*The* DRM thread

[Gorth]

Coming to the conclusion that the increasing number of threads regarding the subject is getting a pain to a number of people, there is a slight change of plans.

 

For the time being, this will be the thread to discuss DRM in any way related to gaming, sentiments for, against, degrees of obnoxiousness, alternative suggestions etc.

 

For the time being other threads will be closed and pointed to this one.

 

Trolling, baiting, provocative circumvention of this, hijacking other threads etc. will be met with a visit by the M.I.B.

[Jaesun]

Thank you Gorth. Now I can just ignore 1 thread, and not a bunch!

[Gorth]

If people have bits and pieces, posts etc. they would dearly love copied/moved from other threads, let me know.

[GreasyDogMeat]

No disagreements here. DRM may be the bane of humanity, but eight(!!!) threads about it seemed a tad excessive.

[Deraldin]

No disagreements here. DRM may be the bane of humanity, but eight(!!!) threads about it seemed a tad excessive.

To be fair, two of them weren't serious threads, but that's still a lot of threads on the same subject. Glad to see that this has been condensed into a single thread.

Edited October 2, 2008 by Deraldin

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Well, I guess I'll start out this thread by telling a little story about something that happened to me the other day. I know someone who had gotten EA's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for his daughter but was unable to get it to run on her PC. After determining that neither the game itself nor the PC was at fault, I recommend that he try tweaking the drivers and all the other "normal" technical assistance solutions - none of the helped in the slightest. Finally, I sent him one last item to try - it was a no-DVD .exe file just in case there was an issue with the disc being read. The game started and has not encountered any problems or at least none that I have been informed of; the DRM was the only thing preventing a legitimate copy game from running. Now then, who was harmed more? The little girl who wanted to play her game but could not, or the pirates who are able to download the game and run it without any problems?

[Gorth]

I know the feeling. Bought Heavy Metal FAKK2 a number of years ago. Never could make it run off the disc. Guess which "shady" step was the only one that could make the game run like advertised?

 

Took me a year to figure...

 

No, I am not a friend of DRM, not even the old cd check ones.

[Jaesun]

(NOTE: Posting while drunk. Maybe I should head to bed....) Never mind!

Edited October 2, 2008 by Jaesun

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Yeah, it's surprising how many games that have cd/dvd-checks don't seem to like them. One of the best examples of this has to be when the maker of Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Ubisoft, released one of the unofficial no-dvd cracks as an official bug-fix without crediting the creator. Of course, the company has now removed the executable and has banned users of their forum(s) from talking about the incident.

Edited October 2, 2008 by Deadly_Nightshade

[Magister Lajciak]

I have never encountered a problem with CD-checks that would prevent me from running a game.

[alanschu]

Well, I guess I'll start out this thread by telling a little story about something that happened to me the other day. I know someone who had gotten EA's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for his daughter but was unable to get it to run on her PC. After determining that neither the game itself nor the PC was at fault, I recommend that he try tweaking the drivers and all the other "normal" technical assistance solutions - none of the helped in the slightest. Finally, I sent him one last item to try - it was a no-DVD .exe file just in case there was an issue with the disc being read. The game started and has not encountered any problems or at least none that I have been informed of; the DRM was the only thing preventing a legitimate copy game from running. Now then, who was harmed more? The little girl who wanted to play her game but could not, or the pirates who are able to download the game and run it without any problems?

 

 

I had a friend who tried burning a game for his friend, but the burned copy didn't work, so his friend just went out and bought the game.

[Tigranes]

I have never encountered a problem with CD-checks that would prevent me from running a game.

 

Of course not, nocd-exes solve everything.

 

Okay, without being silly - I'd point out how that's not relevant at all (unless someone is arguing that everyone in the whole world is being attacked by angry cd-checks with tazers, in which case we would replace this post with a visual representation of epiphany), but I'm so afraid of starting another logical merry-go-round.

 

Still, I can sort of understand the urge to point out that some people do get along fine with DRM. It just doesn't change the issue.

 

I had a friend who tried burning a game for his friend, but the burned copy didn't work, so his friend just went out and bought the game.

 

Heh. I remember lots of NZ homes still had dialup 'bout 5-7years ago. Some kids kept trying to pirate the latest games, but they were starting to come out on DVD, and that increased the d/l time by days. Some of them gave up on the game, some of them kept at it and pirated anyway... I think this one guy I remember did eventually buy.

 

Anecdotes everywhere, and they all represent a segment of the population. Except everybody and their mom already knows that all these demographics and all these varieties of experience exist. Anti-DRM argument has no problem with that, because it doesn't need these happy-DRM-users to disappear for its arguments to be true. Pro-DRM, however, does rely on those unhappy to disappear, or become miniscule. Such as EA's misleading statistics about the activations.

[Killian Kalthorne]

Thank you Gorth. Now I can just ignore 1 thread, and not a bunch!

You are already at a bad start.

