Old 09-18-2008, 03:09 PM   #1
xinpig
FFR Player
 
xinpig's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: At my Computer
Age: 31
Posts: 1,054
Send a message via MSN to xinpig Send a message via Skype™ to xinpig
Default DRM in todays PC games

Wha do you guys think of all this? I mean look at Bioshock, Spore, Mass Effect, and now Crysis:Warhead. They put SecuROM protection on those games thinking that it will prevent piracy but all it seems to do is encourage it as players decide to go for pirated versions that dont have the protection because it installs hidden root kits that install into your computer and cannot be deleted. I have stayed away from many of these games just due to the fact that the companies install rootkits on my computer without my permission. What do you guys think of this?

On the other hand the game Sins of a Solar Empire has no copy protection at all which means anyone can download it without needing any extra software or anything. And they actually see increased sales! So why do publishers have to steer away potential customers, just to try and make more money cause its harder to pirate.
__________________



PSEUDO SKILL TOKENS! FC'd Blooddrunk with AVMISSING!
xinpig is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-18-2008, 10:03 PM   #2
tsugomaru
FFR Player
 
tsugomaru's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: The stars come to my aid.
Posts: 3,964
Send a message via AIM to tsugomaru
Default Re: DRM in todays PC games

Quote:
Originally Posted by xinpig View Post
So why do publishers have to steer away potential customers, just to try and make more money cause its harder to pirate.
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
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiluluk
WHEN do you think people die...?
When their heart is pierced by a bullet from a pistol...? No.
When they succumb to an incurable disease...? No.
When they drink soup made with a poisonous mushroom...? NO!!!
IT'S WHEN A PERSON IS FORGOTTEN...!!!
tsugomaru is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-22-2008, 06:57 PM   #3
Coolgamer
Old-School Player
FFR Veteran
 
Coolgamer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Age: 33
Posts: 675
Send a message via AIM to Coolgamer Send a message via MSN to Coolgamer Send a message via Skype™ to Coolgamer
Default 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.
__________________




Quote:
Originally Posted by Synthlight View Post
St1cky only proves that he has no life and that his parents are alcoholics. They probably abused him with rubber duckies when he was a baby. Why else would you exploit scores on FFR?
Coolgamer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-25-2008, 06:38 PM   #4
Cavernio
sunshine and rainbows
FFR Veteran
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Age: 38
Posts: 1,987
Default 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.
Cavernio is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-27-2008, 12:45 PM   #5
Maid
FFR Player
FFR Veteran
 
Maid's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: 北海道 釧路
Posts: 643
Default 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.
Maid is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-27-2008, 05:55 PM   #6
devonin
Very Grave Indeed
FFR Simfile AuthorFFR Veteran
 
devonin's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Ontario, Canada
Age: 36
Posts: 10,098
Send a message via AIM to devonin Send a message via MSN to devonin
Default 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.
devonin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-1-2008, 09:17 AM   #7
Cavernio
sunshine and rainbows
FFR Veteran
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Age: 38
Posts: 1,987
Default Re: DRM in todays PC games

Quote:
Originally Posted by devonin View Post
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.
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.
Cavernio is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-6-2008, 01:07 PM   #8
DTShady
Yum!
FFR Veteran
 
DTShady's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: *
Posts: 34
Send a message via Skype™ to DTShady
Default 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.
DTShady is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-7-2008, 11:43 AM   #9
Cavernio
sunshine and rainbows
FFR Veteran
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Age: 38
Posts: 1,987
Default 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
Cavernio is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-10-2008, 03:56 AM   #10
Vendetta21
Sectional Moderator
Sectional Moderator
 
Vendetta21's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Seattle
Age: 32
Posts: 2,753
Send a message via AIM to Vendetta21
Default Re: DRM in todays PC games

Quote:
Originally Posted by devonin View Post
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.
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.
__________________
Vendetta21 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-10-2008, 04:00 AM   #11
Vendetta21
Sectional Moderator
Sectional Moderator
 
