Stupid DRM! » Forum Post by seanw3

I hate to say it but it is rather valid.

DRM HAS to be on the list of things you research before you purchase a game. With the number of hoops we are expected to jump through for some drm systems, a person should really check to see if they are willing and able to jump through those hoops before buying a game.

Its sad that gaming has gotten to this point but it is what it is. Many games I eagerly wanted to get my hands on have decided to use what I consider unacceptable DRM methods which lead me to forgoing the game completely (I'm looking at you steamworks,ubisoft .. and others)

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I have 2 games on steam and i hate it. So much so i don't play them anymore Civ5 and Fallout:New Vegas.

I did hang in there long enough to beat Fallout though.

I hate the way steam logs in evertime i want to play and i really really hate all the in you face ads with steam.

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Quoting MageMatthew,

reply 2

I have 2 games on steam and i hate it. So much so i don't play them anymore Civ5 and Fallout:New Vegas.

I did hang in there long enough to beat Fallout though.

I hate the way steam logs in evertime i want to play and i really really hate all the in you face ads with steam.

1) Play in offline mode. WOW, magic.

2) Turn off the "alert me about new games". WOW.

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Mystikmind

Join Date 06/2004

+20

I think by now it is pretty clear to most people that DRM has evolved from it's humble beginnings as a weapon against piracy into a weapon of market dominance, control and the ultimate power of the 'closed platform'. The only thing you can do about it, is to be very careful before you buy.

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DRM has evolved from it's humble beginnings as a weapon against piracy

DRM as a weapon against piracy has never been a serious enterprise. After all, who in their right mind spends valuable and highly limited development resources pursuing a market whose defining characteristic is a refusal to pay for things?

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Mystikmind

Join Date 06/2004

+20

Quoting Darvin3,

reply 5

DRM as a weapon against piracy has never been a serious enterprise. After all, who in their right mind spends valuable and highly limited development resources pursuing a market whose defining characteristic is a refusal to pay for things?

Took me a few minutes to comprehend your point. I do not know if piracy is less of a concern to these companies in secret to what they publically make out? But certainly it is less of a concern to them than how they can use DRM to manipulate the market in ways that is not at all motivated by fighting piracy.

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I think many people in higher management genuinely believe that piracy is a threat and there is something they can do about it (in case it wasn't obvious, I disagree on both counts). People unfortunately have a nasty habit of being irrational creatures, particularly when they feel wronged. When you're in the business of selling a product, you get upset with the cheaters; I get that, I totally sympathize. But I also think that DRM as an anti-piracy measure is an expensive and ineffective knee-jerk reaction that does more harm than good to your bottom line.

DRM as a market manipulation tool is just plain ugly. As far as I'm concerned, such abusive misuse of copyright protection is every bit as bad as the flagrant disregard of copyright shown by pirates. Both serve to delegitimize and undermine this valuable legal construct. The unwritten social contract is that the creator of the work retains the rights to reproduction, while the buyer retains all rights to the copy they have purchased. Copyright law is (or at least should be) implemented to balance this in a manner that's fair and legally enforceable to the benefit of all parties.

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Well I don't care about the philosophy or the form, but I cannot save any games in GTA 4 unless I am logged in to my live account. There are easy ways to make functional DRM. This is a case of stupid DRM. I would think buying a game on steam would be a sure enough methid of stopping pirates. The fact is, I had to make three new online accounts to play this game and now I can't save because they don't share note with successful DRM makers.

Sometimes I wonder if the leaders at Microsoft have the appropriate credentials to hold their stations. I sure know a lot of their middle management and they are underqualified.

I do think that this is more of a console port issue than a pirate one.

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Quoting Darvin3,

reply 7

DRM as a market manipulation tool is just plain ugly. As far as I'm concerned, such abusive misuse of copyright protection is every bit as bad as the flagrant disregard of copyright shown by pirates. Both serve to delegitimize and undermine this valuable legal construct. The unwritten social contract is that the creator of the work retains the rights to reproduction, while the buyer retains all rights to the copy they have purchased. Copyright law is (or at least should be) implemented to balance this in a manner that's fair and legally enforceable to the benefit of all parties.

I agree with this. DRM has a lot more to do with manipulating paying customers than it does with piracy.

Best way to deal with DRM is to not buy the garbage and let the companies using it fold and be replaced by decent companies, or if need be, no companies at all.

As for Micro$oft, I boycott their products.

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Everyone seems to be missing the point about DRM, or assume every "pirate" knows how to use torrents/IRC bots/etc. I don't believe any suit at these publishers actually believes that their DRM curbs the hardcore pirates. What it does do, however, is curb the casual piracy. The group of friends who can copy a disk and pass it between each other so all 5 of them can play the game off one disk, but don't know where/how to download it. We the savvy gamers and internet crawlers are not the "target audience", if you will, for DRM. The gamers who know how to power up a PC, install a game, and double click it to play *ARE*. And it's effective at stopping sharing of games between them.

