DRM Thread

[Deadly_Nightshade]

[alanschu]

I enjoyed this:

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

 

It's biased in one direction of course, but I appreciated that he tried to substantiate his points with evidence. A good chunk of it is anecdotal unfortunately.

 

 

He also has an interesting perspective on StarForce.

[Pushtrak]

Every game should be released through Steam, both through internet and retail. Of course publishers would have to pay a certain fee to Valve.

I'd have to agree. That fee would be worth it because of the amount of PC gamers who only use Steam.

I am fighting my hopes getting up too high, so that I am not disappointed.

Keeping your hopes low is prudent when DRM and EA are involved.

Why would pirates dislike DRM? They generally download their games already loaded with the crack and never have to deal with DRM.

Which just makes the situation all the more ironic.

At the point they become pirates, yes, its a moot point. Its the dislike of DRM that continues to create new pirates (at a faster rate than otherwise).

Its interesting how some gamers seem to have no problem buying a new game and letting it sit on the shelf for three months while they wait for a patch, but get all agitated at the thought that DRM might make their game unplayable in 3 years. Not you ML, just some gamers in general.

PC gamers waiting 3 months without a patch calmly? I've not seen too many of that. Go to the technical areas of any forum for a game that needs a patch and you will see lunacy. Understandable lunacy if they can't get their game to work, granted.

What happens if the company, that hold the DRM-licenses, go bust? Or if the studio/distributor/vendor as well?

I believe the activations will be nullified. I don't believe thats such a hard thing to address. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head to look up, but I am sure this has happened before and was dealt with well. Damn, what game was it? I believe it was more than once, too.

[Deraldin]

I enjoyed this:

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

 

It's biased in one direction of course, but I appreciated that he tried to substantiate his points with evidence. A good chunk of it is anecdotal unfortunately.

 

 

He also has an interesting perspective on StarForce.

 

I wonder about some of the day zero stuff. Here in town, torrents have been up for some games more that two weeks before they actually showed up anywhere. PoP was a week late, as was Dead Space. I seem to have the only copy of Mirror's Edge in town (haven't seen it anywhere since I picked up the sole copy from an EB on release) and even Red Alert 3 (which now has 50 copies in every store) had almost 2 weeks before you'd find more than maybe a single copy on the shelf.

 

There's really no excuse for this. It's not like I'm out in the middle of nowhere, this is southern Ontario damnit! Where the hell are all the games? You want to limit piracy? Make sure they actually hit the shelves on release day! Also, where did all these copies of Total Annihilation that are floating around Future Shop come from? I already had the game, but I bought it again anyway because my copy didn't come with a box.

 

I'd have to agree. That fee would be worth it because of the amount of PC gamers who only use Steam.

 

No more Steam damnit!

Edited January 23, 2009 by Deraldin

[alanschu]

At the point they become pirates, yes, its a moot point. Its the dislike of DRM that continues to create new pirates (at a faster rate than otherwise).

 

I think that this is a myth.

[Mamoulian War]

i can asure you it's not...

[Slowtrain]

PC gamers waiting 3 months without a patch calmly? I've not seen too many of that.

 

 

lol. Stabbed through the heart. Yeah, a lot of pc gamers do not wait calmly AT ALL for a patch. WHich I understand. But a lot seem to tolerate this idea that when you buy the game it will be a bug-ridden mess and that the patches will fix it.

 

If gamers could hold onto their panties and not rush out and buy games until they were fixed, developers and publishers would stop releasing them broken. They only do it because they can get away with it.

 

My comparison really is that DRM doesn't cause nearly so much problem as generally buggy games (not that it doesn't cause ANY problems, mind you), yet people really don't seem to have any universal outrage over the blatant offences of publishers and developers releasing buggy games.

 

I purchased 2 pc games at release this last year, both had game stopping bugs. None of them had to do with DRM.

[Magister Lajciak]

I enjoyed this:

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

 

It's biased in one direction of course, but I appreciated that he tried to substantiate his points with evidence. A good chunk of it is anecdotal unfortunately.

 

He also has an interesting perspective on StarForce.

 

He completely ignored the online activation issue with the possibility (eventual likelihood I would say) that the servers will be shut down.

 

Besides, if online activation-type DDRM is there to prevent 0th day piracy (and I agree that that is part of the reason), than online activation can be patched out a week or two after it's cracked - but this does not happen. This leads many to the conclusion that DDRM has an ulterior motive - to prevent second hand sales, rather than to fight piracy.

