DRM in todays PC games

Re: DRM in todays PC games

There you have it. Companies wouldn't have to ever implement DRM in games if no one pirated them. The people who do pay for these games have to suffer because of these pirates. In a way, it's very much like a law.

There are places in Germany that don't have any traffic rules and less accidents happen as a result of it because people have to pay attention, communicate with other people, and watch out for their fellow man. However, we still have stop lights despite all of this and that's because people don't obey the laws.

~Tsugomaru

Re: DRM in todays PC games

If I buy a game, and it's not totally on-line based, there is no reason it should require an internet connection to make sure my purchased copy is legal every time I play it. I don't use Steam, I won't buy Spore... I should be allowed to pay for something that actually works the way it should.

Re: DRM in todays PC games

Well, it'd be nice if you connected increased sales of Sins of Solar Empire with some sort of back-up, a link perhaps. You also need to have a comparison to have an 'increase' in anything. It's possible that even though there was "an increase in sales" compared to how it was selling when first released after it has been noted to have been pirated a bunch, that does not mean that they wouldn't have sold more games in the first place had it not been pirated.

DRM sucks though. If you think about it, it's absurd that technology is being artificially being limited, seeing as technology is about expanding communication, services, things, etc.
DRM exists is because people do pirate, and because our current society is such that we're supposed to pay for everything we get. DRM is the resistance to a change in how business and profit works. Instead of artificially making technology and things less accessible, we should develop different ways of making profit off of things like video games. I'm not sure exactly how to do that in a good business way, but it seems that when technology and accessibility has outgrown the mode of business, business should change to embrace the new accessibility, instead of simply disallowing the accessibility.

Re: DRM in todays PC games

I don't see a point to DRM, it limits sales and tech savy people will still be able to pirate them and simply post torrents of cracked version to dl. Which they do as we speak.

Re: DRM in todays PC games

The problem is that they are marketting these games to the kind of person who simply doesn't buy a game, especially if there are free ways to acquire it. By making games simply to be new and flashy and impressive and on the front page of all the game magazines, they're basically aiming all of these new games at "hardcore gamers" and there actually just aren't nearly as many hardcore gamers out there as people like to think, and most of -them- are perfectly capable of ripping an ISO off the CD and torrenting it out to everyone else, thus the obsession with copy protection.

If they started making good games, with nice graphics, and compelling gameplay, instead of games whose sole purpose is to be completely bleeding edge, and require all the latest and best in terms of hardware, they'd actually start appealing to the crowd that actually pays for things.

Re: DRM in todays PC games

Uhh, I'm confused about this.
'Flashy ads', IMO, attract a younger, more naive video gaming crowd whose parents pay for these games for them. Also, if someone has bothered paying for the latest hardware to play a game on, do you not think that they're also the type of person who would pay for a game that uses that hardware?
Anyone who I would label as a hard-core gamer is also someone who's into games enough to know that advertising means squat in terms of how good a game is, and they instead rely on internet, friends, etc. for the quality of a game. They are also the people who don't want to rip off game companies who make games they want, and who pay for games they want simply for that reason.
Lastly, compelling gameplay and originality, (if not amazing graphics), IMO, seem to describe games which often have free on-line trials, or are totally free, or don't have DRM on them.

Re: DRM in todays PC games

I bought Crysis. After finding out what they used in it I tried to return it for my money back. Of course they wouldn't let me.

So what I did was write a nice long and detailed letter to the company explaining my thoughts on the matter. Why I thought it was wrong, and why I was entitled to a refund.
A little under two weeks later I got a letter back as well as my refund.

That was the first PC game I have bought in years, and the last one I plan on buying.

Re: DRM in todays PC games

And instead you'll spend money on companies who don't have to worry about putting DRM on their games because the fact that they have a specific gaming system for them is the ultimate DRM. :-p

Re: DRM in todays PC games

Marketing to their base? I think what you suggest is a lot harder than it sounds, and is anything but a science. Making good games can seriously backfire on a developer. Sticking with a model that is proven to make money is the best way to go, and adjusting that model with DRM helps further that end.

The problem is that DRM is the most effective solution to save their market share. I think people want to think that DRM cripples sales so much so that people don't buy the game but I don't think it's true. And as always, the pirates will always win in the end. I think these companies are facing a problem without a solution they can achieve. Anti-DRM types usually just say "If you don't use DRM then your product will sell more," but they don't offer up a way to make it so that every user of the game purchases the game, which is certainly a true long-term problem for these companies due to the fact that their market wants games that have huge development budgets, and so they want to assure that everyone who owns the game has paid for it. It's intellectual monopoly, I know, but without the intellectual monopoly games with those features wouldn't be capable of existing very often.

I know sales must increase a little without DRM, but they still believe that they face a long-term cultural problem of an increasing number of people choosing to engage in a life of piracy if the technological barriers to piracy are low. They know they're loosing the DRM battle even if they won't say so, but that doesn't mean that the fight is counter-intuitive. Just like it doesn't mean the fight against piracy is counterintuitive. Yes piracy is probably pragmatically impossible to stop, but making it harder to pirate means less people will undertake that road, and that's the intended goal. Just make it harder and scare people away from it.

