Copy Protection

Thanks

from Sins Forums
I realize this is not a direct technical question but it does have to do with technical side of the game.

I wanted to thank the development team for not harassing me with copy protection. I don't know what the extent of the copy protection is included with this game but It seems you have figured out that most people are annoyed with wasting 2+ gigs of hard drive space and still need the disk in the drive to play.

Copy protection on most games makes the game play experience worse. I am required to play with the disk in. I can't run a game because Roxio or AnyDVD is installed and is similar to a disk emulator, and the big deal killer, the game needs to "call home" every 10 days or it shuts down. All these copy protection schemes make me, the legal buyer of the game have a worse experience than people who pirate a game. How is this helpful to anyone?

I never realized how much putting a disk in the drive to play a game annoyed me until sins of a solar empire entered my life. There have been may days when I wanted to play another game but ended up playing sins because I didn't need to hunt down the disk.

It seems you have figured out that people who don't pirate should have a better experience than people who do pirate the game. Thank you stardock for making my gaming a better experience! Its this kind of attitude of treating customers like customers and not like criminals that make loyal customers and helps the entire PC gaming industry. I eagerly await your new releases!

Thanks

technical
1,711 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
I don't know what the extent of the copy protection is included with this game but It seems you have figured out that most people are annoyed with wasting 2+ gigs of hard drive space and still need the disk in the drive to play.
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Basically, Sins has no copy protection, only DRM. The disc itself you can do anything with. You can copy it, play without it. There's no physical copy protection on the disc and the software doesn't care if it's in the drive or not.

The only DRM Sins has is online activation. It isn't required to play, so you can always install from the disc and jump in. The activation is only required for patches - basically downloading patches through SDC/Impulse checks that your game is registered. And obviously, you can't play MP without the latest patched version (and the unique cd key).

So you're right, it's pretty lenient and honest-gamer-friendly :)
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I never personally minded being required to have the disc in the drive. Don't get me wrong, it's wonderful that you don't have to, but it was never a big sticking point for me.

What I hate is bad DRM. Stardock's model is a prime example of good DRM that doesn't punish the customer, does not impose arbitrary and artificial limitations on your use of it, and actually gives people a reason to have a legit copy of the game.

The DRM included on Mass Effect, on the other hand, is a prime example of pathetically horrible, bad DRM. Any DRM/copy protection* that interferes with your legitimate software (like Roxio, Nero, Daemon Tools, Alcohol, etc.) is another example of bad DRM.

*Does anyone else laugh out loud at this term? 'Copy protection'. Yeah, since when has it actually done what it's supposed to? Yet gaming companies keep throwing money at SonyDMC, StarForce and others when it never, ever works. Just makes me shake my head.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Does anyone else laugh out loud at this term? 'Copy protection'. Yeah, since when has it actually done what it's supposed to? Yet gaming companies keep throwing money at SonyDMC, StarForce and others when it never, ever works. Just makes me shake my head.
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Strictly speaking, it does work. I haven't looked at it extensively for several years, but I studied methods of disc copy protections back at the uni. I would imagine the more modern copy protection schemes still leave a physical imprint on the disc itself (bad sectors was a common one) that the program .exe will pick up and know the disc is original. Copying the disc cannot re-create this physical deformity, so the program knows the disc is not an original and does not run.

That's basically the essense of copy protection, to require the "original" disc. Cracks are workarounds, obviously, but the basic method does what it's supposed to, just that it doesn't matter in the end. Of course, people also erroneously use the term "copy protection" when referring to DRM ;)

Copy protection is pretty quickly becoming outdated in the age of digital distribution, so DRM/activations are becoming more common. But in the older days before everyone and their dog had high speed internet and there was no digital distribution, copy protection was everything since publishers needed more to prevent physical copying of disc contents ;)
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Good point. However, it still makes be laugh. This 'copy protection' is invariably touted on publisher or developer websites as necessary 'to protect our product from piracy'. Yeah, that works.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Well, there are still less internets-savvy people who wouldn't know where to go to find a crack, for example. So for us, most protection schemes are pretty meaningless since if we wanted we could work around it. But I imagine that it's actually a deterrent to some.

I'd be surprised if those publisher/developer marketing people didn't crunch out all the numbers to juggle the cost of putting the protection on vs 'lost' sales (though tracking lost sales accurately should be a mess).

I guess their rationale for it is, if you make it as much of a PITA as possible, people would just say screw it and go buy it. In reality, what happens more often is if you make buying it as painless as possible, people will say screw it and not pirate :P