Who is to blame for absurd DRM and the 'death' of PC gaming?

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When you go to a movie and the movie sucks, you still have to pay.
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Only problem with this is every movie theater I've been to had no problem refunding a ticket if you hated the movie and left like 20 minutes into it. I've never been able to return a PC game, regardless of how long I played it or how **** it was.
 
Demo's don't give too much of a depth into a game and a rating is SOMEONELSE'S opinion. If I want an opinion on something I will use my own and to get my own I will experience it myself. I ask if ace combat 6 got a 1 from Gamespot does that make it a bad game .... no it means the didn't like it, If Yahtzee doesn't like Super smash bros does it make it a bad game .... no its what they think of a game. Also console games are pirated the same as PC games so does that not mean that consoles are dying .... no so your arguement that its killing pc gaming is relatively futile. The reason that there are no games coming out for the pc is that most of the money is in the consoles since they can charge huge amounts of money for them but then again thats my OPINION and it does not mean it's true.
 
Didn't I JUST make a thread regarding 'the REAL reason PC gaming is dying'???

Seriously, if you don't search around, starting a topic based on your opinions will get you labeled as a troll... quick.
 


I have Original (not thinking of diskette games), that meant i bought.

Starcraft
Startcraft Broodwars
Diablo
Diablo 2
Diablo 2 LOD
Warcraft
Warcraft 3
Need for Speed Porsche Challenge
Need for Speed Carbon
Carmaggeddon
Carmaggeddon II
Carmaggedoon TDR2000
World of Wacraft
World of Warcraft TBC
PES3
PES2008

Do i pirate games ? No, i only buy what is worth the money. What isnt worth the money i wont buy. Thats why you see some Blizzard games there. Because their good. EA produces a huge pile of **** yearly, and some games are just too expensive for my pocket in terms of what the "BANG" they provide.

I tested drived my car before i bought it.
I double checked my house before i payed for it.
I hand picked my computer hardware.

Like everything else, some games i likes, some i dont. The ones i like and play, ill buy. Nothing beats that kind of support.
The ones i play and i dont like, i wont buy. Of course there are many that are a steaming pile of crap, so i wont buy them.

Like Assassins Creed. I was going to buy it, Honeslty because i found out it was a great game. Until they pulled that DX10-DX10.1 stunt.

DRM wont increase their profits. Good Games will. Just look at Blizzard. And Doomsday post are funny to read. Dont worry, there is more piracy on consoles than in PC.
 
Don't blame all enthusiasts. I'm an enthusiast who doesn't even consider pirating as an option. And there are others here who feel and act the same way. Buy it, play the demo, or don't play it is my policy.

 


You're right, my first post was much too incriminating I admit that. I am in the same boat as you, I follow the same scheme in purchasing my games...and my questions is, if it works for you and me (and prolly many others) why can't it work for those who illegally download games too, what makes them so special that they can hurt everyone else to be selfish?
 
Maybe some people outside of the USA can't afford to buy them or live in remote areas where the nearest game shop might require a 100 mile journey. Even that said what if you can't buy the game anymore what do you do then. By the looks of your system specs it seems you don't have a shortage of money either so you can buy what you want but some people work hard to earn a meal a day yet you say they have plenty to buy a game.
 
The reason why someone might pirate a game is that they just don't have the money to spend on the hobby. It is a rather expensive hobby.

Like I said in another thread... There are a lot of kids and college students that have more free time than they have money and as such they look for alternative ways to get their hands on games. Those same kids and college students, once they have disposable income, frequently become legitimate consumers. Unfortunately there are no numbers to support any sort of percentages or anything, and absolutely no way to get that kind of information but I know personally quite a few people who followed this pattern.

Had these people not pirated, they would probably not still be gamers and that money would not be put into the gaming economy. On the other hand the fact that they pirated had two effects that are quite bad. One, they encouraged piracy by participating in it. That means that they obtained and probably shared illegal copies of software and that they appeared as another download thereby encouraging the pirate who originally made it available.

The other negative side effect is that publishers saw huge piracy downloads and panicked causing them to incorporate worse and worse DRM.

