Removing DRM?

[CollinxChu]

What with the recent backlash at always-on connectivity being a requirement as of late, it's gotten me thinking about some things.

Services such as Steam, that require an internet connection to get started up or earn achievements or things to that effect (even though the DRM is optional, as shown by games like Terraria), at least to my knowledge, don't have any plans for DRM.

My question is, should there be?

I have a partial knowledge of how coding and programming works, though I'm no expert, but I've come to the conclusion that programming in a 'final patch' that would reverse the DRM (and set your games freeeeeeee) wouldn't be all that hard. Give the customers a small-scale emulator for your own servers and the services it brings with it, and allow them to continue using the games. This could apply to virtually any game or service.

So, again, I ask, should there be? And why isn't there?

 

[Alfador_VII]

Whether or not this option should exist, and personally I think it sounds like a good idea, it's fairly obvious why it's almost never done.

There's nothing in it for the publisher. If a game is far enough into it's lifecycle that they're planning on phasing out support totally, this means it has stopped selling, and is not earning them money.

Why would they divert resources from a current project into the non-trivial task of writing a server emulator for an obsolete game, when there is no possible return on it?

 

[Genocidicles]

There are always DRM removal cracks. No multiplayer, but then you wouldn't have been able to do that when they turn the servers off anyway.

Not exactly legal, but where do they get off saying what you can or cannot do with your own property?

 

[DoPo]

at least to my knowledge, don't have any plans for DRM.

My question is, should there be?

I don't know what you mean here.

I have a partial knowledge of how coding and programming works, though I'm no expert, but I've come to the conclusion that programming in a 'final patch' that would reverse the DRM (and set your games freeeeeeee) wouldn't be all that hard. Give the customers a small-scale emulator for your own servers and the services it brings with it, and allow them to continue using the games. This could apply to virtually any game or service.

So, again, I ask, should there be? And why isn't there?

OK, so what I can figure out is...you're asking why DRM isn't being removed. I don't know if you mean right now or sometime in the future, though. I'll try to cover it

- right now - why would it be removed? Besides, there are cracks readily available anyway - you don't really need to emulate Steam as the games can run without it. Also, cracks are (mostly) illegal
- in the future, I'd assume that means in the eventuality the authentication server is taken out (presumably, if a company goes out of business). Well, Valve have stated that they would be releasing a patch to allow people to still play their games in the eventuality they bankrupt. Now, would they do it is a different question we can't really answer right now, however, so is their going out of business part - it is a reasonable assumption that Steam would sooner change hands than just get its plug pulled. Yet, it'd still just be speculation right now. As for other services, no clue what they plan to do.

 

[Longstreet]

There are always DRM removal cracks. No multiplayer, but then you wouldn't have been able to do that when they turn the servers off anyway.

Not exactly legal, but where do they get off saying what you can or cannot do with your own property?

Perfectly legal actually, if you own the game you can do with it what you want. This includes a no-dvd / no drm crack. (This is also the reason why the statistics of pirated games are always bullshit)

Removing DRM in general is pretty easy. Look at SimCity. You had to delete TWO lines of code to prevent the online check in.

With the Xbone they were also able to just remove the DRM after all that backlash.

From what i understand from OP's question you are asking if there should be an option / patch to remove DRM from games? Yes it should. Especially when they are gonna stop supporting the game (look at darkspore)

My guess with steam is, that SHOULD they shut down (which will probably never happen, the last few years they doubled their revenue) You can still use the offline mode to play your games. Multiplayer wouldn't be available, but that's something that can happen to any game when there are just no more servers.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

There isn't really a particularly good argument for keeping the DRM in the long run. The vast majority of a game's sales take place in the first month of release and the bulk of those are in the first week. What's more, DRM has not, thus far, managed to actually deny piracy attempts for longer than a few weeks in the more successful cases - games that make it more than a month before they're fully cracked are the rarest legends in the field and even there they've relied on really insidious methods (Spyro's slowly breaking game, Batman's missing key ability, etc).

But, here is the other side of the coin. Removing DRM would not obviously lead to sales in most cases once well outside of the key sales/piracy window. Dumping money, even a few man hours of coding time, and then more on bandwidth to get it to customers, makes little sense when there are not significant sales to be gained. Those companies that believe strongly enough in such a maneuver generally opt to not have DRM in the first place.

 

[Lilani]

Services such as Steam, that require an internet connection to get started up or earn achievements or things to that effect (even though the DRM is optional, as shown by games like Terraria), at least to my knowledge, don't have any plans for DRM.

Well yeah Steam requires an internet connection to get started up, it's a digital distribution platform. You can only purchase games online, so of course you'd need a connection. Though that connection isn't required to play the games. I spent nine months playing games on Steam offline because my apartment Internet was terrible. It's only DRM as much as purchasing something on Amazon is. As soon as you've got the game downloaded, you never need to be online again.

