Game Developers Speaking Out Against DRM

[tenor77]

I crack every game I own. I bought it, so I can do with it as I please on my own pc.

 

[DjEaZy]

... price, tha right distribution mechanism and tha problem iz [almost] solved...

 

[DjEaZy]

... when i buy a game, iz it legal to crack? Because with tha crack sometimes it works better...

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]DjEaZy[/nom]... when i buy a game, iz it legal to crack? Because with tha crack sometimes it works better...[/citation]
You have the right to use or create a crack in order to play the legal backup copy of a game you have bought. It however is not legal to distribute your game and the crack neither for free, renting or selling it. The vendor on the other hand has the right to block unauthorized versions of the game (cracked ones) from accessing online content that they are hosting/paying for.

And lastly - if you want answers, write in english instead of kiddie speak.

 

[AdamB5000]

Like anyone on the internet I have plenty of access to torrent sites to download software. Despite that, I purchased World of Goo for my bro for Christmas because the demo was so great. I applaud them for making it so user friendly.

I went ahead and purchased it from the Wii.

 

[DjEaZy]

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]You have the right to use or create a crack in order to play the legal backup copy of a game you have bought. It however is not legal to distribute your game and the crack neither for free, renting or selling it. The vendor on the other hand has the right to block unauthorized versions of the game (cracked ones) from accessing online content that they are hosting/paying for.And lastly - if you want answers, write in english instead of kiddie speak.[/citation]

... sorry, man... English not my native language... i speak pretty good, but grammar!?... my native iz Latvian, second Russian, then i talk German and English...

 

[Harby]

""People who pirate the game are people who wouldn't have bought it anyway. I don't know anyone who would try to find a cracked version and, if they can't locate one, they say, ‘OK, since I can't find it for free, I'm going to go out and buy it.' I just don't think that happens."

VERY wise words right there. I hope more developers get the message. Especially EA.

 

[Guest]

I don't know anyone who would try to find a cracked version and, if they can't locate one, they say, ‘OK, since I can't find it for free, I'm going to go out and buy it.' I just don't think that happens."

That's pretty much so, but reverse is possible.
I think many can find a game online they can't find in the stores.
Or other, they find it, try it out for a couple of days, don't really like it, and get classified as 'an IP which has an illegal version of the game'.
Most of the people who have a hacked version are either people who really like the game, and decide to buy it whenever they can find it in stores, or, they don't like it, and they're trying it out but uninstall it a couple of days later.

Only a very small minority really like the game and don't want to pay, or don't feel obliged to pay. Most of them probably students who can't afford it.

And out of that minority of the minority that's left, there are those who have the game, but don't play it. They feel satisfaction in either having it stored on their archives (probably with thousands of other games, programs, and entertainement), and share it in p2p networks.

The true pirates are mostly people who would not pay for the game even if they did like the game anyways, because they just can't afford it.

I don't consider myself a pirate, but I do have tried a few games. Most of them deleted after a few days out of total disinterest. A few ten games I purchased because I loved them!
Games I would have never purchased if I didn't have a way to try them first!

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]ProDigit80[/nom]
Only a very small minority really like the game and don't want to pay, or don't feel obliged to pay. Most of them probably students who can't afford it.[/citation]

I believe that very small minority isn't that small after all. I know serveral people who've said at some point that they were going to buy this or that, but have simply never gotten around to doing so. Not because they couldn't afford it, or because they were lying. Simply because it became an inconvenience at a later point to actually perform that announced action.

 

[millerm84]

The ultimate cure for piracy is a mix of the Steam model and WoW's authenticators.

Each major publisher creates a universal game registration site. User register on the site and pay a one time fee of like $20 and in two or three days they receive an authenticator (that fee covers the cost of setting up the service and the authenticators including a set number of replacements). When you purchase a new game you register the UPC/CD key of that game and for online play. The authentication server attaches that game login to your account and when the player goes to play online they login as usual hit a button on the authenticator enter that code and play.

The benefit of this for the user is one account security, two the account will allow you to download a game you purchased if you lost the CD key or disk for or what have you.

