News Good Old Games: DRM drives gamers to piracy

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2011/04/11/gog-drm-drives-gamers-piracy/1

 

Nailed it on the head for as far as I'm concerned...

Same thing goes for DVD's BTW.
On some (especially Sony) DVD's the DRM is so strong, they don't playback on the PC at all.
The cure is ripping them, watching them, then deleting the rip again.

 

Completely agree. People who will pirate, will do so no matter what DRM you put on it.

 

I don't have an isue with DRM per se, the programmers have a right to protect their work.

It's the very restrictive DRM that I find offensive e.g. Assasins' Creed requirement for a constant online connection while playing.

 

a stab at Crytek i see?

although he got to keep in mind that there is a difference between pirating a game and buying a game then use crack to make life easier. with later, developer still gets the money.

 

You'll never stop the people who flat out refuse to pay for games, better off having a basic level of protection to stop casual piracy (eg. serial number for multiplayer).

For full blown DRM, Steam is the best option but even that can be circumvented. What Steam does well though is that it's relatively painless for the user, coupled with extra features like game updating, friends lists, sales etc. It's far from perfect still but compared to everything else (I'm looking at you, EADM!), it's a pretty good system.

 

whilst i agree DRM isn't going to deter people who are willing to pirate games.

i really can't see it encouraging piracy, at least not much anyway.
i have never pirated a game, yet i have illegally downloaded other media, so i really don't see myself changing that due to DRM,

as for DRM being a deterrent, i actually think it is amongst some people.
its easy for people on this website to say DRM is easily bypassed, as this website caters to the type of people who would have no problem bypassing DRM, but what a lot of people forget not everyone is experienced when it comes to this type of stuff, not everyone would have the knowledge to pirate games.
so whilst DRM is a hassle and is easily bypassed if you know how, there are still plenty of people out there who wouldn't have a clue, and it is for those people that DRM makes sense, unfortunately.

so as much as DRM is a hassle and even though it is easily enough bypassed, i don't see it going anywhere anytime soon.

 

Totally agree... C'mon I have hundreds of Steam games, it's DRM but it's not intrusive, nor it requires me to be online to play my games.

Win, win...

Steam weekend sales = win!!

 

Doesn't GTA IV on Steam still require a connection to Gaming for Windows live, and a connection to the Rockstar Club to play ?

iirc ES4:Oblivion didn't have any DRM at all? That obviously didn't do well.

 

Oblivion had disc-check SecuROM, IIRC. The sort that had been cracked about five years earlier, so was never really a problem for the crackers.

GTA4 on Steam required GfWL, but you could sort out an Offline account; R*SC didn't need to be logged in to play either... but it still needed to be running. Frankly, the amount of crap GTA4PC wanted to install was beyond a joke. And it STILL had the phone-home SecuROM.

...

I read this and came the following general conclusion:

It's all down to a lack of respect that seems to be inherent everywhere now. The developer/publisher doesn't respect the consumer enough to trust that they will actually buy a game. Some of the consumers don't respect the developer/publisher enough to buy the game. Vicious circle.

 

There is an offline mode, but the game programmers themselves may add extra DRM content to the game e.g. connection to Rockstar club requirement.

 

1. Every now and then GoG comes out with a way of rubbishing it's competitors and gaining some much needed publicity. I know, let's appeal to the DRM haters this week!! I know let's pretend like our business has gone down the pan as a great publicity stunt ... oh ...

2. (edited) DRM hardly affects the majority of us who are willing to play ball. Laziness and not wanting to pay for stuff are the main roots, always have been.

I downloaded Rift at the weekend. Not illegally, there were free weekend keys handed out by Multiplay. So, when I'm done sunning myself in the garden for a few hours, I've got a full 8.5GB game ready to go on my PC. Piracy is as easy as that. DRM is used as an EXCUSE.

 

Unless like me you have a crap internet connection then steam is bloody terrible as the connection is not always up (So stuff can not be authorised) and having to install half the game from the steam servers means that it can take several weeks (very slow connection if its even up) before the game is playable.

Steam is a good option for people with excellent connections and enough money per month to afford the connection, but it should never be the only option

 

"We are making a bold step by putting up this highly-anticipated title without any sort of DRM,' says Kukawski. 'We believe it’s going to be a huge success, which should really open doubters’ eyes."

Good guys the GoG/CDproject lot

 

I have a twitchy 'net connection and steam hasn't been a problem for me.
Every time my connection drops out it just pauses itself and starts downloading again when it regains connection.
Have you tried changing your download region?

 

+1.
And if you ask each party who started the disrepecting thing, they'll each point their fingers towards the other group.

 

GTA IV is actually a game I bought in the Steam Xmas sale but have never played. For the simple reason that I got fed up trying to find my way round all of the b***** logins and new accounts that seemed to be needed. The sad lesson I learned is to be wary of games by that studio -- which is a shame because they are clearly a really talented team. I wouldn't go and download a cracked version of the game simply because I don't think it is right and I respect the studio's decision on how they market their games. But the upshot is still that they are less likely to get future purchases from me.

I am not against DRM in itself, provided it is sensitive and doesn't impact on my experience. Steam is a great example of a system which is (most of the time) a joy to use and the DRM is compensated by lovely specials and the convenience of having all your games in one easy online library.

However, I do wonder whether much of the present push towards login/connection-based DRM isn't really about stopping piracy at all. Rather it seems to be about hooking legitimate consumers into the that publisher's particular ecosystem -- so that the publisher can get useful marketing information about you, sell you more stuff and build up an 'inconvenience barrier' making it harder for competitors to get your custom.

Steam, of course, does all these things and I still forgive it -- but if this is the 'real reason' behind the love of DRM from the industry then it is, at best, disingenuous of them to keep playing the piracy/DRM card. At worst, you could even consider it seriously anti-competitive: imagine the hullaballoo if a supermarket forced you to sign up to its loyalty card in order to shop there at all.

 

My arse. Maybe you enjoy having to install and register for 8 useless background apps and being cut off from your game after x activations, but please don't speak for everyone.

 

I don't really see the point in DRM. The groups who crack and release these games will do so regardless of what DRM is added. Infact without DRM they would have nothing to do.

Sadly some of the more harsh DRM's actually damage a game. Look at Mass Effect when that first came out. Only 5 installs or some such and that was with a paid for legit copy. Yet a pirate version could be installed as many times and on as many machines as you want..like just about every other legit game. Or the Ubisoft fiasco where those who had paid for their game couldn't play it because of some server issue, but all the pirated ones played just fine. DRM like that does drive people to piracy. Fortunately companys like EA do seem to be learning, but unfortunately very very slowly.

 

Are you high

I'm assuming you didn't try to play assassin's creed 2 before the patch to REMOVE the DRM that made the game unplayable if you had an even slightly flaky Internet connection. I'm willing to play ball, up until a game that I payed for is unplayable due to a stupid business decision that screwed only the paying customers .