DRM and Piracy: The Vicious Circle

Page 3 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.



If it were a fly by night company i'd be more concerned, but I imagine you've already anticipated this response anyways - so i'll spare you.
 
I do not aggre entirely with author.
I have nothing against DRM as long as it:
1) not annoy me
2) not making damage to me (SF for example and i am not buying anything with it ever as it cost me over 100 hours to fix all damages it did and not talking with other problems)
3) will not limit future use (ie DRM server server stopped)

Another issue is that majority of ppl whitch buy game still download pirated version or cracks to get better gameplay.

And finaly they should change the prices acordingly to what game offer, its ridiculous to pay 60+$ for game whitch can be finished in few hours as it dont have "good fun/price ratio".

Also i prefer to download game to test it if it run on my PC before buying as in my country you cannot return game if it not run on your configuration at all and i already got few of them in past 16 months whitch generaly make me waste money for nothing.
 
It's so refreshing to have this topic finally come up and get a lot of attention, because it seems like nobody ever wants to debate piracy. I sure wish there were more threads dedicated to debating the piracy issue!
 
To all those of you who say "Steam is fine, but I hate piracy", I've have several headaches with Steam and I've only been using it since early this year. In fact when I got home last night I went to turn Civ 4 BTS which I had purchased through Steam, but since I couldn't connect to Steam I couldn't play even a single player game. At one point a few months back I couldn't play any multiplayer games because my key wouldn't validate. That went on for almost a week because I was too lazy to actually do anything about it. Eventually it just started working again so I'm positive it was a flaw in their system. And when I go on vacation next week and bring my laptop I would have to find an internet connection in order to play these games. Now with that all said I'm perfectly happy to enjoy my games this way because Steam has so many other benefits.
There's still plenty of people who hate Steam because it uses DRM but they will just have to learn to deal with this new model of PC games or move on. Sorry folks but games are not coming on floppy disk anymore, things change.
 
I'm with the Rat here. I have come to accept that DRM is the only sensible option left. We've been buying licences for software for years now, and what we are purchasing is changing. Personally, I feel that due to the limited installs allowed with the licenses, we should be getting a proportional discount, but whatever.

The inescapable truth is that if every pirate bought the games that they ripped, the PC games industry would be considerably stronger than it is today.
 


I would have to disagree, I know NUMEROUS people who checkout books/magazines and audio books on a regular basis. Plus, the printed market is much smaller so it really wouldn't take much to damage sales revenue. I have known many college students that check out books or magazines that photo copy several pages to later reference for a term paper. Also, pirates may represent a significant portion of the gaming market, but again we would have to assume that most pirates would go out and buy the game if they couldn't download it. I had read somewhere recently, that 1 out of every ten pirated games would be a sale, and I personally would say that's a realistic number. Which is significant however still nowhere near what developers are crying about. One developer, and I apologize that I don't remember who, said they noticed off of one site that there game was download 700 thousand times. Which sounds astronomical, but if you go by the 1 out of 10 theory that's 70k lost sales not 700k. Don't get me wrong, it's still a significant number but nowhere near as devastating as is portrayed.

Not only that, but what about the ridiculous amount of sales lost from consumers who can't run the games on there pc's? I still think this number is MUCH overlooked by developers. Well except for Tim Sweeney of Epic as he has touched on this already. But being a network admin and a pc gamer, I have a lot of friends & family come to me and wonder why game "x" won't work on there computer. Nine times out of ten it's because of the CRAP video, chipset or some other hardware deficiency they have with there system. There are a TON of computers in homes these day's but the only games there suited for are simple web based games. The amount of people that specifically buy or build a gaming pc are very small compared to the actual number of computers in homes. I don't think that the rage over piracy is misplaced, however it's not any worse than the above mentioned. Developers need to start leaning hard on computer companies like Dell, Gateway and such. Let them know that THEY are hurting pc gaming as much as piracy.

Unless DRM is completely invisible to the end user, there will always be some kind of inconvenience to it. Its just finding the least inconvenient to implement. I still say a one time check when you initially install a game is the best way to go. Nothing will stop piracy completely, however this will stop a lot of casual piracy.
 


