Draconian DRM and how it can kill sales

[kenu12345]

*sighs* does noone here know the meaning of the word tone

 

[fisk0]

*Sits down and reads Escapist Forum*
*Notices people complain about being online when playing games*
*Realizes they are online complaining instead of playing*
*laughs*


For some reason, that is what happens everytime I read this.
You come onto the Escapist and complain about DRM, yet you are currently online and not playing the game. Chances are you are online a good 75% of the time, yet you still complain about it even when it shouldn't be an issue at this time. Then again, I was blessed to be born in the middle of bumfuck nowhere with great internet and the small times when I have no internet, I play something else... or read a book.

You're missing a pretty important step here. It isn't just about you being connected to the Internet. It's also about adding at least two possible points of failure - your end, their end and possibly the link between (which happens regularly if we're dealing with servers on separate continents). You could have a fully operating 1gigabit/s line, but if their server is down or inaccessible (they're indie developers, I don't think we can assume that they can have EU, US, African and Austrian, Russian, Chinese and Japanese servers to minimize the latency and the amount of nodes between the client and host machine), you're out of luck playing a game that's marketed as a game with a significant single player campaign. Especially when it's not just a one time online authentication like what Steam games usually do, but needs an continous connection to a server at an unknown location, with an unknown capacity.

Also, while the idea of bandwidth caps might seem ridiculous to most Internet users in Europe, in the US it seems pretty common, and then having a game - which you're playing alone - unnecessarily and opaquely transmitting an unknown amount of data in the background could be disastrous for your Internet bill.

 

[Worgen]

Never heard of this game. Will continue to never hear about it after this.

*Sits down and reads Escapist Forum*
*Notices people complain about being online when playing games*
*Realizes they are online complaining instead of playing*
*laughs*


For some reason, that is what happens everytime I read this.
You come onto the Escapist and complain about DRM, yet you are currently online and not playing the game. Chances are you are online a good 75% of the time, yet you still complain about it even when it shouldn't be an issue at this time. Then again, I was blessed to be born in the middle of bumfuck nowhere with great internet and the small times when I have no internet, I play something else... or read a book.

Mkay. Basically, the only time when DRM is a problem is when it hinders the enjoyment of the game. If you can't get to a game, I'd say the DRM is pretty detrimental. And then there's the objective decrease in the game's quality due to unnecessary delay. Do explain if you think any DRM is worth complaining about, though, I'm all ears. Because you seem to have just said that not being able to get to a game a quarter of one's fucking time is just fine and dandy.

Do I have to actually spell out the reasons for not being able to get to the game for you? Does your "I play something else"[footnote]Never mind the probability that I wouldn't want to play something else at that time.[/footnote] babble account for the possibility of people like you ushering in an age where practically every game has DRM like this? Yeah, you go read a fucking book and don't condescendingly tell people how to spend their time, how about that.

By the way, some people have an internet connection that's barely good enough for browsing (e.g. visiting the Escapist), and completely shitty when it comes to any sort of gaming. Just thought you'd know.

Don't be so angry. I never said what YOU should do. I am just saying what I do and what MY opinions are on the subject. Isn't that the point of a forum? Expressing opinions about the subject at hand? I don't promote DRM, yet I don't care if it is there anyway either as it doesn't affect ME. Which was the point of my paragraph that I had written.

I remember that I posted about this on my last post on this page. Do you even read the entire thread before angrily insulting someone?

DRM like this comes down to this, do you like to feel like you own your game? DRM that requires constant connection takes away that feeling, you know your only renting the game until the servers are down. There was a rather big fuss when they finally took away the online play for halo 2, imagine if that also stopped you from being able to play the single player.

Hm, didn't think about that. I know this will happen eventually to some games like Tribes: Ascend and World of Warcraft, which does irk me a bit as I have spent quite a bit of time within those worlds. I do wish they would create an entire file of each of the iterations of those games (specifically the latter) where you could just go jump into the world, albeit solo or on Local internet or instanced areas created from your personal computer so it can live on.

However in Halo 2, while the Competitive Multiplayer is dead, isn't Co-Op and LAN still perfectly usable? So it isn't like that entire "experience" is completely dead. It can live on in smaller droves in more personal settings.