Because the authentication will allow for solo play pirates and more timid buyers will be able to sample the game but online play will be strictly for valid players with authenticators, potentially boosting sales. No gimpy software, no installation limits, nothing to crack, just an extra step during game login and a one time fee.

Though if a company spends $200,000 per game on DRMs they could come out ahead giving the authenticators away. If you eliminate online gaming piracy then one blockbuster game could pay off the authenticator services and still make the same amount of profit.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

@ millerm84 : The system has a genuine flaw. If a person pays for a game these days, they expect to get a game. Not aquire the rights to play a game as long as the gaming company remains afloat. Over the last 15 years I've seen more gaming companies being shut down, than I've had to change tires - and I drive every day. Nobody these days want to get stuck with a product that doesn't run simply because an authorization server is out of funding or because their isp happens to have cut their connection by accident. The wow and steam concents work, but they only work because they aren't exclusive. You only pay for wow if you play on authenticated servers. The day blizzard shuts down (never), wow will keep running on private servers. And I'm aware of no steam enabled application that can't be had in other ways too. If they were steam only, they'd simply fail to sell. Steam's an option for distribution, it's not an option for exclusive distribution.

 

[fausto]

when i couldn't afford it i would download pirated games but now that i can i pay for them.

sometimes i wait till the games go on sale and have been patched a few times...now i own more games than i have time to play!

DRM sucks. From experience in both sides of the fence i can that i hate DRM and i hate pirated versions...but you know what...i trully hate having to insert a freaking cd to play my games. that's why i started buying them all on steam.

and also i don't want to have software from 10 different digital stores...steam has worked out great, everyone should have their games for sale on steam. best DRM there is.

 

[seanf78]

We let EA know how we felt about their DRM with our voices and our wallets, and know they're starting to notice. Well done, PC gamers.

 

[A Stoner]

I refuse to buy games that do not have a DRM free version somewhere (as in the above companies, or through internet downloadable hacks). The guy said about his Goo game, 90% are fake, but he still makes money, funny how other companies with the most sophisticated DRM on their products claim they cannot make money, it might just be the fact that the people who WOULD buy their game fall into the same catagory as I do and they spend a large enough % of their price on DRM technology that they really cannot make money. If I cannot play the game without securom, or any of the other DRM mechanisms causing me every-time-I-play, and even, as is the case with securom, when not-playing-the-game, issues, I do not want it on my computer. I do not want to have a CD/DVD in my drive, I do not want rootkits running in the background, I do not want non-internet games accessing the internet, and I do not want my internet access games telling companies that I have $5000 in hardware, or that I run using windows XP or anything else about me personally. I have plenty of money to spend, and the games I play get that money. I play a free to play online game, it offers online buyable upgrades, and I have spent upwards of $1500 on it (10-15 years worth of subscriptions to WoW or 30 $50 games). So dropping $50, or even less money on a game is nothing, but I am not going to do it when I will be forced to uninstall and reinstall windows just to get rid of the DRM software genetically inserted into my computer. Music, movie and game industry should get with the times and understand that every form of DRM will be defeated, and the fact that people feel the need to be free of DRM will continue to create more and more crackers, more and more people who will play the game for free and less and less revenue for themselves. They have to create games, music and movies, that is their business, that means they have to SELL games, music and movies. It is not like there is going to be a day with no game designers, musicians or movie studios, no matter how much of the product is stolen. The question is, how much of that product will end up being stolen. Does DRM protect rights holders, or does it create rights stealers? What is the overall benifit to the producers when all is said and done when comparing DRM heavy and DRM free media? Downloading a cracked copy of a game you own cannot possibly be illegal, so how on earth can it possibly be illegal to make that copy available?

 

[anamaniac]

"What they're trying to do is stop people from going to GameStop to buy $50 games for $35, none of which goes into the publishers' pockets."

Nicely said.

Also sounds like I won't have to worry about annoying cracks and the such to get Sims 3 working.
I support the hardware market atleast...

