Forced online play

Ancalagon said:
I am hassled because I am passionate about consumer rights and DRM.

I know it sounds dramatic, but the reality is, if we sit here and do nothing, and continue to buy games like D3, DRM will get worse and worse. Although, I'm not sure how much worse it can get, honestly.

Publishers are taking away more and more of our rights as consumers, and giving us less and less, in the name of profits. I'm not prepared to accept that. So I'm voting with my wallet, and I want to make other people think about these issues, so that maybe they will vote with their wallets too, and regain our rights.

Once upon a time, you used to be able to buy a game, do whatever you wanted with it, and then sell it when you were done. Now you can play it when they allow you to, and you cant sell it. The publishers are wanting to change to a service based model instead of a product model because its more profitable to them, but have you asked yourselves, what do we get out of it? I'm sorry, call me selfish, but I'd only go for a service based model if I thought it was worth it. Obviously, I see no benefit out of the current gaming model.
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I hear you, but let's also be passionate about calling out those who cause us to have to deal with DRM, the problem cannot be solved by the publishers/developers only.
 
Fivel said:
I hear you, but let's also be passionate about calling out those who cause us to have to deal with DRM, the problem cannot be solved by the publishers/developers only.
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The developers introduced DRM not the pirates. Piracy is their problem and they've now gone and made it our problem. That's not on in my books.
 
Fivel said:
Piracy is all our problem, whether you like it or not.
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When an anti-piracy method is affecting the game for people who legitimately bought it and causing other people not to buy the game, there is obviously something wrong with it!
 
Wyzak said:
When an anti-piracy method is affecting the game for people who legitimately bought it and causing other people not to buy the game, there is obviously something wrong with it!
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We sit with the same problem when you watch a purchased DVD, I'm not the pirate but I am affected by the adverts/warnings etc.

I agree that this is not the cure all for piracy, in fact as you point out it negatively affects potential sales.

My point is that if we sit back and keep pointing at the publishers etc to solve the problem and our selves/mates continue pirating and we say/do nothing the problem will never be solved. We all have a vested interest in reducing piracy.
 
Fivel said:
We sit with the same problem when you watch a purchased DVD, I'm not the pirate but I am affected by the adverts/warnings etc.
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The advertisements on purchased DVDs aren't exactly the same because they don't detract from the movie itself. You just zoom past them, or get your snacks in order while they are playing and then enjoy the movie. - An accurate comparison to this would be requiring an online login and then allowing offline play.

Perhaps a more accurate comparison would be that you buy the disk but in reality it's only a token which allows you to stream the movie down from their website. And then their website is unavailable or is slow so your movie stutters.
 
Oh also let's not forget that you aren't ever allowed to sell the "movie" that you bought, even when you've watched it enough times that you can repeat all the lines. You also can't return it to the store if you are not happy with it.
 
Agree, your examples are better than my DVD one, but you don't comment on whether this is all our problem to solve?
 
By that logic, Toyota should introduce a system where you have to sign in to a server to start your car. Car theft is a huge problem, and people who steal cars dont have to buy cars from Toyota. So Toyota then makes it our problem by making you insert an anal probe that verifies your identity with their servers before starting the car. Stopped in the Karoo? sorry for you!

Thats really the same logic. And you know what this thinking is called - externalizing. read up on it. Businesses externalize risks to them. All businesses suffer the risk of theft, but only the content industry is arrogant enough to make the risk of theft your problem.

Sorry content companies, you will not externalize your risk onto me. I will not cover you because of piracy. You must sort it out yourselves, or accept the risk.

And heck, what exactly have their anti piracy efforts accomplished? Can you name me a game that cannot be pirated? Are you willing to bet what the results of a google search for Diablo 3 torrent will be?
 
We are missing each other by the proverbial mile, my point simply put, if we do not sort out both sides of the problem, I would call it 'moral decay' by both business and users this will not go away. If you do not see yourself as part of solving the problem then you are part of the problem.

You are most welcome to use outrageous examples to support your point of view ;)
 
But why is piracy MY problem? It isnt! Anymore than car theft, or CD theft, is my problem.

