DRM Thread

[HoonDing]

It might not be choking itself financially (because there are always new gamers coming) but creativity is in short supply. I'd say that todays games get boring too quickly and are often too derivative. This

will probably have a steady negative impact on sales and help piracy to grow, because people simply feel that the games are not worth their money. Who wants to buy the 50th sucky Diablo clone? Most people don't. But they crave to play that sort of game for the lack of anything better. So they just get the pirated version, get their fix and delete it. The reasoning might not be sound, but its what actually happens.

But luckily David "Messiah" Cage is out there to single-handedly save the entire video-game market from the mainstream quagmire with dark & gritty QTE.

[alanschu]

I start to hate them as soon as they start putting 3-times only activation shovelware in all other aspect hey are same as EA, but so far not one of the games i was ever interested with Activision logo had such ridiculous DRM...

 

And as soon as games as Mirror's Edge and Dead Space start to be more common than 1 good game for 25 shovelware... i'll start to believe they might change... not a day before

 

 

So do you just download pirated copies of EA games to boost the download stats and "stick it" to EA? Because that just seems like a silly venture to me.

 

 

oh so you are now accusing me of pirating aswell...

 

 

No, I asked you a question.

[alanschu]

will probably have a steady negative impact on sales and help piracy to grow, because people simply feel that the games are not worth their money. Who wants to buy the 50th sucky Diablo clone? Most people don't. But they crave to play that sort of game for the lack of anything better. So they just get the pirated version, get their fix and delete it. The reasoning might not be sound, but its what actually happens.

 

Is it? You sound so sure of yourself.

[Zoraptor]

I couldn't find the PC sales for Fallout 3, just that as of November 6 it had shipped 4.7 million units on both XBOX 360 and PC. As for the Tweak Guide you refer to, Spore is downloaded more than Fallout 3. Though from what I can tell, Spore is a very popular PC game, in spite of the evil draconian DRM that came with the game. It blasted to 2 million sales (PC only) in just 3 weeks. I have a feeling this is more than the PC sales of Fallout 3. Probably by a significant margin.

I didn't pick Spore because it was released significantly before F3/ FC2/ RA3, which were all released within weeks of each other and thus should be generally comparable- Spore would have around 6 months more downloads counted. F3's 360 and PS3 sales are available. Assuming the whole 4.7 million sold that gives an absolute minimum PC figure, excluding purchase downloads, of 1 million. Since the PS3 and 360 figures are 'to date' rather than to Nov 2008 we can safely assume that the PC sales are (considerably) higher than 1 million.

 

Overall sales across all platforms are important in any case, as one of the charges leveled at PC piracy is that it cannibalises console sales.

 

I read it too. Here's a quote from their most recent quarterly report: "The Company ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $1.8 billion." Electronic Arts is a publicly traded company, it is exceptionally risky for them to be deceitful about this sort of information.

I was quoting the cash only figure because that was the thing which was primarily absorbing their losses and thus showed the most precipitate decline. I'll concede the point though as it isn't really worth arguing- as I said previously EA ain't going to go bankrupt anytime soon, but at the same time multiple hundred million dollar losses (as again in the last quarter) do take their toll eventually.

 

What was the deal with Electronic Arts?

I thought the LGS closing article actually referenced it, though I haven't read that in years. I'm not privy to the details, of course, the gist of it was that it was an 'accumulator' type deal which required all the titles on it to return a profit in order for any to. Because British Open Golf did not sell to target (don't think the third reached release) it meant that the profit from SS2 went almost exclusively to EA.

 

SS2 was his most popular download for several months, even beating out Half-Life on occasion.

Can't say I'm surprised, I remember seeing SS2 in some torrent sites' top 10 download stats even quite recently. There's certainly still demand for it for purchase, as both SS titles are top of GOG's wishlist by a fair margin. I know anecdotally that the EA Classics version of SS2 sold very well and was (supposedly) discontinued early only because of compatibility troubles (needing a switch to install on 2k based OS, multicore/HT crashing).

[alanschu]

I didn't pick Spore because it was released significantly before F3/ FC2/ RA3, which were all released within weeks of each other and thus should be generally comparable- Spore would have around 6 months more downloads counted. F3's 360 and PS3 sales are available. Assuming the whole 4.7 million sold that gives an absolute minimum PC figure, excluding purchase downloads, of 1 million. Since the PS3 and 360 figures are 'to date' rather than to Nov 2008 we can safely assume that the PC sales are (considerably) higher than 1 million.