Spoken like the Virgin I once was. I was never really agaisnt DRM as I considered some of the old copy protection schemes back in the 80's even worse (that used on floppy disks...and I'm talking about disks that were actually floppy and would bend....). Some of those were horrible; ever try using those darn code wheels or looking up X word on page X of the documentation or worse loose your code wheel or documentation?

Enter BioShock... After installing BioShock I tried to burn off some vacation pictures to CD (not even a DVD, just a CD). As soon as I hit Burn the system locked up and after reboot it wouldn't recognize any media in my cd/dvd drive. Now I don't know what secure rom did but it was bad because it actually killed my cd/dvd rom drive. I couldn't even use it in another computer so I went out and bought another DVD drive and put it in. I didn't try burning anything this time, I just wanted to play BioShock since I was in the middle of the story but securerom wouldn't let me have any access to any CD/DVD drive installed.

I ended up having to wipe my whole system, re-install everything (except BioShock), and at that point I regained access to my cd/dvd drive. IT WAS SECURE ROM, I do know that much. It may have not liked my burning software (which was some generic program that came with my DVD burner) or it may have not like any number of things. Point is you have NO control over any part of this "Master Control Program" and have know way of knowing what it even does or what private data it is reporting back to whom ever. Because of Secure Rom, BioShock's company (And EA for using the same thing) lost all sales from an avid gamer who sometimes buys 3-4 new games a month.

Sooner or later (if you are a gamer who is actually using these products), you will get your cherry popped too. Just remember someone told you so.
 
Spoken like the Virgin I once was. ...
Now I don't know what secure rom did but it was bad because it actually killed my cd/dvd rom drive.
The game did not kill your ROM drive. Is it possible that a game, any game, can corrupt an OS or drivers? Certainly, but it did not burn out your DVD drive.
BTW I'm hardly a "virgin" as you may think. Not that I really need to defend myself, but the fact that my PC never has any of these issues nor do I blame games for ruining my hardware would actually seem to point to me not being a "virgin".
 


It just hasn't happened to you yet, and the term Virgin is referring to the fact that it hasn't and is not meant as a slam. Yes, it did do something to the actual drive and yes hard ware can be killed by software. Granted it would have to corrupt something similar to a firmware update but given the odd bug in a program trying to kill anything that's offending it's directives and the proper crash or corruption of the process, it's not at all out of the question. I've seen stranger things happen and I've worked with computers all my life.

Don't think that just because it hasn't happened yet makes you anything but luck though. Personally I haven't run anti-virus on my gaming pc for years and I haven't been infected; that's made me a bit arrogant about what I can get away with as far as browsing when I've really just been lucky. Before I had the securerom problem I had just wiped my system to clean it up and had fresh installs of all drivers (I did that just to play BioShock). Go read the old BioShock fourms if you want horror stories worse than mine, there were tons of them if they are still there.

Do a little research or you'll end up getting burned like I did.
 
Umm... Rat... Do you even remember what the objection to Starforce was?

It destroyed drives. Actually damaged hardware. That is why people were so angry about it. How can you not remember that?

As for Steam not working offline... what? Just this year I played Civ IV BTS in offline mode on Steam. We lost internet for a couple hours and it loaded up just fine. Just open steam, it asks if you want to play in offline mode, you say yes, it works. Not sure why this didn't work for you....

Steam is not perfect and it isn't impenetrable, but it is effective and reasonable. It is certainly better than Securom or EA's Direct2Drive.
 
Ok I've obviously overstated software not killing hardware. But I've been working PCs pretty much my entire working life and in about 999 times out of 1000 that somebody claims a program broke their hardware it's just not true. Regardless whether a rom drive is damaged or your OS needs to be reinstalled it's still a pain in the ass. I'd honestly rather pay the $40 for a new drive than have to spend a couple hours repairing my OS. And I've said explicitly that I've had my fair share of issues over the years, but my point is that this isn't the civil rights issue that so many try to make it out to be.
I kind of figured that I could have played Civ 4 offline, but honestly I didn't care enough to even bother trying because it's just a game and I assumed it would be working within a day or so anyways. I just walked away and did something else because it's just a game. If it's such a big deal to you just don't buy it, that's really the best way to solve the problem. I remember having to have seperate boot disks for each of my games, having to flip back and forth between Windows and DOS for different games and lets just say Windows ME. The hassle caused by DRM in most cases really doesn't stack up to those pains. And when done right it actually can deter a large amount of piracy, which in turn promotes more investments into PC game developement. So if I have to deal with some minor issue every so often I'm fine with that.
 