[Magister Lajciak]

PC gamers waiting 3 months without a patch calmly? I've not seen too many of that.

lol. Stabbed through the heart. Yeah, a lot of pc gamers do not wait calmly AT ALL for a patch. WHich I understand. But a lot seem to tolerate this idea that when you buy the game it will be a bug-ridden mess and that the patches will fix it.

 

But a lot of gamers don't tolerate it. It does cause an outrage among gamers when a game is released buggy. It cannot cause apriori outrage, unlike DDRM, because no developer/publisher will admit that they are about to release a buggy game - see them do that and then see the outcry that would ensue!

 

My comparison really is that DRM doesn't cause nearly so much problem as generally buggy games

 

My chief issue with DDRM is the impact on the longevity of games. That's why I am so vehemently opposed to online activation and limited installs, but don't really mind other forms of DRM that don't decrease game-longevity. I agree that bugs are a problem too, but there is a major difference, that being that excessive bugs are the result of insufficient resources (time an money devoted to playtesting), whereas draconian DRM is introduced into the game deliberately. The bugs equivalent would be if bugs were inserted into the game on purpose (and the developer/publisher would even pay extra to introduce the bugs), rather than merely not being caught due to insufficient resource intensive Q&A/playtesting/debugging.

[Slowtrain]

PC gamers waiting 3 months without a patch calmly? I've not seen too many of that.

lol. Stabbed through the heart. Yeah, a lot of pc gamers do not wait calmly AT ALL for a patch. WHich I understand. But a lot seem to tolerate this idea that when you buy the game it will be a bug-ridden mess and that the patches will fix it.

 

But a lot of gamers don't tolerate it. It does cause an outrage among gamers when a game is released buggy. It cannot cause apriori outrage, unlike DDRM, because no developer/publisher will admit that they are about to release a buggy game - see them do that and then see the outcry that would ensue!

 

 

But we gamers pretty much know that every game is going to be buggy. I mean, we PRAISE games that are mostly bug free. The game industry knowingly releases buggy games. There is no other explanation for what we see in games. SO there is indeed a priori knowledge.

 

Yet gamers keep right on buying these games without forcing game developers and publishers to change their ways.

 

Look at Obsidian: Even in their short history as a developer, they have already a pretty bad history of buggy game releases. But most people on this forum are going to rush right out and buy Alpha Protocol and/or alien crpg without waiting.

 

THEN they will all squawk and complain until Feargus threatens to shut down the board. AGAIN.

 

 

I agree that bugs are a problem too, but there is a major difference, that being that excessive bugs are the result of insufficient resources (time an money devoted to playtesting), whereas draconian DRM is introduced into the game deliberately. The bugs equivalent would be if bugs were inserted into the game on purpose (and the developer/publisher would even pay extra to introduce the bugs), rather than merely not being caught due to insufficient resource intensive Q&A/playtesting/debugging.

 

 

The bugs are there because we as gamers let them get away with having insufficient resources deveoted to QA and clean game design. Because devs and pubs KNOW that gamers are going to buy them anyway.

 

Dude, once they have your money, there is no recourse for ever getting it back. Unless you are lucky enough to have a store that will return open software. (which used to be totally normal, btw).

 

Gamers ARE getting outraged about DRM, and It IS making a difference. Or appears to be. WHich is good. But I just think it is getting outraged about the wrong thing.

[Nightshape]

PC gamers waiting 3 months without a patch calmly? I've not seen too many of that.

 

 

lol. Stabbed through the heart. Yeah, a lot of pc gamers do not wait calmly AT ALL for a patch. WHich I understand. But a lot seem to tolerate this idea that when you buy the game it will be a bug-ridden mess and that the patches will fix it.

 

If gamers could hold onto their panties and not rush out and buy games until they were fixed, developers and publishers would stop releasing them broken. They only do it because they can get away with it.

 

My comparison really is that DRM doesn't cause nearly so much problem as generally buggy games (not that it doesn't cause ANY problems, mind you), yet people really don't seem to have any universal outrage over the blatant offences of publishers and developers releasing buggy games.

 

I purchased 2 pc games at release this last year, both had game stopping bugs. None of them had to do with DRM.

 

You wouldn't actually know a bug ridden mess if it came and sat next to you... Really, games have bugs, on all platforms.