 

[captaincharisma]

for some pirating can kind of be like rating a game. if they find they like it then they will buy it but if they buy a game and find it sucks then they will feel they wasted there money getting it.

 

[bustapr]

Online authentication DRM had always been the biggest frustration for me when I didn't have internet. I couldn't play the best games out there such as Bioshock and half-life 2 (steam should go off too). Having to buy a pc game and not noticing thevery small letters hidden around the box that say"subject to online authentication" had gotten me too many times, and then not being able to return the game since I opened the box enfuriatedd me. DRM has to go, and I agree that publishers wont loose any customers since the people that pirate the game weren't going to buy it anyway.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

halflife 2 was widely available in cracked versions that didn't require internet access. If you'd actually bought it you'd find out you'd rather have saved the money though. It was way over hyped, and actually merely a mediocre game with poor scripting.

 

[Dave K]

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]halflife 2 was widely available in cracked versions that didn't require internet access. If you'd actually bought it you'd find out you'd rather have saved the money though. It was way over hyped, and actually merely a mediocre game with poor scripting.[/citation]

Disagree... there were some great level designs in HL2... it was one of the best shooters of the early 2k years. There were some issues with npc behavior but overall a great title.

 

[jimmysmitty]

[citation][nom]smithereen[/nom]You can't argue that piracy doesn't hurt the industry, though. If we had not-to-invasive DRM that actually worked, that would be a good thing.[/citation]

Steam. Bet DRM ever made. Non invasive, doesn't screw up your OS and it links your account with all the games you have ever bought for life.

 

[jimmysmitty]

[citation][nom]Dave K[/nom]Disagree... there were some great level designs in HL2... it was one of the best shooters of the early 2k years. There were some issues with npc behavior but overall a great title.[/citation]

Tell that to all the different game reviers that gave it GOTY multiple times as well as PC Gamer who gave it a 11/10.

HL2 was an amazing game. Great story, at the time killer graphics and a modular MOD happy engine thats still going strong today.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

killer graphics ? that only applied at the time the source code was stolen - at the time the game was actually released it wasn't that killer anymore. The overhyped shadows were rubbish, and the game itself was mediocre at best.
In most fps games you can't 'feel' when activities are scripted - but in halflife it's almost as if you can see the invisible line that triggers a scripted action. The engine's quite moddable though. Yes.

 

[Guest]

The consensus to most is Steam is as good as DRM "could" be, but it has major flaws as DRM, digital distribution is fine but DRM is not fine, in fact as trashy as trashy can be. And with the bandwidth tipping thing on the other end Steam is going down.

I am not paying $40 for a game that is not of my fancy; only a passing interest in, let along a game that locks up a license. Dawn of War 2 is such a game, had a Steam Saint's Row 2, someone laundered off used, locked, I unknowingly bought it, so after seeing the tiny deceptive SSA I returned DW2 for refund; imagine this vicious cycle from the perspective of 1st guinea p... er, customer. I do have some stuff from Steam that was new to use but laundered as dumpster finds, they were about $2 apiece so it was small bet that panned out.

A concern is maintenance of online authentication service, no wonder EA did a 180 on its stance on using DRM.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

Don't bother me jerkhorde665 - ignore me as I ignore you, and we'll be fine. I don't want to waste all afternoon guessing what you wrote.

 

[dainsane1]

will be nice to buy a game and not have to worry about a rootkit landing on my system. i used to work by the plan of download pirated ver then buy it if it keeps me interested for more then 2h. Now one might say: Demos; well demos i find are crippled and leave me more irritated with he game then wanting to play more. the demo will pester or bother or just plain kick out while in full swing. this results in an angry deletion.

i used to play heavy but now am casual about my gaming; so much so that i have to reboot from linux into win if i really want to game. EA has lost a number of sales from me all because of DRM. bioshock, and C&C are two titles that i have yet to play; simply because of that rootkit. I may yet buy, but that will likly be from a bargain bin; steam mabee if i am really slow on work for a while. or in 20 years when i am old and dig up abandonware.