[Gorth]

Thread pruned a bit. Lets keep this one on topic, as the subject does merit a "safe" place for earnest discussion.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I had a friend who tried burning a game for his friend, but the burned copy didn't work, so his friend just went out and bought the game.

 

And, judging from some of your posts, it is likely that you were one of the "friends."

 

EDIT: Still, just because copy protection worked in one case does not mean it is preferable or warranted on the scale some companies are starting to implement. Also, as Gorth and myself have demonstrated by personal antidotes, the DRM sometimes makes a legally bought copy of a game unplayable.

Edited October 2, 2008 by Deadly_Nightshade

[Magister Lajciak]

I have never encountered a problem with CD-checks that would prevent me from running a game.

 

Of course not, nocd-exes solve everything.

 

Okay, without being silly - I'd point out how that's not relevant at all (unless someone is arguing that everyone in the whole world is being attacked by angry cd-checks with tazers, in which case we would replace this post with a visual representation of epiphany), but I'm so afraid of starting another logical merry-go-round.

 

Still, I can sort of understand the urge to point out that some people do get along fine with DRM. It just doesn't change the issue.

 

Well, I guess I just made my statement to provide another 'statistical datapoint' (yes, I know, it hardly can be called that, but you know what I mean) in the anecdotal evidence we are providing each other with. I am not implying that CD-checks can never conflict with any software/hardware on anybody's computer. It would be interesting to know whether there was some software or hardware commonality that caused the issue with the CD-check in the cases you speak of. Perhaps virtual drive emulation software was running on both? Or maybe it was something different. It would be interesting to find out.

[Magister Lajciak]

Here is an interesting thought on combatting piracy: Switch to larger media (Blu-Ray) and make larger games in terms of memory they take up, which would make downloading the game significantly more tedious and lengthy - the pirates craving it might just crack and go out and buy it instead. This could be accomplished by perhaps using less compression on sound and video files of the game, which would provide better media quality to boot. These files could even stay on the Blu-Ray disc and not be installed to the hard drive, but played directly from there (sort of a built-in CD-check that saves HDD space to boot). Of course, too few computers have Blu-Ray drives to make it work yet, so I guess the strategy would also require producing versions with multiple DVDs and that is much less convenient for the user, as it can lead to DVD swapping if the media stay on discs (unless of course, there was an install DVD(s) and only one media DVD required to play the game after the install is done).

[random n00b]

Yeah, not to mention the increase in load times. No thank you.

[Magister Lajciak]

Yeah, not to mention the increase in load times. No thank you.

 

Good point about load times... Alright then - let's say the files are all installed and only a normal CD-check is required. But that still does not invalidate the idea of making the game bigger in terms of space it takes up - perhaps by using higher fidelity, but less efficient compression on video and audio files as I already mentioned.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

It would be interesting to know whether there was some software or hardware commonality that caused the issue with the CD-check in the cases you speak of. Perhaps virtual drive emulation software was running on both? Or maybe it was something different. It would be interesting to find out.

 

In the first case I mentioned I know there was a dvd burner but other than that nothing that might have conflicted (and the game was installed from a regular dvd-drive, as I recommend that be tried after learning that the PC had both).

 

 

Here is an interesting thought on combatting piracy: Switch to larger media (Blu-Ray) and make larger games in terms of memory they take up, which would make downloading the game significantly more tedious and lengthy - the pirates craving it might just crack and go out and buy it instead.

 

I doubt that would work, as you would probably see an increase in "RIPs" and a decrease in 1:1 copies.

[random n00b]

DRM does not work. It's that simple really. That stems from the fact that people who won't buy a game to begin with don't care to wait for it to download a week or a month. Maybe stuff like that will deter some of the more undecided illegal downloaders... but how many are those? That, of course doesn't even consider the fact that bandwidth costs are ever decreasing.

 

It's a flawed concept.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

...perhaps by using higher fidelity, but less efficient compression on video and audio files as I already mentioned.

 

I think you are underestimating the people who upload warez; the video and audio would, most likely, simply be compressed to be more efficient.

[alanschu]

I had a friend who tried burning a game for his friend, but the burned copy didn't work, so his friend just went out and bought the game.

 

And, judging from some of your posts, it is likely that you were one of the "friends."

 

EDIT: Still, just because copy protection worked in one case does not mean it is preferable or warranted on the scale some companies are starting to implement. Also, as Gorth and myself have demonstrated by personal antidotes, the DRM sometimes makes a legally bought copy of a game unplayable.

 

 

Actually I made my post because an anecdote means nothing. You are so committed to your crusade that there's no way for me to verify your story, that for all I know you are making it up. Anyone can post an anecdote.

[random n00b]

That's such a cynical standpoint. It assumes people posting on the Internet have an agenda to push or something.

 

By the way, did I tell you guys about the time I won the Math Nobel? True story!

[Deadly_Nightshade]

You are so committed to your crusade that there's no way for me to verify your story, that for all I know you are making it up.

 

Well, if you really need proof I'm sure I could get some - although I doubt that it is worth it in this case.