 

The problem with the PC is simple, lots of hardware combinations, and the cost of development for such a dynamic platform.

 

Dev budgets for a PC game are less than for a console games. It's alot easier to develop for a console, my ps3 dev kit is the same as the next one, infact, I can even run my code on another PS3 dev kit and know that it has all the same parts.

 

My PC has a different GFX card. That's a lovely potential rendering problem.

 

Also, PC code tends to be rather sloppy when it comes to memory management, why? because you have so much... It also doesn't have the same sort of care taken over it because it will likely perform very different on a different machine, it's just not worth the extra development time, which may only effect 2% of users. You can't be certain that it will perform the same from machine to machine.

 

Speaking to a few of the guys who ported Half Life 2 to PS3, they were not impressed by the Source Engine as an engine intended for a console, an absolute mess of an engine.

 

To get straight to the point, the whole problem with PC's is the nature of the beast itself. It's generic and often over powered, you can't make something that is awesome and stable for everyone without alot of money behind the project (Blizzard are pretty much the only developers I know that try to actually deliver to such a large ordiance, and even they have to patch the hell out of stuff).

[Nightshape]

PC gamers waiting 3 months without a patch calmly? I've not seen too many of that.

lol. Stabbed through the heart. Yeah, a lot of pc gamers do not wait calmly AT ALL for a patch. WHich I understand. But a lot seem to tolerate this idea that when you buy the game it will be a bug-ridden mess and that the patches will fix it.

 

But a lot of gamers don't tolerate it. It does cause an outrage among gamers when a game is released buggy. It cannot cause apriori outrage, unlike DDRM, because no developer/publisher will admit that they are about to release a buggy game - see them do that and then see the outcry that would ensue!

 

 

But we gamers pretty much know that every game is going to be buggy. I mean, we PRAISE games that are mostly bug free. The game industry knowingly releases buggy games. There is no other explanation for what we see in games. SO there is indeed a priori knowledge.

 

Yet gamers keep right on buying these games without forcing game developers and publishers to change their ways.

 

Look at Obsidian: Even in their short history as a developer, they have already a pretty bad history of buggy game releases. But most people on this forum are going to rush right out and buy Alpha Protocol and/or alien crpg without waiting.

 

THEN they will all squawk and complain until Feargus threatens to shut down the board. AGAIN.

 

 

I agree that bugs are a problem too, but there is a major difference, that being that excessive bugs are the result of insufficient resources (time an money devoted to playtesting), whereas draconian DRM is introduced into the game deliberately. The bugs equivalent would be if bugs were inserted into the game on purpose (and the developer/publisher would even pay extra to introduce the bugs), rather than merely not being caught due to insufficient resource intensive Q&A/playtesting/debugging.

 

 

The bugs are there because we as gamers let them get away with having insufficient resources deveoted to QA and clean game design. Because devs and pubs KNOW that gamers are going to buy them anyway.

 

Dude, once they have your money, there is no recourse for ever getting it back. Unless you are lucky enough to have a store that will return open software. (which used to be totally normal, btw).

 

Gamers ARE getting outraged about DRM, and It IS making a difference. Or appears to be. WHich is good. But I just think it is getting outraged about the wrong thing.

 

Do you realise that in order to give you what you want developers would have to adopt the same methods that they use to write code for the space shuttle, which means your average game would have a development cycle of many years, and would constantly be patched in a very slow mannar. The developer would never release another project, and would likely end up bust.

[kirottu]

At the point they become pirates, yes, its a moot point. Its the dislike of DRM that continues to create new pirates (at a faster rate than otherwise).

 

I think that this is a myth.

 

No, I think it sounds just right amount of stupid to actually be true.

[Slowtrain]

PC gamers waiting 3 months without a patch calmly? I've not seen too many of that.

 

 

lol. Stabbed through the heart. Yeah, a lot of pc gamers do not wait calmly AT ALL for a patch. WHich I understand. But a lot seem to tolerate this idea that when you buy the game it will be a bug-ridden mess and that the patches will fix it.

 

If gamers could hold onto their panties and not rush out and buy games until they were fixed, developers and publishers would stop releasing them broken. They only do it because they can get away with it.

 

My comparison really is that DRM doesn't cause nearly so much problem as generally buggy games (not that it doesn't cause ANY problems, mind you), yet people really don't seem to have any universal outrage over the blatant offences of publishers and developers releasing buggy games.