And unlike games that require you to log into a server every time you play, the only time you'd be locked out of a game is if Steam completely shuts down as a service (which at this point would be like iTunes shutting down). Games that run through Steam aren't going to just up and shut down on you one day. They might stop updating, and they might even stop selling them in the store, but you can still play them. Online or off (as long as the game isn't an online game, like TF2).

EA is the company notorious for doing that, not Steam. They've got a huge list of games you can't play anymore because the servers shut down. Why they do this is obvious--they want people to buy the newest installment, and disabling the DRM so that you can play it without servers would take all the water out of their argument that "it doesn't run properly unless you're online!"

 

[Rossmallo]

I honestly think the only time DRM will ever, ever, EVER work is when we get into the insane cyberspace future where everyone in the world has unerring internet at all times. (which likely will never happen.) Until then, any DRM will be backlashed against, and actually promote piracy. If I may quote Extra Credits here real quick:

"If it's easier, think of pirates as (game developer's) competitors. "For Free" is already a difficunt deal to top, so why give them more of an advantage by them offering versions with the DRM stripped out?"

 

[Esotera]

Did I misread the OP or is it saying that Steam isn't DRM? Steam as a whole platform is DRM, with an online store built on top of it, it's just done quite well so it's not very noticeable.

Anyway, it depends on how the DRM is implemented, it might be really easy to hack or very hard. For instance, a game might use an algorithm to generate product keys that gives predictable patterns in some way, so you can write a program that generates keys to the same pattern (a keygen). For always-on games it's a lot harder as they tend to work on a client/server model - you need one to play the other. But the odds are someone has screwed up somewhere & there is a loophole in the code that can be exploited. As DRM is commonly added as an afterthought rather than part of the whole design process, this is even more true than for general programming...

 

[Rossmallo]

Did I misread the OP or is it saying that Steam isn't DRM? Steam as a whole platform is DRM, with an online store built on top of it, it's just done quite well so it's not very noticeable.

Anyway, it depends on how the DRM is implemented, it might be really easy to hack or very hard. For instance, a game might use an algorithm to generate product keys that gives predictable patterns in some way, so you can write a program that generates keys to the same pattern (a keygen). For always-on games it's a lot harder as they tend to work on a client/server model - you need one to play the other. But the odds are someone has screwed up somewhere & there is a loophole in the code that can be exploited. As DRM is commonly added as an afterthought rather than part of the whole design process, this is even more true than for general programming...

Aaaah, but see, this is the thing - Steam actually goes out of its way to actually make it feel like a service and not a shackle. While, yes, it being DRM it does have issues, it has so much more good than bad that most people don't feel cheated.

That and you can still play most stuff offline.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Well yeah Steam requires an internet connection to get started up, it's a digital distribution platform. You can only purchase games online, so of course you'd need a connection.

But I buy nearly all my PC games at retail and nearly all of them demand that I log in to Steam (and the internet) to authenticate them. Some, like Shogun 2, also mandate a download that my internet isn't currently equipped to deal with, rendering the game unplayable.

I didn't mind Steam too much when I first started using it, because my internet was good. Now my internet is shit and it's just a massive barrier between me and my games.

 

[crewreav]

"Services such as Steam don't have any plans for DRM."

You realise, Steam IS the DRM?

 

[Woodsey]

Services such as Steam, that require an internet connection to get started up or earn achievements or things to that effect (even though the DRM is optional, as shown by games like Terraria), at least to my knowledge, don't have any plans for DRM.

Uh, Steamworks is DRM, although its optional on the developer's part and simply owning something on Steam does not mean you need to run Steam.

Aside from that, I don't really understand the question. Publishers don't remove DRM because they want the DRM there because they think it protects against piracy.

 

[Irridium]

Well, this old (in internet years) blog post [http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1680] gets into this pretty well.

Basically, the reason many games don't have their DRM "officially" removed is because:

1: the original company is gone
2: the original company doesn't care
3: someone else owns the rights (could tie in to point 1) and they don't care
4: the game is old and the programmers won't remember the intricacies of the game's and DRM's code

 

[BloodSquirrel]

Perfectly legal actually, if you own the game you can do with it what you want. This includes a no-dvd / no drm crack. (This is also the reason why the statistics of pirated games are always bullshit)

It certainly isn't in the US, where the DMCA outlaws attempts to circumvent DRM.

 

[CollinxChu]

Did I misread the OP or is it saying that Steam isn't DRM?

You did.

Uh, Steamworks is DRM, although its optional on the developer's part and simply owning something on Steam does not mean you need to run Steam.

