Stardock Unveils Goo: "Gamer Friendly" DRM

[Marcus Yam]

Stardock has announced a new "gamer friendly" DRM scheme, but they won't be announcing which companies have signed up to use it until April 7.

Stardock Unveils Goo: "Gamer Friendly" DRM : Read more

 

[Shadow703793]

Good move in the right direction. I still prefer no DRM, but this is good news for the gamers.

 

[allenpan]

sigh ... since 2003 everytime i bought a game i have to look for crack, why? b/c alot of time my dvd drive has problem reading, connection to internet not working, and last the worst of worst "Star-Foce" on Ubisoft's splinter cell,... it is jsut complete turn OFF!!!

 

[grieve]

I like the Idea, and would be satisfied if it were a universal solution as mentioned. I hate that every game you buy has a different type of DRM.
This would be simple for everyone… except those with no Internet connection for that initial validation.

 

[megabuster]

No internet = No games for you? Interesting concept.

 

[smithereen]

Not many have 'no internet' at this point. Also, it just requires a single activation, so it wouldn't be impossible to hook up to a friend's/public internet just for one session.

 

[Airrax]

I'm not a big fan of DRM, but I do see it's importance. So long as I see a seamless integrated approach, I have no problems with DRM. The places I have issues are with games like Crysis Warhead, and what seems to be the above mentioned Goo; having to connect to the internet for the initial activation is, not so much angering, slightly annoying to me. Steam is great for the fact that it has that play anywhere anytime ability, and to top it off you don't need to have internet access at all. But again, with steam, having to set the client to 'Start in Offline Mode' is slightly annoying (come on, there's obviously no internet connection so it would make sense to start in offline mode, then ping out every now and then to see if a connection is later established).

What I would really like to see, just once or twice on a high profile game, is NO type of end user validation. Now, I don't mean don't track the disks, give every disk/copy a specific key-code that the client doesn't have to enter, it's simply written on the .exe (or something), and tell the client that the game will poll with the server, if an internet connection is present, to indicate the .exe code; no personal data will be recorded. Now, I don't mean to use this as a possibility for determining who is sharing their game, but it would be nice to have this type of system to show just how many people do pirate a game. Also, if the game is a pirated game, have it set a couple of flags in the game so that a loading screen or two in the middle of the game says something like "You've been playing this game for a while now. If you would like to support the developers of the game, please visit www.blah.com and submit a payment. You can pay what you think the game is worth." I mean, it might seem like a 'Big Brother' like idea, but I think that most people pirate a game because they either can't afford it, or they just want to try it out and the demo is not enough to get a good feel for the game (problem is, they play it once and will never again touch it). This might just be a win-win situation for everyone. (Oh, and yes I am pulling this idea from Radiohead. I believe they said they made more money with their 'Choose Your Price' album than all of their previous records combined...)

 

[Eggrenade]

I think the ability to resell is a huge plus. I'd like to see some more details, but this really seems like a very good step for both companies and honest consumers. My only worry is letting my brother play my games when I'm not home without giving him my password, ect. Perhaps a seccondary password that will use my account but can be overriden when I put in the primary one? Still only one person at a time can be logged in, but I control who that is.

 

[seboj]

How does this prevent piracy?

 

[cruiseoveride]

[citation][nom]seboj[/nom]How does this prevent piracy?[/citation]
My thoughts exactly.

There are 4 kinds of people.

#1. People who are too fukin thick and find it difficult copying one .exe over the other
#2. People who are too cheap (or simply poor) to pay for games and so pirate like monkeys
#3. People who like Microsoft products and thus enjoy paying for software
#4. People who dont believe in paying for software (Hackers)

This only helps fight people type #1. And honestly? what sort of market share do they represent?

 

[ZeroTech]

I'm sure that when games were required to read the CD/DVD drive to start it was believed that it was going to stop piracy.
Still, the same way there are minds out there that came up with this acceptable idea, there are also minds that will eventually crack this, then back to step 1.
If you make a standard for validating a system, I'm sure hackers will find a standard to crack it.

 

[Dmerc]

I always find it interesting that people who can't afford games, pirate them but their pc is always well enoughed specs to pay them.

 

[Guest]

Dmerc: have you thought that there are people with decent rig, who buy some games they think are worth buying, but who cannot afford every game because they would have to pay half price of their rig per month for games? Because today you can buy a game with a full price that ends after 8 hours? Or because you can buy a game which says it will run on your rig and it doesn't? Or because the well advertised game is so stupid and boring that you just throw it away? Think about it, millionaire.

 

[mtyermom]

[citation][nom]Dmerc[/nom]I always find it interesting that people who can't afford games, pirate them but their pc is always well enoughed specs to pay them.[/citation]

That's why they can't afford the games, they've spent all their upgrading their PCs...


But seriously, I do like the direction they are going with this. It is much less invasive and less potentially harmful for the legitimate buyers, but I don't think the crackers are going to crack games with this type of DRM any less than the games using current conventional DRM methods.

I really don't think we're going to stop piracy any time soon. Some people are going to refuse to pay for a game, regardless of the quality, DRM or not. I pay for games I like, period. The biggest incentive to actually buy a game, IMO, are features accessible only to legitimate copies; ie: official patches/updates, official DLC/addons, and most importantly multiplayer. One way to use this to combat piracy would be to make the purchase portion very basic and shifting most of the 'good stuff' to DLC (even available immediately upon release) only available through a validated client. The problem with that solution is it punishes legitimate purchasers with no/limited internet connection with a chopped down and crippled version of the game. This would likely raise as much outcry and backlash as the shady and invasive copy protection schemes we've seen already.

To sum up: I definitely think this is a step in the right direction, but I have yet to see an elegant solution that handles all aspects of combating piracy with respect to legitimate purchasers privacy and integrity.

 

[4c1dr41n4]

Will this get cracked? Yeah, almost certainly. But at least the honest buyers won't have rootkits all over their systems.

I also think everyone buying recent games has enough internet connectivity to send/receive a few kB to activate them.

 

[theevilsock]

"After that first validation, the game never needs to connect to the internet again."

I don't think that the initial validation over internet would be a big issue, and if a game developer or distributor was worried about losing sales because an internet connection was required, they could provide a toll-free activation number where the user could dial in with their computer and activate.

 

[Tindytim]

[citation][nom]theevilsock[/nom]I don't think that the initial validation over internet would be a big issue, and if a game developer or distributor was worried about losing sales because an internet connection was required, they could provide a toll-free activation number where the user could dial in with their computer and activate.[/citation]
That would make it extremely easy to crack. It would be a simple pattern.

 

[MamiyaOtaru]

I don't think they are worried about losing sales from having an internet connection required, as this DRM is being developed to be used with their *online distribution system*