 

Spore came out in September 2008. Fallout 3 came out in October 2008. I don't know where you got the idea it was out 6 months before Fallout 3. At best you have two months difference, since it was early September vs Late October.

 

 

Good find on the numbers. A million+ units on the PC is in the area that I would expect. As for assuming the sales numbers, I try not to assume. The rate of sales flattens out pretty quickly. Too bad they don't have the PC sales there.

 

Optimally it'd be best to have units sold at POS outlets, but that'd likely be exceptionally hard to track.

 

I'll concede the point. Looks like Fallout 3 did really well. The X-Factor I have there is the assumption (haha I'm a hypocrite) that I have that the game probably did quite well through digital distribution such as Steam.

[Jaesun]

(Sorry to necro this, but I thought it would be better to discuss this furher here, instead of the news thread. Or if a more appropriate thead would be better, maybe move my post there?)

 

Would you guys consider Bioware Social a form of DRM-lite since you cant use the services until you register the game?

 

Yes, I would be fine with that. I am already registered there (Because I purchased DA:O and ME2).

[WDeranged]

I suppose this thread is also relevant again because of Origin, which I really can't see competing with Steam's special offers and vast catalog, plus there are terms in the contract which allow EA to scan your hard drive's contents and share it with third parties...

 

It's a shame because Origin as a program is very neat and tidy

Edited November 2, 2011 by WDeranged

[Hurlshort]

(Sorry to necro this, but I thought it would be better to discuss this furher here, instead of the news thread. Or if a more appropriate thead would be better, maybe move my post there?)

 

Would you guys consider Bioware Social a form of DRM-lite since you cant use the services until you register the game?

 

Yes, I would be fine with that. I am already registered there (Because I purchased DA:O and ME2).

 

Eventually Origin will replace Bioware Social, they've already started merging the accounts, and now DA2 and ME2 show up in Origin for me.

[Jaesun]

and now DA2 and ME2 show up in Origin for me.

 

Did they make it so ME1/2 now requires origin? I don't currently have ME or ME2 installed.

[Mamoulian War]

(Sorry to necro this, but I thought it would be better to discuss this furher here, instead of the news thread. Or if a more appropriate thead would be better, maybe move my post there?)

 

Would you guys consider Bioware Social a form of DRM-lite since you cant use the services until you register the game?

 

Yes, I would be fine with that. I am already registered there (Because I purchased DA:O and ME2).

 

Thankfully for us, who do not want to share our personal details with 3rd parties, are available other completely legal options how to use our legally purchased content

[Zoraptor]

I suppose this thread is also relevant again because of Origin, which I really can't see competing with Steam's special offers and vast catalog, plus there are terms in the contract which allow EA to scan your hard drive's contents and share it with third parties...

They don't, because their EULA is subject to their Privacy Policy.

 

Most relevantly "EA will never share your personal information with third parties without your consent. We may, however, share anonymous, non-personal, aggregated and/or public information with third parties."

 

If you want to you can make any EULA/ Privacy Policy look bad though. Valve exempts 3rd parties from any and all provisions of its privacy policy, for example. And 90% of its business is selling 3rd party stuff...

 

I should probably also repost the link I stuck in the Random News thread debunking the current "Origin uploads your entire HD to the internet!!!" scare. What it actually does.

[Hurlshort]

I suppose this thread is also relevant again because of Origin, which I really can't see competing with Steam's special offers and vast catalog, plus there are terms in the contract which allow EA to scan your hard drive's contents and share it with third parties...

They don't, because their EULA is subject to their Privacy Policy.

 

Most relevantly "EA will never share your personal information with third parties without your consent. We may, however, share anonymous, non-personal, aggregated and/or public information with third parties."

 

If you want to you can make any EULA/ Privacy Policy look bad though. Valve exempts 3rd parties from any and all provisions of its privacy policy, for example. And 90% of its business is selling 3rd party stuff...

 

I should probably also repost the link I stuck in the Random News thread debunking the current "Origin uploads your entire HD to the internet!!!" scare. What it actually does.

 

But what about the internet boogymen!?! I know they must exist.

 

Seriously, I was worried about Origin and not happy about needing another program to run games. I was comfortable with Steam (which actually took some time) and didn't want to hassle with something new. But it turned out that Origin is faster to load and barely noticeable, so I'm over it. I'm not going to miss out on games I enjoy because of it, that sounds crazy.