)
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borisburke: The guy that invents the ever lasting razor dies poor. [...] It's capitalism 101 guys [...]
Games used to be finished products that you buy and own (really, I'm serious).[...] The software industry's solution to the razor problem.
I agree with your sentiments that DRM is bad, but I'm having a hard time understanding this entire post of capitalism 101 and its connection to DRM.

Wrapping a game in DRM is a business expense to ensure execs and investors are not funding a project that depreciates extremely quickly due to piracy, especially for initial month sales. How companies have managed with the $60 price limit, despite the erosion of real purchasing power of steady inflation, is through exploiting new revenue streams like separating goodies, repackaged deluxe editions, DLCs, microtransactions, and subscriptions.

If you're talking about subscription to DRM clients, this is another thing entirely and is targeting the lowend demographics. People are still able to buy separate games now if they'd still like.

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borisburke: How do you support the devs of a game that is exclusive to Steam?
You don't. You tell them you're interested in buying a DRM-free version of it on GOG, etc. and don't buy it until they do. Can persuade them that they don't have to continue paying a DRM subscription protection like Denuvo on older games or by increasing their passive income and they'll be more inclined to release here.
Post edited June 13, 2021 by Canuck_Cat
I used to love Humble Bundle, many years ago. Then they became a key reseller, and made themselves irrelevant.

They were quite frankly better before they implemented a shop. Had loads of DRM Free games too back then, and hosted them themselves.
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Ancient-Red-Dragon: Humble sucks, it's almost all DRM-filled crap, contrary to some of the posts in this thread that try to make it sound like a bastion of DRM-free, which it certainly is not.
That really depends on your definition.

For some Android games Humble offers a DRM-free download option, that is completely independent of your mobile hardware and obviously doesn't use Play store at all.


Also they offer DRM-free bundles of comics which may be DRM'd in other stores.


When it comes to game bundles they have sadly moved more towards Steam keys than DRM-free downloads, but then so has every other store too. When has Groupees offered last time a DRM-free game bundle (not counting adult bundles)?