BREAKING NEWS: CRYSIS DEVS BAIL OUT! CONSOLES ARE THE FUTURE!

[mkreku]

I just don't understand why it is so difficult for publishers to grasp the idea of REWARD vs. THREAT. If you reward the consumer for buying their game instead of threatening the same consumer after he's already bought the game, the DRM could actually be a positive experience! Stardock seems to have grasped the idea. Noone else.

 

Luckily for me I wasn't that interested in Mass Effect anyhow. Will be more difficult when it comes to Spore though.

 

I'm guessing I'm going to have to do a Kaftan on Spore

[Gorth]

WHy does the idea of authentication, internet check-ins, etc bother people so much? I'm curious, since I've never really understood why people get so lathered up about authenticating windows and so forth. Is it a matter of principle? That you just shouldn't have to do it? Or is there a pragmatic concern that makes you not like the idea?

For me it is a sense of violation of my privacy. The same thing as when you are under camera surveillance in a taxi or a public place. Besides that, the majority of the games in my cupboard is from companies that are no longer around. If those games had only been playable through online activation... *shiver*

 

As for Securom and other things invented to insult the paying customer, I've experienced on my own body, that some of the games I have doesn't like my drives and only runs if tampered with. Things like that doesn't exactly endear them to me

[Slowtrain]

Otoh, looking at the MSN thingie, you could also say that if I had invested thousands of dollars in record albums over the years, no company or store that I bought them from is under any obligation to make sure that I can still have a record player to play them on in twenty years.

[Slowtrain]

What about my betamax collection?

[Slowtrain]

Stardock seems to have grasped the idea. Noone else.

 

 

That was a good post by that dev. Too bad it seems so not the way most game developers and publishers do business. SOmetimes ti seems that we are unable to grasp some elements of human nature effectively. One is that it is very very difficult to stop someone from getting something they really want. Whether it is booze, guns or pirated games at some point the cost of preventing people from acquiring something becomes greater than the cost of just letting them have it.

 

Obvious, I would think.

[Moatilliatta]

@moat: Have you ever installed a game to more than three machines?

Actually, yes. But that wasn't my point. My point was that you too have installed games on over three different machines since it is rare for people to manually uninstall games when they switch system and I'm quite sure that that would be required for Securom to redeem that install. This means that three dead motherboards would probably make your copy a coaster. Noone has answered how much in your system has to change for it to use up one of the three installs but I wouldn't be surprised if a dead motherboard would do exactly that. Besides that you're also spending an install when you forget to uninstall a game before you reformat your computer or just gets a new system without uninstalling your game from the old one.

 

@Your recent post

No companies are not under obligation to make sure that you can play betamax viedocassetes in the future but they don't create them so that they require an online activation and as such you can still play them if you find a machine capable of doing so.

[random n00b]

WHy does the idea of authentication, internet check-ins, etc bother people so much? I'm curious, since I've never really understood why people get so lathered up about authenticating windows and so forth. Is it a matter of principle? That you just shouldn't have to do it? Or is there a pragmatic concern that makes you not like the idea?

I object to people making my life more difficult for no good reason, on principle.

 

 

ars technica has a better article on that:

 

It seems they will play OK, but will be forever stuck on whatever computers you had authrorized as of AUg 2008.

Upgrading your OS before September will also be a must unless you are OK with losing your music. If it wasn't MS behind it, I'd wager it's intentional.

[Slowtrain]

@moat: Have you ever installed a game to more than three machines?

Actually, yes. But that wasn't my point. My point was that you too have installed games on over three different machines since it is rare for people to manually uninstall games when they switch system and I'm quite sure that that would be required for Securom to redeem that install. This means that three dead motherboards would probably make your copy a coaster. Noone has answered how much in your system has to change for it to use up one of the three installs but I wouldn't be surprised if a dead motherboard would do exactly that. Besides that you're also spending an install when you forget to uninstall a game before you reformat your computer or just gets a new system without uninstalling your game from the old one.

 

 

I see your point, but many times and for how many people would this really be an issue? I mean if it it only bothers a handful of people who constantly reformat their drives or update their hardware, then it is not realyl fair to expect a company to make that a concern. They are going to be concerned with what affects large numbers of people on an ongoing basis.

 

 

@Your recent post

No companies are not under obligation to make sure that you can play betamax viedocassetes in the future but they don't create them so that they require an online activation and as such you can still play them if you find a machine capable of doing so.

