Azi. You rule.
That is all.
Azi. You rule.
That is all.
For once, something we can all agree on
I pretty much agree with everyone else. Developers are only hurting their legit customers with these ridiculous DRM obstructions. It boggles my mind how they do not realize that no matter what they do, hackers will get around it.
The best way to prevent piracy is by educating gamers, and selling games at a reasonable price. The further they push gamers away with these painful DRM measures, the more gamers will be comfortable, or feel justified, in pirating them.
Yeah look, if i have to download a crack to get my legit, purchased version of a game working, I may as well just warez it. It's not right, but increasingly what's happening is they're pushing the otherwise loyal, paying customer to pursue thievery. Like banning guns. The criminals don't care, they still have access to legal firearms, but now Joe Public has to jump through a million hoops to protect himself and his family. It's idiotic, and does nothing to impact crime levels.
The very first day you have to hack a game to get it working is the tipping point. It becomes far easier to slip and just download the next one, and from there on it's a very slippery slope down to becoming a full blown pirate.
Sooner or later the suits in charge are going to HAVE to realise that half the reason people pirate on the PC is as some kind of 'cool i r hacker' syndrome. Games are already half the price they are on console, so that's not the issue. It's that the harder they try and dream up ridiculous drm schemes, the harder the hackers themselves work at 'sticking it to the man'. Right now half the PC gaming populace regards game publishers as the enemy thanks to this ongoing idiocy. That's already half the battle lost.
And the other half is PC users saying "Screw this ... why do I have to deal with this s#it? I paid for the game!"Originally Posted by Skurm
Regardless of whether you paid for it or not - its almost like the publishers don't want to admit that the game is your property - from their point of view you paid for the disk and the box, and you're renting the rest for as long as they feel like letting you have it.
Anybody feel like not getting their money's worth? Buy a game.
Even EA seems reasonable these days compared to Ubisoft - unless I missed something when I installed Dragon Age.
PC Gamer interviews some guy from Ubisoft. I don't know who. I don't really care. Ubisoft is dead to me.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...35596&site=pcg
I myself have no issue with DRM. A quick online activation is on problem at all, but like you say in the article Ubisoft have taken it too far this time. Using CD Keys can cause problems, my Battlefield 2 key was in use when I tried to play. I'm just not going to buy Ubi games until they see some reason. Until then however it's not I don't have other options.
I see a lot of complaints about DRM and such all the way back from the days of starforce and beyond.
Even if the DRM sucks and it discourages only about 3% of the people who would pirate it (the same people that can't read a readme or are too scared to crack a game) then the DRM was a success.
Sad fact is that the moment DRM is dropped the game is pirated by every Tom, Dick and Harry so even bad cut-your-eyes-out-with-a-spoon-DRM is better for the company than none since even the legit buyers can just get the crack (I am sure the companies know this) and have a fun, hassle free time.
Nowhere have I ever heard someone make a suggestion for a workable DRM-scheme.
One solution is to make use of digital distribution systems such as steam. If a pirate copy of a game can spread like wild fire 2 days before launch even here in SA then i am willing to say the we have a more than adequate local distribution system. Don't have the cap? Get it from your mate, that got it from, etc. you get the point.
Why the digital distribution though? Price.
Check Jeff Atwood's blog article on software pricing with stats released by steam here
The solution to piracy is by making it more effort than buying. DRM fails as pirating the game leads to LESS effort than buying it. The industry is in a need of a pricing and distribution overhaul. Unfortunately this leaves console gamers in the cold a bit, but with the PSN and Xbox live I am sure something can be sorted out.
This represents my opinion which may have no bearing on reality.
The only reason I can think DRM has been successful to date is because in third world countries thus far it's been pretty expensive to download games.
As internet access and speeds increase and costs decrease worldwide, this will change.
The likes of Ubisoft would do well to heed this.
Last edited by Skurm; 24-02-2010 at 12:41 PM.
I disagree with this part. I remember the whole EA-Spore debacle - I think in that case the DRM actually encouraged people to pirate - if you have doubts about how the DRM pissed people off - just go read the reviews on Amazon. The game score 2 stars, not because it was a crap game, but because the DRM spoiled people's experience and enjoyment of the game. And note ... these are all legit buyers.
As for the solution to piracy? I don't think there really is one. There will always be people who want something for little to no effort, or failing that, free. What they do need to do is to stop treating legit customers like criminals.
But DRM isn't the way to go - recent history should have demonstrated that quite well by now.
@shadowfox
I actually agree with most of what you are saying. Typed the above post quickly so sorry for misunderstandings.
I think the number of people that have a copy of the game at the end of the day remains mostly constant. What should be done is to shift the ratio away from piracy in favour of legit. The argument I made was that, even though DRM shifts the ratio in favour of piracy in cases like spore, the total number of copies 'out there' is probably still less than without DRM.
And without DRM the 'why not' threshold (mentioned in the article) for piracy drops as well.
Would actually be interesting to see how the numbers actually change for different scenarios.
This represents my opinion which may have no bearing on reality.
