Always-on-DRM - why buy games with it?

[veloper]

I for one sympathize with the Beaver and the Dexter, but it's already to late to stop anything.

PC gamers could NOT have bought Spore, Mass Effect 1 and Bioshock 1 and DRM may have ended there, before it really took off. Not enough people cared back then. There may have been other opportunities even, but now over 5 years later, DRM is almost everywhere in the mainstream and that makes this another lost cause.

You can now boycot almost every new game release because of DRM and the message will still be lost.

At best you can support the rare few companies that make good games and don't do DRM, buy their games full price within the first week and help keep those guys afloat, but EA, Activision, Ubi et all won't ever turn back.

But don't let me discourage the TS.
You can still have fun bashing EA for malpractices and don't stop there either. When you spot a congregation of average gamers walking bow-legged and with corporate semen leaking out of every orifice, call them out for it and I'll secretly cheer for you.
You and Dexter actually have something interesting to say. You have a point, you put an effort in your posts and you also entertain and that sort of thing is preciously rare.

I seem to recall Bioshock 1 requiring an online activation to confirm that the game was the real deal, but you never had to be online again? And people shit so many bricks that Securom is almost unheard of these days

I remember something about the game checking you hardware configuration each time and for each change, using up one of 3 (or 5) online activitions you got, until you would run out and could not play the game. That's DRM alright.

But it's also 5 years ago and I DID actually boycot Bioshock (and ME1 too, while Spore just sucked in every way) back then becasue of it, so I'm a bit hazy about the details. It nolonger matters anyway.

That was Anno 2070 that was released by Ubisoft just recently that would maul you each time you changed hardware.

I discovered THAT one the hard way when I changed out my GPU

Bioshock and ME1 and Spore all had it too, but at some point the DRM was relaxed a little I recall. Steam versions of these games may even have only Steam for DRM and not the Securom limitations.

 

[Something Amyss]

What are you gonna do when every new game you buy can be shut down permanently?

Defend it by saying Valve has awesome sales?

 

[Murrdox]

Agreed. Although I find it sad unfortunately that so many gamers have never played gems like Baldur's Gate and the original Fallout.

I still think of those as being relatively new games. You're ALL neophytes to me, damn it!

S'okay man. You want to get together and replay some Zork?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

S'okay man. You want to get together and replay some Zork?

Meh. We'd likely just get eaten by grues.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Business 101: There's no such thing as 'long-term'

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

What are you gonna do when every new game you buy can be shut down permanently?

Defend it by saying Valve has awesome sales?

Valve said multiple times that if they ever go out of business they'll get rid of all DRM.

 

[Murrdox]

S'okay man. You want to get together and replay some Zork?

Meh. We'd likely just get eaten by grues.

Yeah, I doubt I still remember the maze solution.

 

[EtherealBeaver]

I for one sympathize with the Beaver and the Dexter, but it's already to late to stop anything.

Actually I disagree on the "too late" part. Many kickstarters promote their games as "DRM free" and they are often getting great results. Its a great tag line like "eco friendly" for instance and its becoming a quality of its own to not have DRM in your game.

With any luck we may se a resurgance in scrapping of intrusive DRM but it may be a pipe dream. What we as consumers can do is to support the developers who make DRM free games consistantly.

I for one am tired of having to go through the same tideous steps every time I install a game: enter CD key, go to publishers site, create account, activate account, activate product (multiple times if you also got DLC or expansion packs), sync game and finally being able to play.

The last game I bought with this kind of DLC was the ultimate pack of Dragon Age I and it took forever to get the bloody thing to work. 12 mails to their support where they kept sending me on to higher tiers support. In the end I basically got a mail telling me how to crack their game - naturally they didnt call it "crack the game" but being a hobby game designer and knowing a bit of coding, its easy to see what you are doing when changing an .ini file.

If they are just going to tell people how to crack their game when their bloody thing doesnt work, why have the bloody DRM at all?

 

[EtherealBeaver]

Business 101: There's no such thing as 'long-term'

There is for the book I have besides me in the shelf. Its from 1903. Bet you wont have game servers from a game with online DRM running that long. My grand father bought the book so he could read it and eventually passed it on to me. I want to be able to do the same with entertainment from my time to my kids - thats part of the reason I save the stuff I buy. Online-DRM will make that impossible and already has in many occations.

(Sorry for double posting, just saw the other post now)

 

[BloatedGuppy]

With any luck we may see a resurgence in scrapping of intrusive DRM but it may be a pipe dream. What we as consumers can do is to support the developers who make DRM free games consistently.

It's not a pipe dream at all. That same amoral profit motive that makes corporations so distasteful also means they will rush to fill the demand for any market deemed to be untapped. If there are people clamoring for DRM free games, someone will make a bunch of DRM free games. GOG is already doing this, and you can bet they're doing it for good will and bottom line purposes as opposed to out of the goodness of their hearts.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

*Totally convincing robot voice*

Because. I. Am. A. Good. Citizen. Who. Always. Buys. Games. And. Would. Never. Pirate. Anything. Because. That. Would. Be. Bad. And. Wrong. And. Badwrong. Or. Badong.

 

[jackpipsam]

The only one that I have had issues with is Ubisoft's.

But apart from that, it seems to work for me fine.
As someone who played nothing but MMOs back in the day, the idea of always been connected isn't new to me.
Like Bullet Run is an MMOFPS published by an MMO company (SOE).

For single player games, sure it is confusing.
But it hasn't bit me on my bum yet.

 

[Something Amyss]

Valve said multiple times that if they ever go out of business they'll get rid of all DRM.

That's nice, but far from the only scenario where your games can be taken away from you.

It is, however, a great example of the kind of apologetics we as a community level at Valve to justify the same sort of practices we are concerned about in others.