 

 

True, but my point was more along the lines that even non-digital media eventually become unplayable due to advances and changes in technology. I've got my huge collection of record albums and VHS tapes to prove it. I spent a lot of money building those collections over the years, but they really aren't usable for me any more as media holders, though I still like much of the music and movies they contain. Didn't a lot of people go out and replace all their VHS with dvds? Why should expectations be different with digitial media?

[Slowtrain]

I just want to point out that I am not defending MS decsion to shut down their old DRM servers without having a plan to bring people forward with their music. If it were me and I had a lot of money invested in MSN music, I would be really upset, since I think one of the advantages of digital media is that it can be moved from platform to platform much easier than old analog media so why not take advantage of that fact.

 

But I was just thinking about the other side of the argument as well.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Double post.

Edited May 7, 2008 by Deadly_Nightshade

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Stardock seems to have grasped the idea.

 

Yeah, they're great when it comes to data rights management.

[Moatilliatta]

I see your point, but many times and for how many people would this really be an issue? I mean if it it only bothers a handful of people who constantly reformat their drives or update their hardware, then it is not realyl fair to expect a company to make that a concern. They are going to be concerned with what affects large numbers of people on an ongoing basis.

Most people who don't suddenly stop playing their games will go through much more than 3 systems in their lifetime and as such there is a good chance that many people will be inconvenienced by this. I've already been through 4 systems in the 15 years that I've been playing PC games and I'm pretty sure that I will go through many more to the paint where I will need a installation-redeeming failure rate of less than 16%¹ which I doubt that I will have. There is also the point that I don't want to manually uninstall all my games everytime I change my PC significantly.

True, but my point was more along the lines that even non-digital media eventually become unplayable due to advances and changes in technology. I've got my huge collection of record albums and VHS tapes to prove it. I spent a lot of money building those collections over the years, but they really aren't usable for me any more as media holders, though I still like much of the music and movies they contain. Didn't a lot of people go out and replace all their VHS with dvds? Why should expectations be different with digitial media?

It is true that technology becomes obsolete but it is quite possible to copy CD's to DVD's to prevent that from harming you and it isn't very troublesome or even expensive. On the other hand, if you loose ME's three installations you will have to make an expensive and troublesome call to Securom. Expectations are different with digital media since we haven't moved away from it yet. It is much harder for the average consumer to save their analog collections than their digital ones which can be copied to harddisks or similar.

 

1: number of installations/(my current amount of systems+(average liftime of my systems*(average age of death-my current age)))=3/(4+(3,75*(75-19)))

This is exacerbated by the fact that system components do fail and they do that a lot.

 

@mkreky & D_N

Do you guys truly believe that all companies can follow Stardocks buisness model and still retain the essence of what they are currently?

I'm not gonna argue that Stardock haven't done very well but buisness models can't just be copied and just pointing to Stardock won't help Bioware, 2k, Crytek or Epic games.

[Tigranes]

Regular authentification has numerous problems, both practical and ideological, that both offend and disgust me. It doesn't help that it's EA and they aren't going to give two poo-poos about any of these problems.

 

1. My ownership of the product is compromised. Ideologically, I have, in essence, paid to use rather than to own: for the same money with which I could previously buy a car, now I have bought the services of a taxi, and I have to flash my receipt and photo ID every time I want to use this taxi. Yet the prices just keep going up. Compromising my ownership is the same thing as taking content out from a product: it is no longer as valuable, and its exchange value remaining same is simply stupid - especially when the proliferation of piracy makes that exchange value farcical to begin with. Practically, it makes me work continually to assert my ownership and legitimacy. If I don't have internet access (i.e. my ISP screwed up, my modem broke, I am in Guam), I can't even play - and this is a more common occurrence than you might think. Many of us on these forums have the ability to fix internet-related problems relatively quickly or be on the ball about it, but a 14-year-old may not, a less comp-savvy person may not, someone living in a more remote or underdeveloped area may not, someone may be in financial trouble and unable to afford internet access, there are a huge number of possibilities and I see someone temporarily robbed of internet access very often. Even if the online access is there, every ten days I am bothered. Being bothered, taking my time away from me, is of exchange value. You are making me work, however little, to play the game that I have bought, every 10 days, until the end of time. I can't even lend it to a friend without worrying. I can't even uninstall and install freely, I have to worry about doing it properly. I have to worry about it when I get a new computer... Take a look at BG2. I've had it for 6 years, installed it in over ten computers, lent it to friends for short periods, installed and reinstalled an average of a handful times each year (sometimes more), had to reinstall dozens of times due to errors, copied someone else's CDs and backed them up because mine were going nuts, installed hundreds of mods. I can't imagine going to all that bother with this protection scheme. And yes, I did buy BG2!