Vendetta21's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Seattle
Age: 32
Posts: 2,753
Send a message via AIM to Vendetta21
Default 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.
__________________
Vendetta21 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-10-2008, 10:26 AM   #12
devonin
Very Grave Indeed
FFR Simfile AuthorFFR Veteran
 
devonin's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Ontario, Canada
Age: 36
Posts: 10,098
Send a message via AIM to devonin Send a message via MSN to devonin
Default Re: DRM in todays PC games

Quote:
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.
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.
devonin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-10-2008, 01:34 PM   #13
powerdown
FFR Player
FFR Veteran
 
powerdown's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: waiting for JX to step Midnight Dragon.
Age: 30
Posts: 549
Send a message via AIM to powerdown
Default 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.
__________________

RULES FOR PROPER THREAD MAKING
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tasselfoot View Post
1. before you make a thread... think to yourself... "will i sound like a complete idiot if i make this thread?" "will i get flamed out the ass if i make this thread?" "am i doing nothing but whining about something i'm getting for free and not supporting myself?" if you answer yes to any of those questions, don't post the thread.

2. if the thread has ANYTHING to do with tokens, skill tokens, sotw, or difficulty of songs... do not post it. under any circumstance. why? because you already violated rule #1, i'm sure.
powerdown is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-10-2008, 02:36 PM   #14
Cavernio
sunshine and rainbows
FFR Veteran
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Age: 38
Posts: 1,987
Default 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.
Cavernio is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-10-2008, 04:44 PM   #15
Vendetta21
Sectional Moderator
Sectional Moderator
 
Vendetta21's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Seattle
Age: 32
Posts: 2,753
Send a message via AIM to Vendetta21
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by devonin View Post
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.
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.
__________________

Last edited by devonin; 10-10-2008 at 11:23 PM..
Vendetta21 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-11-2008, 07:59 AM   #16
Cavernio
sunshine and rainbows
FFR Veteran
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Age: 38
Posts: 1,987
Default Re: DRM in todays PC games

"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. "

It is a rare game indeed that appeals to everyone. It seems, forgive me, downright stupid to try and market to everyone, and if a company were to do so, they'd be out of business so fast their heads would spin. I can't even think of a game that's intended for the entirety of gamers as their audience. This unfortunately makes much of your following post moot.

Now I know all my friends aren't all civil rights activists, far from it, and yet I've had discussion where everyone's agreed that DRM is annoying and doesn't actually target the people who want to pirate. I prefer to think that people who aren't anti-DRM are largely unaware of what their effects have, simply because they haven't thought about it enough. In the gaming industry, DRM has had an affect beyond merely giving CDs keys and burn protection. xbox 360 is a prime example. You can't access the content you've paid for unless you're either 1. on your own console or 2. logged into xbox live with your account. Seems fair enough. This has proven remarkably annoying for many xbox live owners though. If your xbox broke down (which many of them have/will), and you sent it in and got a new one, you no longer had your original console, and so you had to be logged into xbox live. ie: you had to have an internet connection in order to play games which had absolutely nothing to do with the internet. Microsoft eventually fixed this problem by allowing you to go through a process which essentially make your new console 'your' console again, but for a couple years this was a problem for many paying consumers. There was another way around it I suppose, where you had to go through a painful process of getting a new ID through talking with customer support. Fun!
DRM isn't a problem if it only stops people from pirating. Well, I'm not sure I agree with that, but for arguments sake, I'll say I do, because regardless, it most certainly IS a problem when it interferes with paying consumers who've done absolutely nothing wrong.

Last edited by Cavernio; 10-11-2008 at 08:38 AM..
Cavernio is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-12-2008, 04:52 AM   #17
Vendetta21
Sectional Moderator
Sectional Moderator
 
Vendetta21's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Seattle
Age: 32
Posts: 2,753
Send a message via AIM to Vendetta21
Default Re: DRM in todays PC games

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cavernio View Post
I've had discussion where everyone's agreed that DRM is annoying and doesn't actually target the people who want to pirate.
Could that be a part of the purpose of DRM? Does that render it ineffective?

