Building a Better Kind of DRM
- Thread starter Shamus Young
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You know deep down that it'll never work. The pirates will adapt. If you make it impossible to simply remove the check, the pirates will simply find better ways of fooling the check.
And besides, worst case scenario it takes longer to crack, and even batman was completely playable a week before release.
DRM can't win. It practically a fact of life.
And besides, worst case scenario it takes longer to crack, and even batman was completely playable a week before release.
DRM can't win. It practically a fact of life.
So you suggest we dont bother at all? Every time and advancment is made, It is bound to be made redundant at some point in the future, but this dosent stop people inventing. As long as we can stay ahead of the pirates for long enough to make ends meet any advance is welcome in my book. And if its unobtrusive as Shamus suggests, all the better.Nimbus said:
There is a better solution...just ignore the pirates, they aren't your customers. The people who pay for your game are. Hurting pirates costs money, doesn't increase sales, and in the end doesn't stop piracy. Spending the same money/dev time making the game rock solid, bug free, and enjoyable does increase sales.
The equation is simple, if you make enough money from your game to stay in business you keep making games, if you don't then you find something else that pays you. Maybe there would be less multi-million dollar titles if everyone took that philosophy, but I don't think the world would be a worse place for it.
Oh and is your DRM/activation scheme going to stop me from lending the legit game to a friend, or reselling it? If so that is a deal breaker, because suddenly the legit purchaser has less control over their property than the pirate does.
The equation is simple, if you make enough money from your game to stay in business you keep making games, if you don't then you find something else that pays you. Maybe there would be less multi-million dollar titles if everyone took that philosophy, but I don't think the world would be a worse place for it.
Oh and is your DRM/activation scheme going to stop me from lending the legit game to a friend, or reselling it? If so that is a deal breaker, because suddenly the legit purchaser has less control over their property than the pirate does.
You re-explained almost the exact business strategy that caused Iron Lore to go bankrupt.
Yes, you can make games behave like a buggy piece of shit for pirates(until they crack that too, often within hours, if they don't see through your ruse immediately). But those pirates will whine on the forums, and more often then not they will do it before release. And when a legitimate buyer who might have been interested in your game game sees the general discussion forum have 100 posts total and the technical support has 1500 unanswered threads in the last 24 hours, what will that person think? Will it be "Wow this drm is very effective, i need to support tis developer" or "This game looks like a broken mess, i better save my money"? History has shown us that it's most likely the latter.
Yes, you can make games behave like a buggy piece of shit for pirates(until they crack that too, often within hours, if they don't see through your ruse immediately). But those pirates will whine on the forums, and more often then not they will do it before release. And when a legitimate buyer who might have been interested in your game game sees the general discussion forum have 100 posts total and the technical support has 1500 unanswered threads in the last 24 hours, what will that person think? Will it be "Wow this drm is very effective, i need to support tis developer" or "This game looks like a broken mess, i better save my money"? History has shown us that it's most likely the latter.
FADE (Which slowly removes features as you play.) checks for fake disc scratches, in which case a program like Nero doesn't copy. All you really need to do to trick it is find a way to keep those false scratches on the disc image. Which I am fairly sure they did that to Arma 2 (I am pretty sure they found a way to pirate that, I wouldn't know.)
DRM is just an impossible task, It is a waste of money and for the most part your Game or Music is already leaked out on the interwebs. That is a real problem that you can fix, people leaking your products before release. You will never win against pirates because they are not a single lifeform or organization... they are a collective hive mind. Sure, they are competing groups. But that really doesn't stop the fact I am presenting. Your just a company up against the most tenacious things in existence... The internet.
The single fact you can't just sue the groups "Pirates" is such a testament, You can sue individuals but you can't fight all these individuals at any time.
This is really more a problem routed in humanity and our civilization then anything else really... The money system is not a very humane thing...
DRM is just an impossible task, It is a waste of money and for the most part your Game or Music is already leaked out on the interwebs. That is a real problem that you can fix, people leaking your products before release. You will never win against pirates because they are not a single lifeform or organization... they are a collective hive mind. Sure, they are competing groups. But that really doesn't stop the fact I am presenting. Your just a company up against the most tenacious things in existence... The internet.
The single fact you can't just sue the groups "Pirates" is such a testament, You can sue individuals but you can't fight all these individuals at any time.
This is really more a problem routed in humanity and our civilization then anything else really... The money system is not a very humane thing...
Reminds me of the times when they made a better weapon then they made a new armor. It won't stop, but lets laugh at the noob pirates who end up posting on the forums about how there controls aren't working.Nimbus said:
Please For the love of God though, Publishers, Developers and game-makers(If you don't consider yourself on of the other options) listen to Shamus, he charges for the other answers, take the freebie, please.