 

2. My position as a consumer is changed. As I have pointed out already, this represents, in one level, a greater level of surveillance and prohibition than that against a sex offender, and the lines of farce have truly been crossed, now. Let us assume that, like CD-Keys, there comes a day that this practice is actually normalised and generally accepted (which, by the way, doesn't make it better - "don't be so worked up, the rest of us accept it" is one of the silliest arguments to permeate our society): the status of the consumer is now a criminal who is guilty until proven, not once, but proven again, and again, and again. The consumer is someone who must pay money, constantly verify himself, and put in all this work to be handed the privilege of playing their game. Would I do that to play Torment? Probably. To Mass Effect? Probably not. To Ultima IX: Ascension? Well, you'd have to pay me money to play that game, but really. It is the height of arrogance and narrowmindedness - on one hand they are searching for that lowest common denominator to satisfy, on the other they are making all of us bow down in worship.

 

3. The caveats are hidden; they are the catch of the deal. While most of us are thus made aware of the draconian copy protection, with games commanding more and more mass appeal, you will find many parents who buy it for their kids, only to be rewarded with headaches: many casual gamers who buy it, only to be rewarded with headaches. (I suppose for ME, kids doesn't really apply, but I'm talking more generally here.) I will gladly retract this point if the back of the box talks about the copy protection scheme in detail (as opposed to the small print saying Internet Connection Required), and the salespeople or nota bene of online sites make the scheme clear before one buys. So far this has not happened; you see casual gamers who play Bioshock not even aware that it has such protection schemes, and when they complaint o me their computers are acting wonky or slower, or the game won't work / won't reinstall / etc, you go there and voila! I guess you didn't know about it because nobody went out of their way to tell you. Again, arrogance, narrowmindedness, exploitative and offensive.

 

4. It harms the industry and fuels the piracy phenomenon. I like video games. In fact, in that I see a great potential for more than simple escapist entertainment, and I want video games to rise above settling for producing the cultural equivalent of Hollywood blockbusters, I want it to succeed more than most people. Which is exactly why supporting this idiocy will be a kind of discursive hara-kiri: this kind of thing fuels the piracy phenomenon. I won't get into this too much, because this part has been talked about a thousand times over. But it must be obvious to anybody that hundreds or thousands of people who might have bought the game will instead turn to, or at least be tempted by, piracy, these people who might never have pirated a game before. Certainly, observe the logic of an average joe at work: he wants to play Mass Effect. He realises that it will make him do ridiculous things. He realises it's too much of a bother to even borrow a friend's copy and try it out before he buys it. The demo? Perhaps, but why bother downloading a demo when you can download a bit more and get a pirated copy? I'm not saying such a cognitive route is logical, sensible or right: but that is what will happen in a practical sense.

[Moatilliatta]

2. Wouldn't you say that that position changed with the introduction of cd-checks? The online verification is just an escalation of that system. We have always had to prove that we aren't monsters.

[Hurlshort]

The whole 3 PC argument is silly. Most people don't play 15 year old games. Heck, most people couldn't figure out how to run a game older than 5 on a new OS. It's a small minority that reaches that far back for their entertainment.

 

Sometimes I get the urge to play Xcom. Luckily its freeware and folks have created a way to play it on new OS's. If an old game is worth playing, that will happen.

[Nick_i_am]

My ownership of the product is compromised. Ideologically, I have, in essence, paid to use rather than to own

 

It sucks, but legally that's exactly what you're doing every time you buy a game.

[Tigranes]

Yep, the EULA has said that for a while, but of course, in a practical sense, it's reaching new 'heights' - just like (2), to reply to Moat. These aren't exactly new phenomena, but whether they are new or not is largely irrelevant; what is relevant is that in the practical sense they are becoming more and more demanding, and this gradual process makes it hard to put your foot down at any point

[Slowtrain]

Sometimes I get the urge to play Xcom. Luckily its freeware and folks have created a way to play it on new OS's. If an old game is worth playing, that will happen.

 

 

Some things never get old!

