Anti-piracy bullshit only serves to alienate the company from their target consumers. It makes them appear as money grubbing fat cats and only serves to make more people pirate. You can never stay ahead of piracy, it's simple statistics. For every one person defending copyright there are a hundred thousand who oppose it. In a war between corporations and consumers, corporations can't win. Thats capitalism 101. The best you can do is be polite, give good reason to pay, and accept that not veryone is out to rip you off.
How would you implement DRM?
- Thread starter playinthedark
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Y'all are being too idealistic. I'd go hyper-draconian in that situation. Because DRM doesn't stop people from buying games. I'd go whole hog. Online requirement to play the game, online activation every thirteen seconds, password from the manual at each checkpoint. One install. Subsequent installs require a notarized request.
I'd have some fun with it!
I'd have some fun with it!
I wouldn't use any apart from a colossal 300digit serial number.
Furthermore, the extra profits I made from not being boycotted would go to employing a team of men with hammers who would go around smashing up pirate bay style enterprises, the people who run them, and the people who use them.
I, for one, am more worried about a hammer to the face than paying a fine.
Edit: Fuck the legality, you break the law to harm my enterprise; I break the law to harm your face with a hammer.
Furthermore, the extra profits I made from not being boycotted would go to employing a team of men with hammers who would go around smashing up pirate bay style enterprises, the people who run them, and the people who use them.
I, for one, am more worried about a hammer to the face than paying a fine.
Edit: Fuck the legality, you break the law to harm my enterprise; I break the law to harm your face with a hammer.
I'd go the Stardock road: Sure, you can pirate the game... But you sure as hell won't be getting no patches, content updates, proper multiplayer or anything else shiny.
I'd also include some incentive for buying, perhaps an art book, a "thank you" note or a way to access some shiny in-game stuff.
I'd also include some incentive for buying, perhaps an art book, a "thank you" note or a way to access some shiny in-game stuff.
A basic disc check or something like that to prevent the most basic piracy by clueless kids.
Any more than that is pointless, since if a person's technical knowledge has reached the point where he can look up and download a crack, any DRM I might think of will be rendered useless. At the same time, if an individual doesn't have the basic knowledge to find and download a crack, then even the most basic copy protection will stop them from pirating.
Beyond that, I'd focus on preventing Day 1 (or earlier) piracy.
This I would achieve by making the non-intrusive DRM that I'm using embedded in multiple files and would task programmers to make it as time-consuming to remove as possible. Also, I would make each game a minefield of glitches and bugs activated when the disc is copied (like the Arkham Asylum thing). While all this WILL be circumvented eventually, it will slow down the process of achieving a fully functional pirate copy, hopefully delaying the pirates by up to a week. This will have a positive effect on my sales.
I'd look into providing superior service, with free DLC, frequent and expedient patching of any problems in the game and online community support. I'd make people wish to buy the original game and give me their money. And I'd reward them for it.
But yeah, reading this thread I can see a lot of people don't seem to support the "Provide a superior product/service" approach and instead try to think of ever more convoluted DRM plans. Seriously, dongles?
EDIT:
I'd bring back cartridges. Yes, even for PCs. That'd make pirating trickier...
Any more than that is pointless, since if a person's technical knowledge has reached the point where he can look up and download a crack, any DRM I might think of will be rendered useless. At the same time, if an individual doesn't have the basic knowledge to find and download a crack, then even the most basic copy protection will stop them from pirating.
Beyond that, I'd focus on preventing Day 1 (or earlier) piracy.
This I would achieve by making the non-intrusive DRM that I'm using embedded in multiple files and would task programmers to make it as time-consuming to remove as possible. Also, I would make each game a minefield of glitches and bugs activated when the disc is copied (like the Arkham Asylum thing). While all this WILL be circumvented eventually, it will slow down the process of achieving a fully functional pirate copy, hopefully delaying the pirates by up to a week. This will have a positive effect on my sales.
I'd look into providing superior service, with free DLC, frequent and expedient patching of any problems in the game and online community support. I'd make people wish to buy the original game and give me their money. And I'd reward them for it.
But yeah, reading this thread I can see a lot of people don't seem to support the "Provide a superior product/service" approach and instead try to think of ever more convoluted DRM plans. Seriously, dongles?
EDIT:
I'd bring back cartridges. Yes, even for PCs. That'd make pirating trickier...
Yeah because pissing off the people who download before they buy has never resulted in a huge disaster on the developer's side, just go ask Iron Lore about their success stories.Pararaptor said:
The best DRM is building up customer loyalty. Patching for more then a few weeks after the game comes out, expansion packs that are worth their money, decent customer support, modding tools, lan support(prevent 30% of your piracy right here) and communication with(with and not only to) the players.