Aside from console, MMOs, Impulse, and Steam, what DRM is it that actually deterrs a large amount of piracy? As far as I am aware, those are the only DRM methods that seem to have any effect at all and as I stated before, those are the methods that are widely accepted and I approve of.

Crap like Securom, Starforce, and other more intrusive and restrictive DRM doesn't seem to do a thing to deter pirates and in fact encourages them more. I see absolutely no reason for anyone to support these dysfuntional and frustrating methods.
 
steam games like half life 2 and many other versions of it are usually the first ones to be cracked

many people don't like having to open 1 resource hogging program to allow then to open another resource hogging program

there is no drm that will secure a game and not limit or frustrate the legit user in some way.

because of this, it will only hurt their sales as pirates will pirate the game anyway, but the drm will also serve to push once legit users, into the world of piracy also

and many people don't like having any 3rd party app doing anything to their pc that they didn't allow it to do

on the tech support forums, we always recommend if your VNC gets hacked, reformat the pc because you have no way of knowing all what the user did while they had control over your pc.

DRM is able to gather information and take control of some hardware to limit your use. no one likes anything doing this to their pc especially if the games don't have a large logo or sign telling exactly what the drm will do to their pc.

IF it was up to me, just like on cigarette boxes they will have to list the that the game has drm and is able to gather system info and possibly corrupt data or hinder the functionality of your computer
 
The point though is that Steam provides a useful service. The resources it claims are not so bad as to be debilitating and it allows me to just download Steam on a new computer, queue up all of my games, and go to bed when I build a new system. In the morning, all my games are now installed on my PC without me hunting for CDs, looking for patches, or even stitting in front of my computer.

Anyone who is ever likely to buy a game will probably at some point get one through Steam and they will probably find it to be a very easy to use and handy system to have. Plus whenever I get bored, I can just browse for a new game, buy it, download it, and be playing it within an hour.

On top of that, if you play pirated games on a hacked version of Steam, you can't make use of all the benefits inherent in Steam. I'm not saying that it will nullify piracy as a whole, but the pirates most likely to be your customers are less likely to pirate what they can get through Steam.
 
Like rat, I've had problems with steam to (see a previous post). I shouldn't have to go through an absurdly long install followed by a ridiculously long decryption time online with steam. Also, in the last few months, I cannot play in offline mode. Whether that problem is tied to my account I don't know. All I do know is I went to the store, bought the game and expect to be able to use it when I want. Plus, I recently just got a new DVD drive, and the stupid thing would not read my Crysis DVD. It just made a clicking noise, so I went online to check this out and some forums said it had something to do with the copy protection on the DVD and that some drives read it just fine. I tried two more drives with the same clicking. Fortunately I still had by old drive and popped that in and it installed just fine. I have two friends with the same exact problem I actually loaned them my DVD drive so they could get there game installed. Some kind of copy protection is necessary but not when it just plain doesn't work or inconveniences you by not letting you used the product you've paid for. I agree with razor, I don't want something taking up system resources while I'm playing a game that needs whatever system resources it can get to run at it's fullest.
 
Well I guess it comes down to where you draw the line.

I draw mine at single time activation at installation and no limited installs, or Steam. I find those acceptable.

Steam provides some nice benefits for putting up with it's bull. Ideally all game publishers would use Impulse (Stardock) but to be honest, that is quite frankly wishful thinking and won't happen.

If you find all DRM unacceptable then you will eventually find yourself with the choice of either pirating, or not playing at all.

I will give them certain leniencies and especially for methods that appear to actually make a difference.
 



but are you really ok with the drm if it has no effect on the piracy?

the drm that you feel your ok with are still adding extra hoops for you to jump through and are linking you to a drm server that can go down any any moment and take your games with them



others say that steam allows you to download games,

but think about this, can you download from a server that no longer exist? if steam decided to die, most of your steam games may not work and if something happens and you need to reformat, your steam games will fail to download from the non existent steam server

suppose you are using your pc right now,

and a earth quake happens, causing the read/write head of your harddrive to come in contact with the platter, destroying thousands of sectors and causing the loss of your data

then shortly after, steam decided to do Seppuku (Ritual Suicide)

what will happen to your steam games you downloaded?

many people cant play their steam games offline so those users who have no hard drive problems will also loose their games


the steam servers could die out right now and you would loose your games that you paid for



it is like going into a airport and the security requiring everyone to poke them self in the eye every 30 minutes in order to stop terrorist from getting on the planes
obviously this will not add any security, but if you were required to do this in AA but not JFK which airport would you use?

but if it was guaranteed to stop all forms of security risks and ensure safety (i know you still wont like doing it) will you be more willing to do it as compared to if it did not work)?
 