[random n00b]

The whole 3 PC argument is silly. Most people don't play 15 year old games. Heck, most people couldn't figure out how to run a game older than 5 on a new OS. It's a small minority that reaches that far back for their entertainment.

It's irrelevant if it's a minority or not. You pay for it, you should be able to play it in 5, 10 or 20 years, as long as you can bypass hardware difficulties that cannot be foreseen by the developer.

 

 

Sometimes I get the urge to play Xcom. Luckily its freeware and folks have created a way to play it on new OS's. If an old game is worth playing, that will happen.

And with those games it's difficult enough, without having to deal with Securom.

 

I'd much rather not rely on others in the future to develop fixes to problems created artificially by overzealous publishers. Also, my thoughts on which games are worth playing may be different to yours, and to those of the people that create said fixes.

[Jediphile]

I see your point, but many times and for how many people would this really be an issue? I mean if it it only bothers a handful of people who constantly reformat their drives or update their hardware, then it is not realyl fair to expect a company to make that a concern. They are going to be concerned with what affects large numbers of people on an ongoing basis.

 

So because it affects few people it means it doesn't matter? Or let me put it another way, how many people does this have to be an issue for before the companies should care about their customers? 500? 10.000?

 

Besides, who are they to basically tell me how often I can reformat my hard drive? If I want to reformat it 20 times over a year for whatever reason, then isn't that my right to do without being stigmatised as a potential pirate and denied the use of software I paid for?

[Slowtrain]

Crud. I was totally planing on buying Mass Effect for PC. It would have been my first Bioware game in years and years. Now I am having second thoughts.

 

Damn you all.

[Tigranes]

Bioware game in years and years. Now I am having second thoughts.

 

RUN, MAGICAL VOLO IS GOING TO KILL US.

[Jediphile]

Crud. I was totally planing on buying Mass Effect for PC. It would have been my first Bioware game in years and years. Now I am having second thoughts.

 

Damn you all.

 

Sorry. But in fact you've now become an example of exactly why this approach is a problem. You wanted to buy the game, and now you're reconsidering.

 

I might have considered buying it, but knowing the level of authentication Bioware will put me through and the level of distrust and suspicion that naturally comes with it, I'm very unlikely to buy and play it now.

 

Between the two of us, that's probably at least one lost sale already. And we're the potentially paying customers. The issue will not matter to the pirates, who will find a way around the authentication anyway. And while I suspect you and I will not get a pirated copy in order to play, choosing instead not to play at all, you can imagine people out there who feel the same way, but who want to play Mass Effect anyway and so get an illegal copy. Hence, sales are lost to piracy. Not really because the pirates are evil, but more because Bioware's measures to prevent piracy drive more people to it, thereby making their claim of pirated copies of their games a self-fulfilling prophecy. Alas...

[random n00b]

Tee hee! Hindo's Doom! Can you say it? Hindo's DOOOOOOOM.

 

Most gamers are casual gamers and don't really care about their PC being chock full of malware, that even assuming they know about it.

[Slowtrain]

Crud. I was totally planing on buying Mass Effect for PC. It would have been my first Bioware game in years and years. Now I am having second thoughts.

 

Damn you all.

 

Sorry. But in fact you've now become an example of exactly why this approach is a problem. You wanted to buy the game, and now you're reconsidering.

 

I might have considered buying it, but knowing the level of authentication Bioware will put me through and the level of distrust and suspicion that naturally comes with it, I'm very unlikely to buy and play it now.

 

Between the two of us, that's probably at least one lost sale already. And we're the potentially paying customers. The issue will not matter to the pirates, who will find a way around the authentication anyway. And while I suspect you and I will not get a pirated copy in order to play, choosing instead not to play at all, you can imagine people out there who feel the same way, but who want to play Mass Effect anyway and so get an illegal copy. Hence, sales are lost to piracy. Not really because the pirates are evil, but more because Bioware's measures to prevent piracy drive more people to it, thereby making their claim of pirated copies of their games a self-fulfilling prophecy. Alas...

 

 

Well, you guys all raise good points. Even if some of them don't bother me as much, I still can't deny that the implications of where things might go from here are not something I really like, and I don't know if I can really support those sorts of decisions with my money.

 

However, I'm not particularly inclined to believe that if either you or I or both of us plus Gorth and Tigranes and so on don't buy the game that Bioware is really going to care much or attach any sigificance to it. They will probably just chalk to up to the fact that no one buys pc games anymore and not even bother porting their next release to pc at all.