Any idea why BIS is a tiny studio that everybody but their most rabid fans ignores for only producing buggy games? FADE is why. Any idea why Asscreed 2 on the pc is being outsold 2:1 by napoleon tw(a buggy piece of shit sequel to an already notorious piece of shit?)? Ubi.com and the fact that it's permanently offline is why. Any idea why IL went bankrupt? Trick question because that's due to dow:ss being a steaming pile of horse manure although the PR disaster with TQ certainly didn't help either.Jandau said:
Pirates have an opinion like everybody else. And if you invest massive amounts of money and time into making them think that your game sucks, don't be surprised when they voice their sentiments and that your prospective buyers think twice.
I wouldn't make it harder for people to pirate a game, that would be silly. I'd tell them to link the game to a social network, add achievements, new free DLCs, automatic updates, comics, fun stories, little things that feel like a reward for those that bought the game, bigger things that make it very accessible, easy to just pick up and play.
Pirates are humans. Humans work by a "do for reward" principle. Reward people for buying the game and get more customers.
Pirates are humans. Humans work by a "do for reward" principle. Reward people for buying the game and get more customers.
Steam is as far as I'm willing to go. They sweeten the deal with stupid cheap game sales and I've never had a single problem playing a game I bought off steam, online or off. I used to put all my game shortcuts into a folder on the desktop but steam pretty well does that for me in it's interface.
It works, but boy did it have growing pains. I believe it was Counterstrike 1.6 it launched with. Massive hassle.
edit
Also, it should really go without saying that the best DRM is treating your customers well. Give them little incentives, it doesn't need to be much, to buy legally and they will. Cool packaging, maps, books, little things. When you treat them like criminals before they've even bought your product don't expect the relationship to end well.
It works, but boy did it have growing pains. I believe it was Counterstrike 1.6 it launched with. Massive hassle.
edit
Also, it should really go without saying that the best DRM is treating your customers well. Give them little incentives, it doesn't need to be much, to buy legally and they will. Cool packaging, maps, books, little things. When you treat them like criminals before they've even bought your product don't expect the relationship to end well.
SaaS = Software as a Service
Nothing gets downloaded, so you are just playing online with software that is hosted on a server. You can use downloadable tools to create custom character classes / items / game levels, but you can't run them offline, because all the software required to do that is online.
Dedicated Server licenses are sold separately, so you can host your own games where-ever you like. All the classes are sealed, so you can't actually get into the code, but is carefully exposed to allow for Dedicated Server support. Every license allows one install through a generated key that needs to be activated online. If a new key is required it has to be requested from the main site with the original key: once a new key is generated the old one is scrapped, and will never work again. So, basically you get unlimited installs, but only one of them will work at a time.
Nothing gets downloaded, so you are just playing online with software that is hosted on a server. You can use downloadable tools to create custom character classes / items / game levels, but you can't run them offline, because all the software required to do that is online.
Dedicated Server licenses are sold separately, so you can host your own games where-ever you like. All the classes are sealed, so you can't actually get into the code, but is carefully exposed to allow for Dedicated Server support. Every license allows one install through a generated key that needs to be activated online. If a new key is required it has to be requested from the main site with the original key: once a new key is generated the old one is scrapped, and will never work again. So, basically you get unlimited installs, but only one of them will work at a time.
Developers REALLY went into this whole thing with a wrong mindset because it's easier for them this way - you shouldn't waste money on trying to prevent piracy, you should spend it on incentives to make people buy your games (and I'm not talking about pre-order material here, god forbid). These millions of dollars that probably go into producing useless DRMs could've been spent WAY better simply by investing them in actual game DEVELOPMENT process.
Developers need to take some control into their hands and not leave in some clueless CEO's who's never played a game in his life before.
Developers need to take some control into their hands and not leave in some clueless CEO's who's never played a game in his life before.
Yeah I had to agree with the guy that you quoted.AlanShore said:
Anyway, I think that a summary of what video game companies need to do to lessen piracy but get rid of DRM is in order:
1. Get CEO's that gamers respect. None of this Kotik bullshit.
2. Use the device that we were just talking about.
3. Charge even less for Steam and Impulse products.
4. Legitimize the cost of in store disc purchases by adding MATERIAL extras. Colored Manuals. Maps. Dev Sketches. A letter from the Dev team. Toy. Whatever. Anything that makes a person can put in their hand.
5. Do what bands of today do and sell merchandise to try to get money out of your fans that happen to be pirates of your product but would like an AssAss Creed 2 shirt, for example.
6. Give a CD key for Free DLC and other extras. Including but not limited to Beta Keys or simply coupons for the company's next product.