What can Developers & Publishers do to combat Piracy?

[Something Amyss]

once internet standards increase a good Always on DRM will come around and that will be that.

Not saying it will happen soon.
Nor that it won't piss people off.

But such us the way of things (the first wave of always on drm, in assasins creed was terrible, but take darkspore, that works pretty well when iv been playing it.

So yeah hold tight kiddies, and upgrade your internet

There will always be problems with always-on DRM, and the problems with the AC2 DRM was an example of that. It wasn't "bad internet standards"that caused the problem.

I'm betting "darkspore's" DRM is similar, and if soemthing goes wrong, will be every bit as bad.

People frequently assume that, since everything's going right, it will continue to do so. But people were all "what's the problem? You have broadband, don't you?" Before AC2 came out. It's only WHEN something fails that people tend to get a clue.

 

[Laxman9292]

You can if you want to get hung up on technicalities and shit but the point is that you now have a game that you didn't have before that should have cost money, but didn't... clearly immoral no matter what technicality you want to call it, or how much you want to ***** about it not being a lost sale, or that the companies are greedy (hint: wanting something for free is greedy too...). When it comes down to it it's getting something free that you should have paid for = wrong.

Yes, why let little things like accuracy get in the way when there are heart strings to be tugged at! Which is exactly what using words like "stealing", "criminal" and "thief" is trying to do, get support by appealing to emotion. It's got to stop, it's totally inaccurate and misrepresents what is going on.

No it really doesn't is embezzling any better than grand larceny? Does defrauding investors become less wrong than robbing a 7-11? It's all semantics but it doesn't hide that getting something for free that you should have paid for is cheating the system in some way, which is unethical.

 

[Laxman9292]

You can if you want to get hung up on technicalities and shit but the point is that you now have a game that you didn't have before that should have cost money, but didn't... clearly immoral no matter what technicality you want to call it, or how much you want to ***** about it not being a lost sale, or that the companies are greedy (hint: wanting something for free is greedy too...). When it comes down to it it's getting something free that you should have paid for = wrong.

Yes, why let little things like accuracy get in the way when there are heart strings to be tugged at! Which is exactly what using words like "stealing", "criminal" and "thief" is trying to do, get support by appealing to emotion. It's got to stop, it's totally inaccurate and misrepresents what is going on.

No it really doesn't is embezzling any better than grand larceny? Does defrauding investors become less wrong than robbing a 7-11? It's all semantics but it doesn't hide that getting something for free that you should have paid for is cheating the system in some way, which is unethical.

Well in that case I'll refer to copyright infringement as murder then. Who cares? They're both wrong so it shouldn't matter that they're completely different. What a stupid thing to say. It's not called theft for a reason, because they're not the same thing. Call it for what it is.

I'm just saying that in terms of flat out morality it's wrong. It shouldn't matter to degrees because you shouldn't be breaking the law in the first place, is the point I'm going for. Not trying to call pirating murder, nice straw man. I'm just saying in terms of flat out ethics, you shouldn't be pirating nor murdering.

 

[Pyro Paul]

Best way to combat piracy?
Pirate your own game.

 

[Laxman9292]

I'm just saying that in terms of flat out morality it's wrong. It shouldn't matter to degrees because you shouldn't be breaking the law in the first place, is the point I'm going for. Not trying to call pirating murder, nice straw man. I'm just saying in terms of flat out ethics, you shouldn't be pirating nor murdering.

Calling it copyright infringement doesn't suddenly mean that you think it's ok. The point I'm going for is they're two separate things so label them accordingly, degrees doesn't come into it, just call it what it is.

Ok, I'll give you that. But the way some people use it to defend pirating along with the other ways just irks me because no matter what you think of it or how you justify it, on the most basic level it is wrong. Hell if people would just admit that I'd be less mad at them. But most still try to maintain an image that they are fighting against injustice and shit like that but really the law does not fall on the side of the pirates because at the fundamental level, getting something for nothing is wrong.