Now for other DRM, aren't 99% of them much like STEAM where, once the servers are down, you can play the games offline whenever you want? I know Blizzard said Diablo would work that way, as did Valve with most of their games. However some of these smaller competitors like the company who is being spoke of in this thread, I know nothing about in how their DRM practices work.

Lan play and split screen are still available on halo 2 but thats because it was made in a time when internet connections on the xbox were still rather rare, imagine if the game was something like diablo 3 where it requires always on connections for anything and doesn't have lan play at all, now I doubt blizzard is going out of business anytime soon but it makes a good example.

It varies between services, the ubisoft one originally would kick you out of the game if it disconnected for any reason and had no offline mode at all. I've heard they have recently backed off on that but apparently when farcry 3 launched in europe the drm servers were down and it was a huge pain in the ass getting it to play without them. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/30/far-cry-3-servers-down-already-ubi-this-is-a-mess/

The games for windows live drm is just a huge pain in the ass, it does work offline... kinda. Some games require you to update it which, at least with xp, was a huge pain since the service wouldn't update itself so you had look around online to find the update, then dl it then wait for the update to go though then start the client and wait again while it installed itself slowly.

Ultimately I like steam, but I harbor no illusions about what it is, and I worry about what will happen to it once Gabe retires.

 

[Something Amyss]

Ubisoft saw a 90% drop in their PC sales when they enacted their DRM policies.

They claimed that there was a 90% piracy rate in general. Slightly different.

Blizzard lost a lot of respect from their fans over Diablo 3's DRM.

And is one of the most successful companies around right now. That hurt them, how?

EA actually got damaged by the backlash against Mass Effect 3. THQ was actually hurt by its business decisions. Blizzard is sleeping on a bed of money.

Ubisoft was so effected by the hate for DRM, the removed it.

They removed it on older games and still do it on newer ones. Not exactly the impact you make it out to be.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Ubisoft saw a 90% drop in their PC sales when they enacted their DRM policies.

They claimed that there was a 90% piracy rate in general. Slightly different.
The 90% drop in sales is a fact that has been linked a few times in this thread. If there was a 90% piracy rate of Ubisoft games that would probably have put them in the same boat as THQ or dropping PC support completely.

Blizzard lost a lot of respect from their fans over Diablo 3's DRM.

And is one of the most successful companies around right now. That hurt them, how?
A lot of people are not going to be buying Blizzard games, that's how. With the Mist of Pandaria's retail sales showing significantly lower sales than other WoW expansions, that's already happening. People have been getting sick of Blizzard since Starcraft 2's handling. People don't want invasive DRM for a game that they play single player. People don't want to play Kung Fu Panda. Doesn't matter that the Panderans are in Warcraft lore, they were still a borderline April Fool Easter egg.

EA actually got damaged by the backlash against Mass Effect 3.
More Bioware than EA. Look at how many key people left Bioware. The founders, the Mass Effect scriptwriter, one of the lead designers. Bioware is dying slowly due to Bioware, not EA for once.
THQ was actually hurt by its business decisions.

Agreed, though trying to make their games into DLC money farms didn't help.

Blizzard is sleeping on a bed of money.
You're point? They've lost a lot of respect. And unless they make a new IP, World of Warcraft is slowly dying, Diablo 3 has pissed too many people for people to trust a 4th entry into the series if it happens, and Starcraft 2's Battle.net has kneecapped interest in that game, along with the way that they are releasing one race per expansion pack. Blizzard's main cash cow is WoW and that game is losing to LoL and a lot of Free 2 Play games. Hell, Guild Wars 2 is taking chunks of the WoW populous. Point is, Blizzard has no upcoming project at all, nothing to be excited over, and a lot of lost trust.

Ubisoft was so effected by the hate for DRM, the removed it.

They removed it on older games and still do it on newer ones. Not exactly the impact you make it out to be.

Umm, not really? Considering AC3 came out with no DRM I have trouble believing that statement.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

So far with DRM it's either strict "draconian" laws that paradoxically lead to piracy or companies like EA running around fixing their own mess (i.e. Spore, Mass Effect). We have yet to see the companies compromising.