 

I purchased 2 pc games at release this last year, both had game stopping bugs. None of them had to do with DRM.

 

You wouldn't actually know a bug ridden mess if it came and sat next to you... Really, games have bugs, on all platforms.

 

The problem with the PC is simple, lots of hardware combinations, and the cost of development for such a dynamic platform.

 

Dev budgets for a PC game are less than for a console games. It's alot easier to develop for a console, my ps3 dev kit is the same as the next one, infact, I can even run my code on another PS3 dev kit and know that it has all the same parts.

 

My PC has a different GFX card. That's a lovely potential rendering problem.

 

Also, PC code tends to be rather sloppy when it comes to memory management, why? because you have so much... It also doesn't have the same sort of care taken over it because it will likely perform very different on a different machine, it's just not worth the extra development time, which may only effect 2% of users. You can't be certain that it will perform the same from machine to machine.

 

Speaking to a few of the guys who ported Half Life 2 to PS3, they were not impressed by the Source Engine as an engine intended for a console, an absolute mess of an engine.

 

To get straight to the point, the whole problem with PC's is the nature of the beast itself. It's generic and often over powered, you can't make something that is awesome and stable for everyone without alot of money behind the project (Blizzard are pretty much the only developers I know that try to actually deliver to such a large ordiance, and even they have to patch the hell out of stuff).

 

 

whatever, dude. Rationalization is free and easy.

 

If there was an option to get my money back when I buy a game that doesn't work, none of this would bother me so much.

 

There isn't.

 

It must be nice to have a job that takes my ****ing money and doesn't give me a working product or any guaranatee that I'll ever get one.

[Morgoth]

Piracy was there before DRM emerged.

 

I think the point why so many people pirate these days is

1) Different release dates. If you want a game badly, but have to wait severel more months or a year until it gets released in your country (i.e. Russia), then you pirate it

2) It's easy. Get the torrent, click start, wait. Wow, that was easy.

3) Most games not worth the full prize anyway.

 

That's why I restrict myself only to the best titles. Buying them, finsihing them, selling them immediately back. Exceptions are Blizzard, Bioware and other games where I usually keep the copy for more playthroughs. Other titles that look interesting, but are most probably average have to wait 6-12 months until they can be bought cheaply off ebay.

[Slowtrain]

Do you realise that in order to give you what you want developers would have to adopt the same methods that they use to write code for the space shuttle, which means your average game would have a development cycle of many years, and would constantly be patched in a very slow mannar. The developer would never release another project, and would likely end up bust.

 

 

On what planet is this?

 

If I buy something that doesn't work, I can take it back forr a refund and buy something else. It's hardly an alien concept.

[Nightshape]

Do you realise that in order to give you what you want developers would have to adopt the same methods that they use to write code for the space shuttle, which means your average game would have a development cycle of many years, and would constantly be patched in a very slow mannar. The developer would never release another project, and would likely end up bust.

 

 

On what planet is this?

 

If I buy something that doesn't work, I can take it back forr a refund and buy something else. It's hardly an alien concept.

 

And you should, but you seem to have a major issue with "bugs" in general, I'm just saying its impractical.

 

Edit: Frankly put, you should be able to take a product that does not work back to the store, I blame retailers personally, for not accepting the return of a faulty product. When I bought NWN's originally it had some game breaking bugs, Volo has been very vocal about his excellent experience with it on release.

Edited January 23, 2009 by Nightshape

[Nightshape]

It must be nice to have a job that takes my ****ing money and doesn't give me a working product or any guaranatee that I'll ever get one.

 

Yeah coz I wake up everyday and think "I hate crashgirl, I'm gunna take her money and spend it on hookers, strippers and booze, then maybe write some crap code while i post on the Obsidian Forum".

 

Do you realise that companies have coding standards, code reviews, etc...

 

It's merely that you can't always get it 100% right 100% of the time.

[Slowtrain]

Do you realise that in order to give you what you want developers would have to adopt the same methods that they use to write code for the space shuttle, which means your average game would have a development cycle of many years, and would constantly be patched in a very slow mannar. The developer would never release another project, and would likely end up bust.

 

 

On what planet is this?

 

If I buy something that doesn't work, I can take it back forr a refund and buy something else. It's hardly an alien concept.

 

And you should, but you seem to have a major issue with "bugs" in general, I'm just saying its impractical.