I won't dismiss the piracy factor. It certaintly is relevant, but it is blown way out of proportion. I'll try to make a case that i've never seen someone mention on a gaming site, so maybe this is just overlooked most of the time.

First of all, i'll post August 3rd to 9th US NPD Sales Charts (PC GAMES):
1. WoW: Battle Chest
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
3. World Of Warcraft
4. Nancy Drew: The Phantom Of Venice
5. Spore Creature Creator
6. Diablo Battle Chest
7. Warcraft III Battle Chest
8. WoW: Burning Crusade
9. The Sims 2 Ikea Home Stuff
10. Call of Duty 4

So you got 5 Blizzard tittles and 2 The Sims ones. Interesting. Out of the big releases since last fall, you can only find Call of Duty 4. No Mass Effect, Bioshock, Crysis, Assassin's Creed... What is wrong?

It is amazing that those games are beying outsold by 10 year old games. If this was the music industry, it would be like a big name rapper being outsold on their newest cd by "Michael Jackson, the greatest hits". It sure is convenient to blame it on pirates, but why are these old games still selling? Why isn't piracy a concern for them?

I - DEVELOPING FOR PIRATES
Who, in general pirates games? It does not that a lot of effort to realize that most of them are male teens and young adults. Why? First of all, they combine three relevant factors: knowledge on how to pirate, high demand for games (a lot of free time) and lack of money.

When you check other demographics, you'll see that older males (mature adult) also play games and might even know how to pirate, but they lack time to play (full time job + wife + kids + housework is pretty demanding). Why is that important? Because the lack of time means they need fewer games to get their "gaming fix" and that is a cost they can easily afford. Females are also a demographic that does not pirate often, either because they lack the knowledge (not as interested in tech as males) or because they don't play often.

Workaround piracy #1: Devoloping for non pirate consumer niches
This is what the Stardock guys do. Their games have no copy protection whatsoever and they sell more than some AAA hyped to hell and back tittles. They focus their development for mature male gamers, that will buy their products. The same applies to the The Sims games, which are focused towards womem, who are also not that common pirates.

II - DEVELOPMENT MINDSET
What about the companies that make games for the larger, yet pirate filled audience?

More often than not, you will find the same companies complaining about piracy over and over. Exactly the ones that do very well on the console market. Maybe their development mindset is what is wrong (for pc gaming). When you develop for consoles, all you need is make a marketable game. No extra work or investments after it is released. Afterall, why invest if the customer has already bought the product, AM I RITE?

Now that works fine for consoles, but not so much on pc gaming. When you think pc gaming success, which names come to mind? Probably Blizzard and Valve. When was the last time you saw a Blizzard representative saying they were considering moving to the console business, because the piracy is killing the pc gaming? You probably never saw that (i know i haven't).

So what do these companies have in common? First of all they release quality products, that is huge. Second, they support their products after release (i still get some patches for CSS from time to time). And last but not least, they give something extra for legit customers: significant multiplayer.

The multiplayer thing is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. Pc gaming is the most multiplayer capable platform (MMO are a sign of that, IMO). Not only because of the tech, but also because most pc gamers enjoy playing online. Now if the best part about a game is the fact that i can play with other people on the internet and that is only available to buyers, of course people are going to purchase their products.

Now what most companies (EA for instance) do? They do the exact opposite of what they should: releasing games with no MP (no extras for buyers), they instead punish them by placing invasive DRM. If it is draconian or not, it does not matter. The relevant part is the legit buyers get a worse product that the pirates do and that is just plain wrong.

Overall, most of the companies that suffer from piracy are have moved to console gaming and that is what is saving them. If consoles were not so mainstream today they would have already gone backrupt. Consoles make a lot more money, in my oppinion, not because they are piracy free (most people i know that have consoles pirate their games), but because the market is larger than the pc gaming one, since it is more user friendly.