Are pirates the only reason why DRM is as bad as it is now? Hell no. Publishers are equally if not more to blame. Every DRM scheme has been broken in less than a week. Most in less than a day. Therefore they keep trying something that has not even once worked with the exception of Steam, XBL, and MMOs. The reason why those largely work is not because they can't be cracked, but that the pirate loses out on a lot of benefits such as continued use of the system.

Anything can be cracked, it is just a question of the cost involved in doing so. When the pirate loses access to patches and content updates, or the ability to use the system for future downloads, they are less likely to pirate.

The answer is quite simple. Steam, Stardock, Xbox Live, MMOs, and online activation/registration for patches and content updates. Restricting access to the game itself is not the answer and will never work. Restricting access to updates is not fool proof either but it sure would curtail the piracy a lot more.

And before you idiotically claim to have caused the gears to turn some more annisman.... this is all stuff that has been said multiple times in other threads on the first page here. You have done nothing to raise awareness nor thought on the matter. Get over yourself.
 
infornography42 got it right :) but even with xbl I know some who pirated the game before it came out SSBB as well even though they could not use XBL they could play the game.
 
Inforn... how on earth am I going to get over myself now that I got you to post a 8 paragraph response on my thread ? ... THe wheels on the bus go round and round! round and round! round and round! The wheels on the bus go....




AND BTW, your 'kids in college with no money' exscuse is a pitiful one, hey, guess who goes to college full time...ME, guess who works a crumby job at a pizza parlor...ME, guess who can save his money for a week and buy a damn game in a legit fashion...ME. I don't make wads of cash, but the money I do make goes to the hard working publishers who make my games. Oh yea, and if they really can't afford to buy legit then they can STOP GAMING ON THE PC. I won't miss any of them, and seeing as how they are not giving the appropriate compensation to the devs, I don't think they will miss them either. Let me guess, YOU'RE the poor college bum with a thin wallet...oh you poor baby. Get over yourself.
 



If you actually took a LOOK at my first post you would see that I nowhere mentioned entities OUTSIDE of the USA. And besdies, I don't think that people who are working all day just for a meal are going to come home for a fun night of counter strike. The 'lack of money' approach to exscusing any form of piracy is bologna. Wait a year and buy it in the discount bin at worst.
 

Guess who still has to be able to support their crack cocaine addiction at the end of the week.
crackheads LOLOLOL
 
That's pretty selfish annisman I mean some people are alot worse off than you think even in the might USA and you won't even give them 1 luxury to make life that little bit better. Here in Britain the cost of living is higher than america and even in other countries there are higher costs of living for example Norway is extremely expensive; One nights meal there cost £100 thats more that $150 and the they can't afford it excuse isn't weak since some people CAN'T afford it I mean what about the people who have kids to look after or parents to look after and need at least A luxury in life. Denying them that is rather selfish simply because you are LUCKY enough to be able to afford it. Also in your first post you assumed we ALL live in america "Don't tell me that you can't afford it, WE live in the blessed UNITED STATES OF AMERICA," No 5.7 billion of the planet do not live in America.
 
This was a standard argument in 1984 or so, when there were as many "software rental" stores as video rental stores. They had signs advising that copying software was illegal, but you could buy the disk copy protection bypass utilities and blank disks at the register.

Then though, it was to be the end of all game development since consoles were less than a niche market.

These outside developers selling DRM aren't really new either, nor is their system being cracked by some 13 year old within a couple of weeks of release.

That soap box you're on is pretty banged up by now. Maybe you'll buy one of the old Sierra games that won't load or do anything and start your own collection of unusable games you can't return once the package is opened.

Personally, I have less time than money for the most part, so don't mind buying things. When the DRM's too intrusive though, I don't buy it. Then you get developers blaming horrible sales on piracy rather than bad games or obnoxious protection methods that only impact paying customers.

It wouldn't get you as much attention, but this is all in other threads..
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/99554-13-piracy-megathread-object-piracy
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/99482-13-video-game-piracy-problem-symptom-problem-long
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/99528-13-stop-complaining-game-security
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/99422-13-projekt-witcher-games-piracy
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/99260-13-bioware-games-piracy
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/99133-13-dissapointed-attitude-game-piracy
http://www.tomshardware.com/crytek-crysis-piracy,video-276.html#comments
http://www.tomshardware.com/second-take-did-piracy-kill-iron-lore,video-23.html#comments
 



You're absolutely right.
All these years, I've been happy recognizing myself as just a simple thief, but now I've realized that I am single-handedly bringing down entertainment for millions of dysfunctional youth.