 

 

My last 2 game purchases both had game stopping bugs. Not minor bugs like the mouse cursor flickers briefly over part of the GUI, but bugs, like I can't play the game type bugs.

 

One of them involved a cutscene not ending properly and causing a total lock up of the pc. I'll agree that it was most likely some kind of system config conflict, since some people had the problem, but some didn't. I agree that it may not be practical for the coders to be able to account for every possible conflict on a system, but I should be able to take the game back for a refund when that happens.

 

The other bug involved a trigger not activating that basically made it impossible to talk to a person who needed to be talked to advance the game. Lots of people experience this problem as well, and neither the devs nor the publishers ever even admitted to the problem. Last I heard there was no workaround except to load saves from further and further back and see if you can avoid the problem. This is an in-game bug and is completely unacceptable. Again though, simply having the option for a refund would be sufficient.

 

Its the fact that developers and publishers can simply take my money without ever having to worry about giving it back if what I paid for doesn't work right. That is what bugs me so much.

[Slowtrain]

It's merely that you can't always get it 100% right 100% of the time.

 

 

lol. Do you guys keep little sayings like this taped up in the lounge? Nothing like having built in excuses for your failures.

[Morgoth]

CrashGirl thinks coding for games is as easy as eating pancake. You should be glad you even get PC games these days.

[Slowtrain]

CrashGirl thinks coding for games is as easy as eating pancake. You should be glad you even get PC games these days.

 

 

Right. That must be because I said coding was easy. Of wait, I didn't, did I?

 

What I said was that if I pay money for a product that product should work. If it doesn't, which does happen sometimes, I should be able to get my money back and buy a different product.

[Morgoth]

CrashGirl thinks coding for games is as easy as eating pancake. You should be glad you even get PC games these days.

 

 

Right. That must be because I said coding was easy. Of wait, I didn't, did I?

 

What I said was that if I pay money for a product that product should work. If it doesn't, which does happen sometimes, I should be able to get my money back and buy a different product.

Yeah, so? You behave like PC games these days destroy your computer upon installation. Those times are over, in fact the standards have become a lot better. Remember the 90's with their crappy and buggy games? PoR for starters?

Seriously, I haven't tracked down a single modern games that I think isn't worth the money due to bugs. Quality (content, story) is a different matter.

[Nightshape]

Do you realise that in order to give you what you want developers would have to adopt the same methods that they use to write code for the space shuttle, which means your average game would have a development cycle of many years, and would constantly be patched in a very slow mannar. The developer would never release another project, and would likely end up bust.

 

 

On what planet is this?

 

If I buy something that doesn't work, I can take it back forr a refund and buy something else. It's hardly an alien concept.

 

And you should, but you seem to have a major issue with "bugs" in general, I'm just saying its impractical.

 

 

My last 2 game purchases both had game stopping bugs. Not minor bugs like the mouse cursor flickers briefly over part of the GUI, but bugs, like I can't play the game type bugs.

 

One of them involved a cutscene not ending properly and causing a total lock up of the pc. I'll agree that it was most likely some kind of system config conflict, since some people had the problem, but some didn't. I agree that it may not be practical for the coders to be able to account for every possible conflict on a system, but I should be able to take the game back for a refund when that happens.

 

The other bug involved a trigger not activating that basically made it impossible to talk to a person who needed to be talked to advance the game. Lots of people experience this problem as well, and neither the devs nor the publishers ever even admitted to the problem. Last I heard there was no workaround except to load saves from further and further back and see if you can avoid the problem. This is an in-game bug and is completely unacceptable. Again though, simply having the option for a refund would be sufficient.

 

Its the fact that developers and publishers can simply take my money without ever having to worry about giving it back if what I paid for doesn't work right. That is what bugs me so much.

 

The retailer is in my opinion at fault, without getting too deep into the issues, the retailer takes about 40% of the cost of a game, they only pay for the ones they sell, the rest are often sent back to the publisher, my memory could be wrong but from what I recall that is how it works. The retailer should give the money back or exchange the product, that's how I personally feel about it.

 

If you find yourself with a game that has game breaking bugs and it's not going to be fixed by the developer, I agree you should be able to return it to the publisher.

 

But the idea that a dev doesn't care about the quality of a product is crazy.

[Nightshape]

It's merely that you can't always get it 100% right 100% of the time.

 

 

lol. Do you guys keep little sayings like this taped up in the lounge? Nothing like having built in excuses for your failures.

 

It's a fact! 100% true.