So once againg, while piracy is certaintly something that should not be dismissed, it should not be DOOM for pc gaming either. Developers have to adapt to the market instead of trying to bruteforce the console model in the pc gaming scene. It is the same thing that the music industry is facing right now. Their traditional model cannot fight piracy. So they are starting to (wisely, IMO) sell songs online on itunes. It may not be the best model ever, but they sure are making some extra cash.

Acid

PS: sorry for my lackluster english, it is not my native language.
 
But you see, Steam DOES have an effect on piracy. I have seen it first hand. My friends who occasionally pirate generally don't if it is on Steam. I will tolerate some things even if they don't affect piracy and I can chalk it up to a learning process for the developer, but limited installs... no that I will not tolerate.

Also there is a reason I support Steam specifically. They are big. They have a huge incoming revenue and the support of numerous companies. The odds of Steam drying up and dying unexpectedly are pretty slim. Also I trust Valve as a company. This is a big part of why I don't like Direct2Drive. I wouldn't put it past EA to just turn off the server some day and say "well that was fun, lets try something else".

As I've said before, the ideal would be if all companies adopted the Stardock mentality, but it isn't going to happen so I throw my support to Valve and Steam as well.
 


Well, here's what I suggested to Bioware on their forum:

As I suggested in my first thread, my preferred system would be no drm at all.

But failing that, a hybrid system
Offer the customer either:
Offline authentication (means cd-check required)
or...
Online authentication (means no cd-check required.)

And...

Activation limits wholly controllable by the consumer via an account held by Bioware/EA. Can be accessed via web interface or toll-free phone number. Power to de-authorize previously authorized computers and reclaim used activations. Can formally divest ownership of activations when selling secondhand.

AND...

Release a drm-stripping patch either the same day that the first drm-free pirated copy becomes available, or else after a pre-determined time period (say 2 months after release)

AND...

Put all details on the box.

And...

Do not use Sony-products like SecuROM in all of this. After XCP, I don't trust them, probably never will. Why associate yourselves with such a company?


Others have suggested hardware dongles, return to cd-key only drm, purchase/loyalty incentives, even bootup cd's like the live linux discs so that the game dev controls everything from the OS-game without turning over control of the computer itself to the game dev.

And no, none of this will stop pirates for long. But that's the point isn't it? NO DRM system will stop the pirates anyway. But if the game devs are silly enough to fall for the kneejerk response, then at least don't choose something that is anathema to your paying customers.
 
 
the console market does better because there is a larger market for their games

everyone with a 360 can run every 360 game

cant say the same for pc.

the makers of crysis were crying piracy instead of thinking "how many copies do you expect to sell when only around 1 million pcs are able to run your game and only a small portion of those people will even be instersted in your game


WOW does so well because it is a fun game and the market is extremely large. most computers can run WOW

if you compare some good selling console games to pc games, the console games are generally bland and boring but there selling more because there millions of consoles out there that can run the game. so instead of a market of 500 thousand+ you are selling in a market of hundreds of millions and a portion of those hundreds of millions are bound to be interested in your game

game developers tend to want to only focus on graphics and wind up with a crysis that looks great but is short and bland and has no replay value and is impossible to run unless you have a top of the line system, which most people don't have

if a new xbox came out every 2-3 months and there were xbox games requiring the latest xbox to run the game, then the console market will also be bad because no one wants to constantly buy a new xbox in order to run the latest xbox game

a console will generally have 5-6 years and through out that time frame, every game will run at max settings on that system

while with a PC, in order to play every game at full settings, you would have upgraded at least 10-12 times

this makes PC games more expensive because you not just buying a $50+ game, your buying a $50 game + a $300 videocard to run the game

with pc and developers who try to make up for their lack of ideas by pushing graphics, it doesn't matter if theres probably a billion pcs, their market will only be around 500 thousand due to requirements that cause them to loose customers

they cry over 2-3 thousand people pirating their games but think nothing of loosing almost a billion customers by making a impossible to run game.