In accordance with my newfound belief in christ, I will promptly kill myself to prevent such a catastrophe. I have to consider the whole to be more important than the individual, in this case.
 


O shut it already. The fact that someone cannot afford something is never an excuse for getting it for free. I would love to have a ferrari, but I'll settle for less because I cannot afford one. When people cannot even to buy their daily food, it is still not socially acceptable to go out and grab it out of a store for free.

This is not the issue. The issue is that stuf is available for free (by whatever illegal means), that is just the same as what others are paying for dearly. Either the supplier of the goods have to protect it such that it will require people to pay for, or they will have to come up with an alternate value proposition that makes it worthwhile to cough up the money. The thing that a game publisher should NOT do is bother their legit customers with DRM issues because those customers pay for their games already. I would say more companies are starting to see it this way but the big publishers are moving a lot more slowly.

For me personally I prefer the way as for instance Steam is delivering games to me. It is added value to get the latest patches automatically, to easily install games on multiple PC's, and not having my DVD drive occupied with original game discs any more. Sure that last bit you can also do using no-cd hacks but I prefer it if it comes out of the virtual box that way including the patches that always work (and if there's a faulty patch released is usually fixed with a day or 2).
Games via steam are not always the cheapest around but they sure offer added value.

Although it is acceptable practice to vary pricing based on cost of living in different regions and the socially accepted pricing of products (just take the pricing of regular clothes around the globe), this pisses me off when it is about stuf that is regularly available on a world wide basis (as direct downloadable software is). It is the publisher's right to determine its own pricing strategy but when a publisher tries to restrict my options for getting the game elsewhere where it is offered more cheaply then I have an issue with that. It is blocking a free market. I'm thinking about writing a complaint about that to some market protection government agencies.
 


First off, had you bothered to read ANY of the other threads on this topic you would realize how off base you are. I oppose piracy, but I recognize that neither is it possible to stop it and that it is not a purely negative influence. Hell, had you read the post you so roundly criticize you would see that I do list the positive with the negative.

Second, I am one of the lucky people with more money than time. I buy all my games now, but at one point I did pirate. Even at that time however I spent what money I could on new games.

I am not saying that having more time than money is an excuse. I am saying it is a reason. I do not excuse the behavior, but I do understand it. No amount of DRM or whining on forums is going to eliminate piracy, however the better we understand piracy and the market forces that allow for and/or encourage it, then the better we can limit it.
 


You know that was rather harsh since I haven't actualy insulted anyone but rather defended the less well off. Also being new to tomshardware forum's I find it rather immature from someone who is 42 and at that a "Forum Veteran" has told me to shut it. I don't think I will continue to post if I get responses such as this.
 


Big Mac is just one of the old dogs here and this has been a sensitive topic for a lot of people. Try not to take it personally.

This topic in particular has been going around and around for months if not years and overall progress has been toward the middle. When someone takes a more extreme stance, those who have been at the heart of the debate for a long time get frustrated.
 
That's what you get when you've been involved in discussions like these before many times and people bring up the "I/they cant afford it so I/they get it for free" position.

If the "shut it" part offends you, then just ignore it. I did not mean to offend you, but I have seen that line of reasoning all too much already and it just does not fly. I tried to illustrate that with my examples.

I don't know your age as you did not fill in your birthday but judging from your username it's probably a lot less than my 42. I should have taken that into account although I prefer discussion on the basis of facts and opinions, not age.
 
Well anyway I think the main solution for developers is to release games for free and charge subscriptions for playing them e.g WoW or even better for them to release games for free but include advertising in them, I mean its already on TV, the internet, racing etc why not games.
 


It is up to the developers to decide on the business model, and it is up to the customers to agree with their choice or not. There are lots of free games around already, often driven by advertising. So go and play those, if you do not want to pay for games.
 
You said


As if that does not exist already, I just pointed out that it already exists and that the choice is yours.
 



Holy crap, he's basically saying he's the "jesus" of the anti- piracy movement.

 
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