 

[esperandote]

Give each game a unique id and register the key with a code that uses the machines mac.

 

[Shru1kan]

Make a great game so that consumers will pay the developer to make more great games.

Because only bad games get pirated? I point you towards the Arkham Asylum example above.

It must be nice having opinions. Because I totally hated Arkham Asylum with it's simplistic QTE-esque combat.

There will always be piracy, people will always want things for free. So instead of wasting money on DRM, why don't the developers simply use that to make an even better experience?

 

[goldendriger]

Simple. Make it cheaper.

Id gladly spend cash im on the fence about if it wasnt £40 but rather £25.

Im not weighted down with money, so i cant afford to buy every game i want brand new, so i buy pre owned. Which makes me a spawn of satan apparently.

 

[esperandote]

Give each game a unique id and register the key with a code that uses the machines mac.

A MAC address can be spoofed or the check could be disabled. Also, what happens if you change your motherboard / NIC card or just want to install it onto another computer you own? You're screwed or have to faff around with customer support which, like all DRM schemes, makes the pirated version better.

I don't know about spoofing the MAC but they could give each disc 2 keys for those cases. Extra keys could be 10$ like project 10.

 

[Bobic]

Make a great game so that consumers will pay the developer to make more great games.

Because only bad games get pirated? I point you towards the Arkham Asylum example above.

It must be nice having opinions. Because I totally hated Arkham Asylum with it's simplistic QTE-esque combat.

There will always be piracy, people will always want things for free. So instead of wasting money on DRM, why don't the developers simply use that to make an even better experience?

Yes, but while you didn't like it, surely you can accept that it can be judged as a good game as it was generally well received (it even made the usually hate filled, unpleasable Yahtzee name it GOTY and has a metacritic score of 91 on PC)? Or even if you choose to disagree about that there must be some games you've liked that have been heavily pirated, because, you know, pretty much every game gets pirated.

 

[esperandote]

Give each game a unique id and register the key with a code that uses the machines mac.

A MAC address can be spoofed or the check could be disabled. Also, what happens if you change your motherboard / NIC card or just want to install it onto another computer you own? You're screwed or have to faff around with customer support which, like all DRM schemes, makes the pirated version better.

I don't know about spoofing the MAC but they could give each disc 2 keys for those cases. Extra keys could be 10$ like project 10.

I see where you're going, but for me, that kind of scheme would just make me want to fire up uTorrent and head over to the nearest private torrent tracker. Say I install the game on my main rig and on my laptop, I've now used up my quota of keys. Now if I upgrade the motherboard the MAC address will have changed and now I need to spend $10 on new keys for EVERY game that uses that DRM scheme. Plus, it would also prevent me from doing what I do now, which is going to friends houses and signing in to my steam account on their spare computers rather than bringing my own computer.

I really think the best policy is to ditch DRM completely, you'll never design a scheme that is uncrackable so it's best to live with that and stop inconveniencing paying customers.

Wouldn't that make pirating even easier?

That scheme could be used for retail copies, on line services could use othere methods like checking that accounts are logged only once at a time.

 

[Something Amyss]

in the 6 months i have owned darkspore it had around a week and a half of being retarded, and that was due to the bf3 beta, which is a good enough uptime rating for me.

And "I haven't had a problem; it's a good system" is utterly stupid. If AC2 had not had a failure, the problem would have been there. However, you would likely be championing it.

That's basically all I need to say to address your specious arguments.

The flaws in the system are still there even when not readily apparent. That a drunk driver can drive home safely on any given night doesn't mean it's a good idea to give drunks their keys.

 

[JohnHunter]

Best thing they can do is just give up. It's pointless to try, because there's always SOMEONE who can 'hack and crack' any game.

(I cried a bit when I read that Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7 on the PC was delayed because they found a 'problem' with it's DRM.)