Aside from that, I don't really understand the question. Publishers don't remove DRM because they want the DRM there because they think it protects against piracy.

I know that steamworks is DRM. I meant that they have no official plans for removing it some time in the future, say if Steam starts to lose money and approaches the point of having to shut down.

snip

I'm aware of what you're saying, the point I was trying to make is that Valve -- one of the most beloved companies out there -- has no plans to speak of, which is a prime example of how little this idea is even attempted.

Well, Valve have stated that they would be releasing a patch to allow people to still play their games in the eventuality they bankrupt.

Well, looks like I have the proverbial foot in mouth, here. I was unaware that Valve had announced something like that.

Why would they divert resources from a current project into the non-trivial task of writing a server emulator for an obsolete game, when there is no possible return on it?

PR? Every company out there want to be as loved as Valve and still make a shit ton of money.

 

[Esotera]

Well, Valve have stated that they would be releasing a patch to allow people to still play their games in the eventuality they bankrupt. Now, would they do it is a different question we can't really answer right now, however, so is their going out of business part - it is a reasonable assumption that Steam would sooner change hands than just get its plug pulled. Yet, it'd still just be speculation right now. As for other services, no clue what they plan to do.

I've never really trusted this part - who would actually pay for them to remove the DRM? I'd imagine it's built into the software fundamentally, maybe they could create an exploit but they'd still need to distribute it, and servers aren't cheap...

I guess that's the problem with app stores & similar platforms - you have no guarantee that the things you buy are actually yours forever.

 

[DoPo]

Well, Valve have stated that they would be releasing a patch to allow people to still play their games in the eventuality they bankrupt. Now, would they do it is a different question we can't really answer right now, however, so is their going out of business part - it is a reasonable assumption that Steam would sooner change hands than just get its plug pulled. Yet, it'd still just be speculation right now. As for other services, no clue what they plan to do.

I've never really trusted this part - who would actually pay for them to remove the DRM? I'd imagine it's built into the software fundamentally, maybe they could create an exploit but they'd still need to distribute it, and servers aren't cheap...

Well, for what it's worth, it's not really hard, I assume - they just need to release a patch so instead of Steam using http://steampowered.com/authenticate (or whatever the actual URL is, if it even has a domain name) it would go to localhost. So you'll authenticate yourself. They'll also need to change the authntication token (I assume they use one), so instead of encrypted info, it could just return a plain string of "Authenticated", for example. But with that you will be able to have Steam and not need authentication. There is still the issue of the games, though - if they aren't hosted online, you'll have to actually have them. If they are hosted...well, who is hosting them.

However, as I said, whether they'd actually do it, I don't know, nor can I guess. It seems more likely that Steam wouldn't just go out of business - however bad it's going, it would be far more lucrative for somebody to just buy the service and try to keep it running - it has a userbase, if somebody goes "Hey, we'll provide you with all the games you had on Steam before", I'd imagine a very large portion of the users would go for it.

 

[Lilani]

Why would they divert resources from a current project into the non-trivial task of writing a server emulator for an obsolete game, when there is no possible return on it?

PR? Every company out there want to be as loved as Valve and still make a shit ton of money.

I'm not so sure that Valve would have the authority to do that. Let's say we've got a game called Space Buddies, and Space Buddies requires a connection to server to run. This server wouldn't have anything to do with Steam, because apart from when you download the game, running a game on Steam by itself doesn't require a connection (except for online multiplayer games, of course, but their connection requirement is because of the game itself, not because of DRM). This server would be run by the dev/publisher of Space Buddies. Since it isn't Valve's IP, it isn't Valve's server. And if it isn't Valve's server, then I don't see how they could develop or distribute an emulator to run it after the dev/publisher of Space Buddies decides to take their server down. This would be like Valve making an emulator for all those games EA has made that you can't play anymore because their servers shut down (like the old FIFA games and such).

And every game engine is different, so it's not like Valve can just make some "master emulator" and sell it to devs and publishers whose games require constant connection. It would have to be custom-made for every single game.

 

[Greg White]

Services such as Steam, that require an internet connection to get started up or earn achievements or things to that effect (even though the DRM is optional, as shown by games like Terraria), at least to my knowledge, don't have any plans for DRM.

Uh, Steamworks is DRM, although its optional on the developer's part and simply owning something on Steam does not mean you need to run Steam.

Aside from that, I don't really understand the question. Publishers don't remove DRM because they want the DRM there because they think it protects against piracy.

It does a decent enough job at times. Multi-stage DRM can take weeks to crack and some games(like Crysis and Game Dev Tycoon) have creative ways of dealing with piracy.

That said, Steam's DRM is hardly noticeable since it handles all of it automatically.