On another level, do you believe the mantra that "the customer is always rights" still holds true today?

I'm not trying to being antagonistic just trying to just see what you think here.
__________________
Vendetta21 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-15-2008, 03:15 PM   #18
Cavernio
sunshine and rainbows
FFR Veteran
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Age: 38
Posts: 1,987
Default Re: DRM in todays PC games

Why on earth would DRM target people who don't pirate? I don't see why it would be the purpose, please explain if you have a viable idea. If something is not targeted at its target, then yes, that makes it ineffective.

About a customer always being right, I think that's an aside to the discussion. Personally, this is totally idealistic. If technology has unlocked something as amazing as file sharing, which means sharing a huge amount of art work, its petty and unethical to enforce the unsharing of art. Unfortunately, this doesn't fit in well with our capitalist society, and I think you already know how I feel about capitalism.

Last edited by Cavernio; 10-15-2008 at 03:17 PM..
Cavernio is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-16-2008, 03:27 PM   #19
devonin
Very Grave Indeed
FFR Simfile AuthorFFR Veteran
 
devonin's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Ontario, Canada
Age: 36
Posts: 10,098
Send a message via AIM to devonin Send a message via MSN to devonin
Default Re: DRM in todays PC games

Quote:
Originally Posted by vendetta
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
The issue here is though, you woudln't buy it. So by using DRM as a precaution, you simply don't have the game at all because you don't consider it worth buying. But then, the simple matter is "You don't consider it worth buying" which means whether there was DRM or not, you woudln't pay for the game.

However, if the game were not protected, so you -did- pirate it to try it out because while you wouldn't pay, you'd still try it free, you might discover that you like it so much that you -do- want to pay for it and go buy it. Or perhaps a friend is watching you play, likes it, and decides to go buy it.

DRM seems to really only prevent people from getting the game who don't particularly want the game in the first place anyway. Sure, it stops pirates from pirating, but it doesn't make pirates go pay for it, or the fact that it was protected wouldn't matter to them anyway.

I've ended up going out and buying several games that I never would have paid for, but because I pirated and enjoyed them, ended up paying retail either for additional features (such as online play of Blizzard games) or because having enjoyed the game, I wanted to support the creators thereof. Conversely, there is a whole host of games that are bogged down with as much security as they can manage that because I can't try the game without paying retail for it, I will simply never ever play.

Quote:
so when another more hardcore PC gamer is unable to pirate a game, he would probably buy it, unless he is philosophically against DRM.
Most hardcore PC gamers play hardcore PC games which tend to revolve primarily around company-supported multiplayer options that basically demand that you own a legitimate copy.

Needing a unique copy of the game to access the feature you are primarily buying the game to engage in is a more effective form of copy-protection than anything physically enforced by the software.

********

To maybe restate my earlier points in a more useful manner, my point before about how the bleeding edge games have a smaller potential market (hardcore gamers with sufficiently hardcore systems only) than games designed with a lower budget and lower specifications (which have a much larger market of basically 'people who own computers') seems pretty valid to me. The cheaper your game was to make, and the more people who can run it, the less percentage of your market has to actually pay for the game to make it profitable. As a result, you are less likely to need any significant protection from piracy for a number of reasons:

1) A much smaller percentage of your potential customers have to be paying customers to turn a profit.

2) The smaller the budget, the cheaper your retail can be, making people feel less like they even -need- to think of pirating it.

Yes, for many of the biggest companies dumping tens of millions of dollars and years worth of man-hours into a design for a game, they feel obliged to protect their investment. They should. Given the smaller market for the game, the higher retail price for the game, and the combination of those two factors, they'd be idiots not to try and stop people from getting the game for free.