pc games can still have good graphics and have lots of sales, just stop trying to out do others with graphics crysis looks great but I will pick warhammer 40k over crysis anyday

crysis looks good but I will pick FEAR over crysis

Crysis looks good but I will pick spiderman over crysis any day

while good graphics are important, gameplay is more important , if graphics were the most important, then those nvidia demos will crush every single video game on the planet because they push graphics that are far better than anything crysis has

piracy is not even about all the money. if your broke then you wont even have a pc that will run crysis so why pirate it?

people pirate games that are not worth the money.

back in the day, you could spend less money and get a game thats 10 times longer than a game from today and had better gameplay


if a new movie came out in the theaters and tickets to watch it were $10 but the movie was only 6 minutes long, would you pay to go watch it?


people buy games that are worth the money.

people pirate games if

there either

too short, have crappy gameplay, bland, have DRM

everyone will always want the best, if you watch tv, every ad says their crap is the best, it is human nature to want the best

so if the pirate copy is better than the legit one, guess which human nature will push a user to




and hardware dongles don't work

some professional apps have tried it and junked it as it didn't work and it caused many problems, mainly the dongles failing and the drm being in such a way that the user had to buy the entire program again,

and there easy to crack

and if a company is in trouble and have to junk their drm servers, the last thing on their mind is spending hundreds of thousands to get a drm removal tool made so you can still play the game, the companies care nothing for you, as long as they get your money a game company will not spend a penny on anything that will be of no benefit to their business, so a drm removal tool being released before shutting down is highly unlikely

 
people pirate games if
there either
too short, have crappy gameplay, bland, have
That doesn't even make sense. Why would you pirate a game that's not worth playing? There are lots of crappy or sub par games that are legitimately free, so why take the risk involved in piracy to play crappy games that cost money? If you want to play low quality, unfinished, unpolished or otherwise inferior games there are multitudes of independent developers who put out free content just to have people play their games. So why would you go torrent a retail game? The only reason would be because you know it's better than the otherwise free stuff, in which case you are just trying to avoid having to pay for something. It's the same old story. You want something but don't feel like paying for it so you cheat the system.
And the excuse that people pirate games because of DRM is completely lame. If anybody was really going to buy a game but then pirated it because of DRM then they are complete idiots. I'm not calling them idiots because I oppose piracy, but because if you are willing to pirate something just do it. If you pirate some games but not others, whether it's based on DRM or publisher/developer preferences, then you are really wasting every cent you actually spend on games you purchase and thus you are an idiot. I constantly hear how "DRM does nothing to deter piracy, it actually promotes more piracy". But do you ever consider that if you changed that statement to "Piracy does nothing to deter DRM, it actually promotes more DRM" it probably rings even more true?
 
Actually there are many types of pirates just as there are many types of gamers.

Here are some of them.

Poor college student. They got a decent computer as a HS graduation gift and have lots of free time, but very little disposable income. What do they do? They pirate the games they want to play. Usually this demographic will pay for games when they have the money, but they just usually don't have the money.

Obsessive cracker. They love the metagame of getting the game without paying for it. They actually enjoy the idea that the last game they paid for was Duke Nukem 3D.

Casual pirate. This is the sort of person who pirates games because it is easier than going to the store. If they find themselves at a store they will often buy games while there. These people are likely to also make use of Steam and Impulse.

Buy one get friends free pirate. This is the pirate who buys their copy, but then they pirate copies for their friends so that they can play multiplayer. Steam puts a crimp on that style so if they feel obligated to allow their friends on, they won't use steam, but otherwise steam would prevent this type of pirate.

Try before buy pirate. This is the guy who downloads his games and plays them for a while before either deleting them in disgust or buying them... ideally. In practice these people often never get around to buying some games until they hit the discount bins, but they intended to. Most of the time they do buy the game though.

Now the only question is what percentage of pirates each group makes up. I suspect that the majority of pirates are the casual variety, but that is purely speculation. Anyone who puts their head in the ground and refuses to believe that any pirate except for the obsessive variety exist are just being stupid. I have only ever known one person like that in all my 10 years of college and he is more of a casual pirate now.
 
All the 'types' you've listed still boil down to people who want to avoid having to buy the game. I'm not staying there are not different methods, styles or levels or piracy but it always comes down to the all mighty dollar. The cynic in me tends to believe everything is done primarily for either money, sex or power. So unless you can convince me that piracy leads to a better sex life or more power I'm sticking with money.