Think most would accept that type of DRM, and yes could be cracked but would be a lot harder to do so, especially if technique varied from game to game built into the engine to begin with not added on later as be interwoven into the game. Add fact could randomise it a lot from game to game to keep pirates on their feet will eventually be too much effort for some to bother with as could never be sure got them all.
That and go on the offensive and spam the hell out of p2p sites what promote piracy with dud fake copies what do nothing so hard to find the ones what work. Get anti viruse software compines in on this and make those dud flag up as viruses when not what makes people doubt that p2p sites reliability.
That and go on the offensive and spam the hell out of p2p sites what promote piracy with dud fake copies what do nothing so hard to find the ones what work. Get anti viruse software compines in on this and make those dud flag up as viruses when not what makes people doubt that p2p sites reliability.
That's a great idea really. We seriously can't stop piracy, no matter what. I'm not saying we should stop trying, but if we're going to do that, we'll need to simply go for alternative DRM that does not hurt the legitimate customer.rembrandtqeinstein said:
Or they can just make ridiculously great games so profits can be made even with the pirates. After all, you're spending money on something that is not working out for you. As any businesses would do, stop wasting money and use your resources on something that will gain you more profits.
At any rate, I agree with Shamus' ideas. I actually personally had those ideas in mind after reading about the Batman: AA thing. Sure, they'll be bypassed quickly, but its still a pain in the neck for a pirate and does not penalize actual buyers. It might even serve as good humour. That's what I'm really after - go ahead and punish pirates, as long as the buyers are unaffected.
One could argue that doing such a thing adds to the expenses of the developers. I say, it could cost less than getting conventional DRM.
The activation+CD check should let people re-sell the game even after activation servers go down.rembrandtqeinstein said:
Dealing with pirates now is just like dealing with them when they had boats and swords. You're not aiming to eliminate it completely, just to slow it down enough to get your product to the market. You're not trying to stay ahead forever, just while you have a new product out. The advantage that the pirates have is that they have hundreds or thousands of more people working on a project than the creators, so tedious methods won't work since they have the manpower to deal with it. New methods need to be subtle and unobtrusive, but they have to keep evolving because that is the only way to really keep piracy levels low.Nimbus said:
Hence why you tell the consumer. Not only will it help them know they're safe, but the pirate, if they know what they've done and have any intelligence at all, will be afraid to report it for fear of capture. In fact, if they DO report these problems, hopefully they will try to track down the poster and find out if indeed he is pirating. I think it's brilliant and has no downside to the customer.Asehujiko said:
With a combination of activation and CD check you should have a system that lets people resell games without much hassle. You can even loan the disk to a friend, if you activvated your copy already, so that you can play multiplayer games.rembrandtqeinstein said:
Well, except for that last part, this seems like a really good idea. Having a game engine randomly dick with pirates would be hilarious and hard to stop without breaking the game in the process.roekenny said:
It does not solve the real problem. Making and maintaining copy-protection costs money and pirates can circumvent all of it for free forever. Galactic Civilizations 2 was the best selling PC game of its release year and it had no copy-protection. If developers want people to stop pirating their games, they should abandon copy-protection and include cloth-maps with the retail release. That way legitimate customers get a better deal than pirates, so more people will choose to buy the game rather than pirate it.
This is much more along the lines of how I've felt on the subject. I am really tired of hearing the waaaaaa I hate DRM, waaaaa.
Regardless, I like the CD or online activation check and I love what Batman did, perhaps this but to a greater extent would be the best part.
Regardless, I like the CD or online activation check and I love what Batman did, perhaps this but to a greater extent would be the best part.
I agree. If someone looking on the forums on said game and finds lots of people complaining, that might mean loss of face of that game. On the other hand, when the same people read the critic reviews and review compilers who actually like the game, it will quickly become evident that the forums posters are showing the wrong picture.coldfrog said:
Not to mention that anyone who's got eyes in their head will be able to find the critic reviews, forums, and DRM information with one or a few quick web searches.
GTA IV had it to where if you use a no cd crack, you wouldn't be able to use the brakes on any cars you drive.
Cloth maps? Really? No offense to you collector types, but I can think of a lot of better ways to spend my money than on bonus gimmicks. Not to mention download purchases; let's see if Steam is ever going to give you a character statuette with your purchase.Sewblon said:
What I think the main problem is, as the developers see it, that a lot of pirates are potential customers. If games get harder to pirate, less people on the soft end of the pirate spectrum will choose to go through the hassle of downloading and mirroring and cracking and instead just buy the game. But anyone can see why this is a flawed premise. Not only does the negative publicity about the DRM turn off other potential buyers to your game, but more pirates will start to think 'screw that -insert developer here- and their SecuROM, I'm gonna pirate this game'. Even though pirating a game of a developer whose sale strategy you disagree with is a completely jackass move, people still do it.
And I still haven't seen a DRM strategy that takes this into consideration, because game developers are a business, and businesses will always take the high profit road over the high moral ground.