Re: DRM in todays PC games

As a note to all of you gamers who are probably vested emotionally in this topic, I don't lean either way and don't really care much about the matter, I'm just being a contrarian for arguments sake.

Re: DRM in todays PC games

Several of the bestselling games of the year don't have a lick of copy protection in them anywhere. They are also not cutting edge, top-of-the-line graphics games built by the major flagship companies for the hardcore gamers with serious gaming rig systems.

The way the problem goes is that they make these super amazo advanced games with super high system reqs because that's "what gamers want" except only a very small percentage of people who play games actually have a system that can handle the super high budget amazing graphics games.

So in order to make back the huge amounts of money they dumped into making this amazing top of the line game, they basically have to -sell- the game to a MUCH higher percentage of people who -can- play the game, than a game with a less system intensive list of requirements. Thus, in order to make sure as many people as possibly who would want to play it will pay for it, they have to load on the absurd copy protection.

Re: DRM in todays PC games

DRM is actually fairly simple to get around. I haven't a PC game in ages, mainly because I can borrow them from friends.

DRM is based on the premise of unique CD-keys and root kits. When the game connects itself to a server or what not, its doing so to determine if there is anyone else in the world playing at the same time with the same CD-Key and Root kit, just a different IP. Its all a matter of taking the measures needed to circumvent this. Those measures basically amount to playing the game either after your friend has lost interest in it, or when traffic is low.

Re: DRM in todays PC games

powerdown: That's not totally how it works. DRM for PC games has, in its most extreme case, has allowed only 3 installs of a game per CD. Sucks if you want to play that game 10 years down the road on and 3 PC's later. That's what Bioshock did.

devonin: I'd like to think that super amazo games are created by teams which are in it for arts sake rather than for sales sake. If I were to help make a game, I'd ideally like it to be everything and more.

I don't think that accurately describes the market at all, or it is a very slanted view of it through the lens of your gaming interests.

Bioshock is a cutting-edge game with DRM. It was a top-seller and my ****ty dell machine could handle it. I was fine with the stupid DRM although it was slightly annoying when I couldn't play the game until like 5 hours after I got it on release night, but whatever. As pissed as I am I'm not so petty as to return a game and not play it on sheer principle. I'd like to think I'm more tolerant than that.

Yeah there are those games you list, but there is also a variety of different markets, and a variety of different production companies, and so certain games run by certain models and other games don't. The DRM technology is expensive, and it adds an extra layer to the production cycle, so for smart business people to choose to go this route (and the video game business is pretty cut-throat competitive if I understand it correctly) it means because there is something viable about it. I think it is viable as part of a goal to reduce the number of people who pirate, because without DRM it is ridiculouly easy for me to get games, especially games that I wouldn't otherwise buy. Like The Witcher.

Now there's some games which I'll always buy, and those are games that I'm awestruck by, but then there's games where I wouldn't buy but rather just pirate, and if I couldn't pirate the game I wouldn't get it. I figure that since I'm not a big gamer type, my demand for games is lower than others, so when another more hardcore PC gamer is unable to pirate a game, he would probably buy it, unless he is philosophically against DRM.

I think very few people who aren't pirates or civil-rights nerds seriously care about DRM. And by thi I mean probably well over the vast majority of the market.

I know I've got an argument from authority in here, but I know game developers in real life. My girlfriend's mom is an ex-game developer because the industry was ridiculously cutthroat and she had to relearn her skills every few years. You toss around the phrase "make good games" flippantly, but you don't realize just how hard this is to accomplish, it takes remarkably rare top-tier industry talent to do this across the entire spectrum. I think a lot of us think we could create better games than the video game industry because we know what we love and we would create what we love, but I just don't believe this is the case. And also every time a new gaming innovation is created the next time it is used it becomes old hat to most hardcore gamers. Talk about tough break.

If someone uses an idea that was used in Bioshock, for instance, it would be old hat and boring for the hardcore types. Now the problem here is trying to both please the base that just wants a different iteration of a similar style and the group who wants creative innovation on multiple levels. The problem is that you don't know if it will be a flop or not and if the market will like it. And with the budget costs for pleasing the whole market, you can't take chances like that.

If I am a good project manager, my job is to make good decisions with the least amount of risk in my eyes. As much as I love tactics RPGs, and think it would be great to make a incredibly graphically bitching SRPG with an amazing political war drama as a part of it, I don't think it would sell, and as a major production company I need to make stuff that sells, so I'm going to try to innovate in a way that isn't risky, and I'm going to try to take a popular model and make slight unique adjustments to it to differentiate it from other games, and then write a story which has the popular themes. Sure the fringe won't like the game, but some of them will still buy it, and my market base will probably like it if I give it just enough edge.

I mean no it doesn't play to your Platonic dream for video games, but it does play to an effective business model in the long-term. I know we all wish every studio could be like Valve, but seriously Valve attracts the best because they are the best and not everyone can be the best. The problem with business models is that if they are pragmatic and effective, and you are a prosumer, you probably won't like them, and the businesses you do like will be far and few between.

Keep in mind I'm not pro-DRM, I just don't buy into the argument that it's counterintuitive. I would prefer no DRM, and for a variety of reasons, but I imagine if I were in the position of these businesspeople with the same terminal values I'd make the same or similar decisions.