The point was that games like that (High budget, high retail, high system demands, lots of anti-piracy stuff) seem to be the baseline model for video game production currently. It's -hard- to find PC games coming out that don't cost at least 70 bucks new, and require pretty substantial requirements to run at even the middle graphics settings. It seems like the entire market who woudln't care too much about piracy, those people making quirky and interesting games that are engaging without feeling the need to be based around the newest gadgetry are all moving onto consoles.

As a result, as someone who is an ardent PC gamer not a console gamer, my impression of the market is that it is becoming flooded with games that barely interest me, and are certainly not worth an 80 dollar investment in the hopes that I might like it. The last PC game I bought was World of Warcraft. The last game before that was Diablo II.

And I think you'll find an increasingly large number of PC gamers who get the same impression that I have as time goes on, and so as consumers who are less than interested to drop 80 bucks on a brand new game our systems might not be able to run that we might not like, because we lack the option of getting a copy elsewhere to try it, we end up shrinking their market even more, and slowly convert into console gaming, where by and large, piracy isn't even a factor.
devonin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-16-2008, 07:14 PM   #20
Vendetta21
Sectional Moderator
Sectional Moderator
 
Vendetta21's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Seattle
Age: 32
Posts: 2,753
Send a message via AIM to Vendetta21
Default Re: DRM in todays PC games

Quote:
Originally Posted by devonin View Post
As a result, as someone who is an ardent PC gamer not a console gamer, my impression of the market is that it is becoming flooded with games that barely interest me, and are certainly not worth an 80 dollar investment in the hopes that I might like it. The last PC game I bought was World of Warcraft. The last game before that was Diablo II.

And I think you'll find an increasingly large number of PC gamers who get the same impression that I have as time goes on, and so as consumers who are less than interested to drop 80 bucks on a brand new game our systems might not be able to run that we might not like, because we lack the option of getting a copy elsewhere to try it, we end up shrinking their market even more, and slowly convert into console gaming, where by and large, piracy isn't even a factor.
$80? The top-end of prices I see in target and gamestop are $50, and the downward trend in pricing for games that aren't top-tier is incredibly evident. I see price-drops to about $30 for any game that isn't a big hit fairly quickly.

Also, DRM is a pretty wide term, and I've never seen a game in the last five years that didn't have DRM, so I think what we're talking about is invasive DRM. Bioshock's DRM was annoying but it wasn't invasive. Spore's is apparently invasive or something and people get upset by this.

I understand what you're saying entirely, but it doesn't seem too far a stretch these days to have a CD-Key and internet activation on every game. This is the route that a large chunk of the PC software market has gone. It seems like it is going to be a pan-market trend from now on. I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard did so on Starcraft 2. That doesn't mean pirating won't break these mechanisms, but I think the idea is to make it prohibitively harder to pirate.

If you aren't tech savvy, and you already look at pirating and think it is too complicated to try, then if it becomes more complicated you will be less willing to try it. Get what I'm saying? If the barriers towards being a pirate stay the same, pirates will come up with more and better ways of their practice, and it will become easier, and thus more people will be willing to engage in it. This is central to the idea of DRM, because every software developer knows that there is no way to stop the pirating community. Or if they don't then they are really, truly idiots, but I'm willing to believe that they understand this.

If we were still running on the DRM they used in the late 90s, it would be so immensely easy to pirate anything that I would pirate everything. I almost considered buying a Wii when I heard about that isoloader where you could burn Wii games onto a DVD. And I've bought Wii games before. But I wouldn't ever again. Why buy what you can get for free?

The idea of the egalitarian market model where information-products are free and they generate revenue through donations or purchases after the user has used them is deceptive because it is successful for some models these days, but it is only successful because these models are rare and are aimed at audiences where that is effective. If this was the market model as a whole I don't think it'd be as effective. I realize this isn't the same as the point you were making, and I'm not trying to say it is, because it isn't.
__________________
Vendetta21 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump



All times are GMT -5. The time now is 10:46 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright FlashFlashRevolution