Whatever hurts a company's bottom line is for the company to deal with, not me. If they choose to do so in a manner that negatively affects the consumer, then I will boycott them, and will attempt to persuade others to do so too.
 
Ancalagon said:
But why is piracy MY problem? It isnt! Anymore than car theft, or CD theft, is my problem.
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Simply put, because it affects you.....our entire conversation is evidence of that.

Whatever hurts a company's bottom line is for the company to deal with, not me. If they choose to do so in a manner that negatively affects the consumer, then I will boycott them, and will attempt to persuade others to do so too.
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I agree that it shouldn't, but it is also unrealistic to expect it not to. For example, if a game costs X, there is no doubt in my mind that publishers up the price to deal with piracy, just as retailers build a certain part of their markup in as shrinkage.
 
Fivel said:
Simply put, because it affects you.....our entire conversation is evidence of that.
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It only affects me because the publisher wants to make it my problem!

I dont accept that. Toyota doesnt make car theft my problem. I dont have to sign in to read books on my kindle. Why do we make exceptions for game publishers?

If publishers didnt use DRM - which doesnt work anyway - it would not affect me at all.

I agree that it shouldn't, but it is also unrealistic to expect it not to. For example, if a game costs X, there is no doubt in my mind that publishers up the price to deal with piracy, just as retailers build a certain part of their markup in as shrinkage.
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Not really. Why is it unrealistic?

Yes companies pass costs onto the consumer, thats to be expected. Higher minimum wage -> higher prices for goods. Same with piracy - if they are suffering losses due to piracy, more than likely they try to recoup that from sales. No problem with that...

...Except for a few things.

One, no one can define losses due to piracy accurately. Publishers grossly overestimate losses to piracy, because they always assume anyone who pirates a game would normally have bought it. Obviously, a Russian living on the breadline is not going to buy your game, if he cant pirate it. He will just not play it at all. So there is no lost sale there, there was never a sale in the first place. One game company, I cant remember which, said that for every 1000 cases of piracy, they stopped, they got something like 5 new sales. Think about that. Now tell me "losses due to piracy" are anywhere near as big as claimed?

The second thing is that while I could accept a little extra money on top, I absolutely do not accept DRM. DRM is a reduction of my rights. A little extra on top is pretty standard and in no way affects my rights. I can earn more money, but its incredibly difficult to take back a right once you have given it away.

And there is nothing about piracy that justifies DRM. Nothing. As we know, DRM does not solve piracy.

The real problem is that the industry itself is in trouble, and they are resorting to all sorts of schemes to save themselves. Games cost $60 years ago, they still cost $60 today. When you factor in inflation, that means that the price of games, in real terms, has dropped. But then when you factor in how expensive it has got, in terms of the number of staff that work on a game, you see the real problem. Costs have risen dramatically, competition is fiercer than ever, and the price is static or decreasing. Hence DLC - its usually the only thing that makes money. The actual game probably only breaks even if sales are like 2 million units and above.

Enter DRM. They feel they are losing money to piracy (although they arent losing nearly as much as they think), and they know they cant bump the price to cover piracy. Consumers would just not go for it. So some snake oil salesmen have convinced the aging publisher execs, who are probably pushing 60 by this stage, and understand business but not the business of games, that DRM is a necessity. Nevermind the embarrassing factoid that DRM is ineffectual. Its the only way they think they can externalize the "cost" of piracy onto the consumer.
 
Let's not forget that increasing the price to combat piracy, will result in more pirated copies and to another increase in price and more piracy...
 
Thats true, they probably realize that, which is another reason why they are reluctant to do so, except in the case of Diablo 3 and SC2. Which got pirated anyway...
 
Guys, please lets not turn this into a yet another thread about piracy.

I think the question is (that has been asked);
Should games be a service or should games remain as a product?

