DRM - when is enough enough?

Lots of good points throughout the article, a lot of them I've already commented on in other threads that brought up similar points.

Honestly, I believe piracy is becoming such an epidemic because of:

1. Moral bankruptcy as you mention. If I WILL get away with it, then why the heck not? I'm not suggesting most people are going to go around murdering each other if they will get away with it (no doubt quite a few would though). "Petty" crimes like theft on the other hand...
2. Massive failure of internet and piracy laws and policing of those laws. At the moment, publishers are trying their damdest to stop piracy (and failing MISERABLY while hurting their legit customers base) when really, beyond basic protection, it should be in the hands of the law and the internetz police to deal with it.

Physical piracy is very minor, basically negligible, especially when faced with massive public online pirating services that exist to mock the current piracy laws (thepiratebay). Being able to tackle, hold those services responsible and force them to moderate and take down illegal content would deal a serious blow to the epidemic of piracy we see now (OT: I wonder what they would do if millions of people started uploading child porn on thepiratebay, I'm pretty sure the site be taken down near instantly). Sure, private services would still be around, but it would be MUCH smaller scale. Its a lot easier to tackle a few private services and 200k pirates instead of thousands of public services and 10mil pirates.
 
Here's a sad thing I neglected to mention in the article itself - benign, unobtrusive DRM schemes like serial keys can't even be used anymore because of keygens. I've a friend whose completely legitimate purchase of some Steam title wouldn't work because the key was already is use. Yes, DRM is becoming increasingly restrictive, but what are the real alternatives for publishers?

Here's something every pirate should ask themselves honestly - would they really, truly be okay with releasing a product they've personally invested a lot of money into, without any form of copy protection? Would they really, truly be okay with people just taking it without paying? I do think that most habitual pirates have simply never produced anything of value themselves.
 
The scary thing is this may well keep growing till it becomes all encompassing, not just to the PC, but consoles as well. Perhaps this may be somewhat of a workable solution in countries with great net connections, but man this is going to bite for us.

Was not Blizzard Activision looking to do a similar thing with Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3's singleplayer? I recall some saying it is only the initial verification, but I am not so sure after seeing something like this and how this may very well evolve.

Also I recall some saying on this forum a while back that we should not get angry at these companies or these types of decisions. Because in 1st world countries it will have less of an impact with their great broadband, and it is not their fault we have 'the suck' broadband in SA.

GAH!
 
The whole DRM thing is just getting out of hand. Companies know that people are going to pirate so they put up even stricter DRM measrues. My question to the pirates, and the fanbois is: If you don't like a game, why don't you just not buy it? If everyone had not bought MW2, instead of pirating it for some bleeding heart reason, it would have been changed. The simple law of supply and demand has a much greater effect on companies and their bank account than protesting over something, then pirating it, which just proves the companies right...and then the whole cycle starts again.
tl;dr: Don't buy the game if you don't like it for whatever reason, that will hurt comapies more.
 
I think the article is completely misnamed - should be called the "Twerp Exposition Theory". Or something :p

It's a vicious circle really - the pirates aren't going to stop doing what they're doing, and the publishers aren't going to stop coming up with even more devious ways to publish the end user. Although, I suspect that it's going to get to the point where some publisher is going to stick their foot so deep in it, that no-one will buy the game - or so few that the company runs a loss. Only figures in red will make an exec (who's probably never played a game in his life) see sweet reason.
 
EA's onto something currently with their "Project $10".

it started with ME 2, all that fancy free dlc we are getting in conjunction with normal cd-key and disc in drive.

the figures might not be very accurate but while still pirated ME 2 hasn't reached the epidemic levels yet.

just an observation.

yes DRM STINKS! but there are alternatives that do work. but most dev houses just go with either the most limpwristed or most draconian option. some try for middle ground. how these work out remains to be seen, but so far EA has been making the right noises and Ubi the wrong ones.
 
To some of you this will note make sense, to others, these words may give you something to think about: The issue of pirace is not about moral bankruptcy. The issue is a lack of ethics as a whole. Morals and Ethics are not the same thing
 
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.
 
Skurm said:
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.
Click to expand...

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!"

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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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halfdood said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
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