There is for the book I have besides me in the shelf. Its from 1903. Bet you wont have game servers from a game with online DRM running that long. My grand father bought the book so he could read it and eventually passed it on to me. I want to be able to do the same with entertainment from my time to my kids - thats part of the reason I save the stuff I buy. Online-DRM will make that impossible and already has in many occations.

(Sorry for double posting, just saw the other post now)

To be fair, books were kind of the ultimate short-term product at one point. I bet if they could make books last even less time viably, they would do so. Though honestly, I think the idea of paperless books you don't actually own is a good way of coming pretty close.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Valve said multiple times that if they ever go out of business they'll get rid of all DRM.

That's nice, but far from the only scenario where your games can be taken away from you.

It is, however, a great example of the kind of apologetics we as a community level at Valve to justify the same sort of practices we are concerned about in others.

It's not really being apologetic. They showed great respect towards their customers and they gained a lot of goodwill among the community. People trust them. And because they trust them they're not worried that Valve will fuck them over. And they won't. Valve guys are smart enough to know that in the long run it pays to respect your customers. Other companies don't operate that way. They are more interested in short-term profits and don't see the big picture the way Valve does. This isn't empty Valve praising. There is evidence for this. Look at what they achieved and what they continue to achieve. They keep growing steadily for years. EA on the other hand continues to lose money. Capcom, Sony and Microsoft as well. It's not rocket science that if you treat your customers with respect they'll keep throwing their money at you and if you don't they'll eventually move on to bigger and better things. This is so simple it amazes me that most companies just don't get it.

Another testament to Valve's long term thinking skills is the fact that Steam was released in September of 2003! And the industry is still struggling to catch up with digital distribution. And they provide such a good service it's almost impossible to compete with them. And now they have plans to cut out the middle man (publisher) completely by allowing developers and pretty much anyone in the future to publish their work through Steam. Including musicians, indie movie makers, game developers etc. I guess the bottom line is that benevolence pays more than ruthless capitalism.

 

[Joccaren]

Why do people play MMOs, even though all those risks exist for them too?

Its quite simple really. The game itself could be fun, and you want to play it, its just the DRM that's shit and in the way, and if you have a decent Internet connection its normally not that much of an issue.

But nobody pirates for that reason. People pirate for the same reasons as everyone else. THey want free stuff, and don't want to pay for it.

DRM is just a convenient justification. It's like when religious people justify homophobia or racism by saying "My imaginary friend told me it was a good idea." They're completely full of shit.

Good to know that you know what pirates think.

Oh wait, you don't.
Look at the top pirated games on some torrent website sometime. Check the last step in most of them. It says "Buy the game and support the developers whose games you enjoy". A quick search when looking into this issue for another thread based on this came up with those results. Believe it or not, not all pirates are the "FREE STUFF, WOO!" type.
Other reasons for piracy;
-Try before you buy, seeing as Demos don't exist these days
-Get around DRM so you can actually play your game
-Replace a physical copy who's disk you cracked
Really, stop being so presumptuous about everything. You're probably not right a lot of the time. Open mindedness does the world wonders, and is one of the things that stops racism and homophobia - and is something you should take up. Think that maybe you don't know everything, and that people could have reasons beyond those you give them for doing things.

 

[The Lugz]

because it wasn't clearly marked on the label..

i lost my copy of gta4, anno, and crysis warhead to drm systems
i wont be buying drm locked items again any time soon.

 

[veloper]

I for one sympathize with the Beaver and the Dexter, but it's already to late to stop anything.

Actually I disagree on the "too late" part. Many kickstarters promote their games as "DRM free" and they are often getting great results. Its a great tag line like "eco friendly" for instance and its becoming a quality of its own to not have DRM in your game.

With any luck we may se a resurgance in scrapping of intrusive DRM but it may be a pipe dream. What we as consumers can do is to support the developers who make DRM free games consistantly.

At best we may end up with two parallel markets: one of Kickstarters, indies and only the occasional full-budget dev like CDPR, that offer DRM-free games with innovative ideas and the mainstream market with massive budgets, playing it safe with genres and including intrusive DRM.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't support the good stuff; we totally should, but the big publishers won't be affected. Their audiences didn't walk away back when there was still some sizeable protest against DRM in ME1, Spore and Bioshock and they certainly won't change their minds now.

I for one am tired of having to go through the same tideous steps every time I install a game: enter CD key, go to publishers site, create account, activate account, activate product (multiple times if you also got DLC or expansion packs), sync game and finally being able to play.

It's a hassle, when it isn't frustrating as hell, but I've also been suckered into going along with it.

I avoided such games during the first few years when DRM was still the exception, but not nearly enough people did so back then and I love too many games just too much and I also respect many developers who make them, so here we are.
Now we we've gotten to the point where many Escapists are actually defending such practices and then you know it's too late.

With a little bad luck though, the mainstream will continue to devolve into cinematic QTE experiences, poor-man's movies and the occasional, unoriginal shooter, so I can go 100% alternative anyway.

 

[The White Hunter]

Now where's my cookie guppy?

Oh, you're going to get a cookie alright.

The catch: It's OATMEAL RAISIN. And it's STALE.

Ha. I like oatmeal raisin and I can get past it being stale.

 

[Atmos Duality]

*snip*

I think we're going to see that "Trust" becomes more valuable the larger and more competitive the gaming market becomes.
And we already live in a world overflowing with distractions and media, all competing for our attention and money.

On Topic:
It isn't a question of "If the servers go offline", but "When".
Nothing lasts forever, nevermind that nothing stays profitable forever and servers don't run on fairy dust.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

The moment DRM actually hinders me of having fun with games i'll think twice about buying one with it.
Has not happened yet, so i dont really give a fuck about this subject.