So lets summarise it
Games as an online service:

Content delivery service (Steam):
Positives:
  • Can be taken offline (briefly)
  • Has community (profiles, chat etc)
  • Achievements
  • No lag in singleplayer
  • Reduced cheats / exploits
  • Reduced piracy - cracks still available
  • CD-Keys are kept within a DB and locked to account
  • Games kept up to date (great version control)
  • Can download game client any time
  • Can broken fix game client
  • DLC
Negatives:
  • Requires online authentication
  • Server dependency
  • Updates prevent game time
  • Boxed edition usually require patch before play
  • Community not integrated into game play (Personally I've had a far better experience with Bnet 2.0 games than with Steam games/BattleLog)
  • Hacking and exploits
  • Lag in multiplayer
  • Cannot resell

Client MMO-like games which require login (Including D3)
Positives:
  • Has great community (profiles, chat etc)
  • Achievements
  • Very little cheat / exploits
  • Very little piracy
  • CD-Keys are kept within a DB and locked to account
  • Games kept up to date (both client and server side - eg hotfix)
  • Value added services (RM Auction House)
  • Can download client anytime
  • Can fix broken game client
Negatives:
  • Requires Internet
  • Server dependency
  • Lag in singleplayer
  • Lag in multiplayer
  • Cannot resell

Games as a product:

Good old singleplayer/multiplayer product
Positives:
  • You can play when you want
  • Update when you want to
  • No lag in singleplayer
  • Resell
Negatives:
  • Piracy (very easy to crack)
  • Buyer still has troubles with anti-piracy measures (CD-Keys, CD-Checks etc)
  • DVD/CD's can be scratched/lost
  • Lots of cheats and exploits
  • No community for singleplayer
  • Segregated community for multiplayer
  • Lag in multiplayer
  • Version control managed by user
  • Reinstall required if game client is corrupted


Full games with online-only DRM (Ubisoft)
Positives:
  • Version control managed by publisher
  • No lag in singleplayer
  • Some community features
Negatives:
  • Requires Internet
  • Lag in multiplayer
  • Piracy still a problem with cracks
  • Server dependency
  • Cheats and exploits (making achievements meaningless)
  • Cannot resell
  • No community (or community features usually poor)
  • Reinstall required if game client is corrupted
 
(Sorry for double post, but I would like to keep the summary clean)

My conclusion is that services become far more complex. So in order to outweigh the negatives, a company has to provide additional VAS. It's the reason why more people are against the DRM of Ubisoft, than that of Blizzard. (it benefits the publishers and not the consumers)

Games as a product, were far simpler, but then as a company you cannot provide VAS.

As a consumer, one needs to weigh these up; No one is forced to buy into a product or a service, that's the beauty of this free market. You as a consumer need to decide whether the product or service is worth the money.

Personally, I've had very little problems with using an online service such as EVE, WoW, BF3 and now D3. I know its crucial that my internet needs to be top-notch - same goes for every requirement listed on the box. I personally believe online is the way forward.
 
@RoosTa

I would remove piracy from all of those possibilities mentioned above, because its a publisher problem, not a client problem. (my opinion).

Also D3 does not suffer "very little piracy", it suffers the same piracy as all others. So no gain there.

re: single player community. In game single player community is kinda stretching the definition of single player a bit. Perhaps D3 has no single player at all, only coop multiplayer?

Updates prevent game time should be a negative for mmo-like games too then.

Cheats and exploits are only an issue for multiplayer games, but they even happen in BF3. If they happen in BF3, I'm sure someone will find a way to exploit D3. Its only a matter of time.

Personally I dont find CDs/DVDs bothersome.

@Fivel

Thanks, same to you.
 
Ancalagon said:
I would remove piracy from all of those possibilities mentioned above, because its a publisher problem, not a client problem. (my opinion).
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Clearly it is a problem and it affects everyone.

Ancalagon said:
Also D3 does not suffer "very little piracy", it suffers the same piracy as all others. So no gain there..
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Services (Such as MMO's) contain all their original IP on the servers and not the client thats installed on your PC. So while you might be able to play some 'form' of Diablo 3 / WoW on some hacked and buggy server, it will not be the real deal.

I can promise you this; People (if any) playing on emulated servers are having a much harder time than those on BN. I'd say, mission accomplished.


Ancalagon said:
@RoosTa
Updates prevent game time should be a negative for mmo-like games too then.
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Did know that WoW/D3 patches your client while you play and that many patches are actually server side which hardly affects the clients?
 
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