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Quoting Darvin3,

reply 5

DRM has evolved from it's humble beginnings as a weapon against piracy

DRM as a weapon against piracy has never been a serious enterprise. After all, who in their right mind spends valuable and highly limited development resources pursuing a market whose defining characteristic is a refusal to pay for things?

DRM is there not to curb piracy, but the used market.

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One of the problems of the Pro/Anti DRM argument is that there is no clear way to measure benefits of DRM. You can measure the cost of implementing DRM easily, either as the salaries of the guys that work on it or the licensing cost to the DRM developer. Measuring lost potential sales is impossible, as is the advertising effect of having an extra ten thousand copies of your game out there.

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Quoting MageMatthew,

reply 2

I have 2 games on steam and i hate it. So much so i don't play them anymore Civ5 and Fallout:New Vegas.

I did hang in there long enough to beat Fallout though.

I hate the way steam logs in evertime i want to play and i really really hate all the in you face ads with steam.

I'll never understand why some people think Steam is "In your face". It just sits there.... quietly... in the background... doing nothing. Did Steam really ruin your Fallout experience? Was it no longer worth it because of being on Steam?

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Children growing up with Steam won't care. I didn't grow up with it, I know it doesn't seem to do much and is thus not a hinderance but stll I don't like it....

It doesn't turn itself off when I stop playing the game, I don't like that. Always pinging its homebase even when I'm not playing. I hate that.

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Quoting Annatar11,

reply 10

Everyone seems to be missing the point about DRM, or assume every "pirate" knows how to use torrents/IRC bots/etc. I don't believe any suit at these publishers actually believes that their DRM curbs the hardcore pirates. What it does do, however, is curb the casual piracy. The group of friends who can copy a disk and pass it between each other so all 5 of them can play the game off one disk, but don't know where/how to download it. We the savvy gamers and internet crawlers are not the "target audience", if you will, for DRM. The gamers who know how to power up a PC, install a game, and double click it to play *ARE*. And it's effective at stopping sharing of games between them.

Well all they need is the NOCD crack, which involves next to nothing. But you do have a point. Sort of. People without computers can't play.

Disk copying is so 1980s though.

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Quoting MichaelCook,

reply 14

It doesn't turn itself off when I stop playing the game, I don't like that. Always pinging its homebase even when I'm not playing. I hate that.

Steam->Go offline. No more pinging the home-base. After you're done playing, kill Steam w/ the game. Its two extra clicks.

I'll never get the argument against Steam. Steamworks is about the only DRM that works for the user: it stores all my games in a nice viewable format (I do think Impulse's small icons are better though), it updates my games without requiring my input, it saves my games in the cloud so that my laptop and PC are in sync, it doesn't require online connection to play after install, it now even can update video drivers, and, lets get serious, it has the best sales.

The _only_ time Steam fails is when a publisher decides to include a 3rd party DRM solution (ala Ubisoft). Yes, it doesn't allow you to give the disc to your friend. It doesn't allow you to resale. But 1) if you want to let people borrow, then buy the disc and 2) I haven't resold a PC game in my life - console game, yes, PC game, no - so if you resell PC games, I can see this being an issue but... since it doesn't affect me I'll never care. Any and all arguments about hating steam because it requires an install and keeps a minor footprint on your RAM is bloody ridiculous.

The worst thing about Steam: its store-front. That damn scrolling of 10 games at a time is one of the most ridiculous UIs ever developed. Impulse has Steam beat here.

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Mystikmind

Join Date 06/2004

+20

Quoting Darvin3,

reply 7

I think many people in higher management genuinely believe that piracy is a threat and there is something they can do about it (in case it wasn't obvious, I disagree on both counts). People unfortunately have a nasty habit of being irrational creatures, particularly when they feel wronged. When you're in the business of selling a product, you get upset with the cheaters; I get that, I totally sympathize. But I also think that DRM as an anti-piracy measure is an expensive and ineffective knee-jerk reaction that does more harm than good to your bottom line.

DRM as a market manipulation tool is just plain ugly. As far as I'm concerned, such abusive misuse of copyright protection is every bit as bad as the flagrant disregard of copyright shown by pirates. Both serve to delegitimize and undermine this valuable legal construct. The unwritten social contract is that the creator of the work retains the rights to reproduction, while the buyer retains all rights to the copy they have purchased. Copyright law is (or at least should be) implemented to balance this in a manner that's fair and legally enforceable to the benefit of all parties.

Now i understand where your coming from, And i agree!

