Poll: Does DRM ever actually affect your purchase?

[OniaPL]

Often when a company announces that their game will have heavy DRM, always online -requirement or that you need to use Steam or Origin to play it, there are some people that react to this negatively and shout all over the internet and forums that they shall not purchase this product. However, when the release day arrives, a lot of these people (from my experience) go out and purchase the game.

My question is this: When you have had a problem with some form of DRM, has it made you avoid purchasing the game that you were originally going to get?

 

[Tanis]

There are several games I'll play because of DRM.

I am not a criminal, you want to treat me as one you loose my money.

 

[Aris Khandr]

I voted no, but the answer is actually 'maybe'. I have Steam. I have Origin. I have GFWL. I don't care about that. I've heard some bad things about SecuROM making parts of your computer not work, so I might be a bit hesitant about that. But my computer is pretty much only offline during power outages, so I'm not that concerned about always on DRM.

 

[Nyquisted]

I quite wary of Ubisoft games after the Assassin's Creed 2 debacle.

 

[babinro]

No.

My worst experiences with DRM come from Games for Windows Live and even then it just means that I can't play games I want for about 3 days while my account gets reinstated. They won't let me change the email I use because I'm a PC gamer without a 360 which leads to problems since I used my spam email for the service without realizing these problems would come up.

For everything else, it's just a minor inconvenience that seldom takes up more than a couple minutes of my time. I would never let those couple minutes prevent me from buying a game I'm interested in.

 

[mrF00bar]

I likely won't be getting some games I would like to play because of DRM, after my experience with Settlers 7 I am always careful about games with DRM.

 

[DanielBrown]

No, I never pay attention to it. I'm always hooked up, unless there's something wrong with the broadband, so it doesn't really matter to me.

 

[hazabaza1]

Can't really think of a time it has. Of course, if it's stuff like Ubisoft's always online jazz, I'll probably just get it on console instead anyway.

 

[Akimoto]

Being a former programmer I'm usually suspicious of DRM but as long as i can play the game offline AFTER registering it online it's not much of a problem. My gaming com is pretty much a valid cannon fodder. If Origin wants to peek at my com, at most the dudes back there can have a good laugh at my system.

 

[Klumpfot]

Yep. It has affected a lot of my purchases, the first being my refusal to buy Spore a few years back.

 

[Jandau]

Yes. I've given up on Ubisoft games completely.

I wanted Heroes 6, Anno 2070, the last few Assassin's Creed games. These were all games in franchises that I love and would like to play. But I refuse to buy from Ubisoft. In part because I don't want to risk their DRM (had some bad experiences with AssCreed2) and in part on general principle because I don't want my money to directly support business practices that I disagree with.

I'll be skipping on Origin as well, though there haven't been any games on it worth playing thus far. TOR won't require it, so I'm safe there. The one problem that I forsee here where I might buckle are Bioware games. If they start to require Origin, I'll have a big problem. I don't want to support Origin, but I really love Bioware games.

 

[endtherapture]

After Arkham City, I'm never buying another game with GFWL again, Awful experience.

 

[NathLines]

Yes and no. I don't really care about DRM in games that I want. I have a good internet connection. And if a game that I bought just won't work/messes something up because of it's DRM, I could just pirate the game until they fix it. So in that way; no, DRM doesn't affect my purchase.

BUT I did pre-order The Witcher 2 because of CD-Projekt's stance on DRM. So, in that way, yes.

 

[fenrizz]

Yes it does.

I did not buy Spore because of it, and I won't be buying any Ubisoft games in the forseeable future.
Nor will I be getting Diablo III, despite how deeply I loved Diablo II.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Sorry Arkham City, Selling half a game and offering the other via an online pass is shameful. Unless you came with free money, I won't play you and I'd certainly never spend a penny on you.

Sorry Ubisoft, You've made it clear what you think of PC gamers and draconian online connections required for single player games is unacceptable. We had fun for some time, we won't anymore.

Sorry Origin, You're despicable marketing, forcing yourself onto games that don't need you, actually withdrawing your games from Steam and further, draconian Ts&Cs that try to make you immune to prosecution whilst reserving (and exercising) your "right" to cut off any user, any time for any thing, stealing their money and legitimately purchased games...you're thieves. I wouldn't be with you if you were the only source of games on the planet.

 

[minimacker]

I was genuinely interested in Battlefield 3. But I've been following the progress of Origin and I don't like how they went.
First they had some fishy business in their user agreement, then they changed the wording a little, but it still gave them the same privileges.

Seriously, if this is how you want to treat the damn customers.

 

[Dandark]

It has never affected my purchases but that is only because I have not yet wanted a game that had heavy DRM. Before it was cancelled it was announced STALKER 2 was going to have always on DRM which completely put me off the idea of buying it.

 

[Vault101]

they have essentially killed what little interest I had in diablo 3

but I did buy assasins creed 2..yeah Im a horrible drone