The other issue which i think also partly impacts on the OP is hardware, the software that drives it vs compatibility. Now i do not know what an 'Exbox Live' thingy is, but this sounds like a classic example of how companies use hardware compatibility to manipulate their control of the market. But then again it should be no surprise since one thing that i do know is that an Xbox is a console, and consoles represent the ultimate level of control over consumers that any company can ever hope to have! If you want to play 'their' game then you have to buy 'their' hardware.

Pesonally i have a theory that consoles were originally first thought up as an ingenious way of selling outdated and worthless computer hardware,,, and even if not, well that is still the basic truth of it.

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Quoting illmunkeys,

reply 16

I'll never get the argument against Steam

I'll never understand the spam for it (if they're not getting paid to do it).

When I buy something, I don't like "the store" I bought it from being able to shut off my access to the product any time they choose. There are enough horror stories about people being ripped off by this steam scam, I do not want any part of that crooked enterprise.

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louist

Join Date 09/2005

+15

Quoting scratchthepitch,

reply 18

Quoting illmunkeys, reply 16I'll never get the argument against Steam

I'll never understand the spam for it (if they're not getting paid to do it).

When I buy something, I don't like "the store" I bought it from being able to shut off my access to the product any time they choose. There are enough horror stories about people being ripped off by this steam scam, I do not want any part of that crooked enterprise.

Wait, what?

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Quoting illmunkeys,

reply 16

Steam->Go offline. And be forced to be back online some time later? No more pinging the home-base. After you're done playing, kill Steam w/ the game. Its two extra unneeded clicks.

I'll never get the argument against Steam. Because some people doesn't get that there are valid reasons not to like Steam despite the good things they have... which could be said about anything in this life anyway. Steamworks is about the only DRM that works for the user: Nope. it stores all my games in a nice viewable format (I do think Impulse's small icons are better though), it updates my games without requiring my input, it saves my games in the cloud so that my laptop and PC are in sync, it doesn't require online connection to play after install, it now even can update video drivers, and, lets get serious, it has the best sales. I thought that was Steam's duties (packaged along with Steamworks) while Steamworks' are only about forcing you to be online (DRM's duties are not storing your saved games, friendlists and other "crap" after all).

The _only_ time Steam fails is when a publisher decides to include a 3rd party DRM solution (ala Ubisoft). Yes, it doesn't allow you to give the disc to your friend. It doesn't allow you to resale. But 1) if you want to let people borrow, then buy the disc and 2) I haven't resold a PC game in my life - console game, yes, PC game, no - so if you resell PC games, I can see this being an issue but... since it doesn't affect me I'll never care. Good. No caring about things that don't affect you is the doom of our species after all. Any and all arguments about hating steam because it requires an install and keeps a minor footprint on your RAM is bloody ridiculous. Yeah, that it forces you to download the game you bought in retail, for example, is bloody madness. just to mention one "little tiny detail that should be ignored".

The worst thing about Steam: its store-front. That damn scrolling of 10 games at a time is one of the most ridiculous UIs ever developed. Impulse has Steam beat here. If you think that's the worst thing about Steam... well, I'm actually glad for you.

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

Steam->Go offline. No more pinging the home-base. After you're done playing, kill Steam w/ the game. Its two extra clicks.

The onus to do this shouldn't be on the user. Never mind that you have to be online to enable offline mode in the first place, so it's useless if you experience an unplanned connectivity loss.

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Quoting kryo,

reply 21

The onus to do this shouldn't be on the user. Never mind that you have to be online to enable offline mode in the first place, so it's useless if you experience an unplanned connectivity loss.

If you're offline, steam auto starts in offline mode. I've never had Steam crash a game from a loss of connectivity while playing.

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Let me quote definition of computer backdoor, from http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/itsc/security/isglosry/index.html

Backdoor is a general term for a malicious program that listens for commands on a certain network port. Most backdoors consist of a client component and a server component. The client resides on the intruder's remote computer, and the server resides on the infected system. When a connection between client and server is established, the remote intruder has some degree of control over the infected computer.

Steam fulfills this. I know it cannot be called as such because user installs it himself. But this is exactly reason I do not want steam on my computer, I do not like fact that some company out there to have any control over it. For me steam is too close to backdoor to accept it on my computer, well even Impulse annoys me sometimes, but it is in that acceptable level of annoyance. This are my thoughts about steam, but i raised in era when my computer was mine, and i had control over it.

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Soon all computers will be handheld and our OS and memory will just be floating clouds owned by a third party. Seems pointless to argue about the computer being yours...

Old Man

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Pbhead

Join Date 12/2008

+77

in 20 years, when i have an extreme gaming rig hooked up to a 3d projector which displays epic space battles on the largest wall of my house... it aint going to be hand held.

Edit: Make sins 2 3d compatible.

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