DRM is excellent/evil! I love/hate DRM!

Strong Bob · May 11, 2008

(Ummm... I apologize if this post comes up weird. I had to revise this at least 4 times because it was so huge a post, the forum wouldn't put it up. I even exceeded the quote box limit so I randomly removed them and replaced them with quotations. >_< Very sorry guys.)

Not at all. I would protest having the police chain your car until they can check the legitimacy of your driving license, at which point they will then release it. And I believe you will protest this too. Especially if they keep coming back every 10 days.

I hardly feel the circumstance is comparable. Your game doesn't stop playing unless the DRM discovers you're not a legal user. Just like Police won't take your car away unless it's registered as illegal or if you're using it illegally. While I agree it is a little unfair that they check up so frequently in the DRM, something I hear very frequently in the legal realm "If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about."

"I can tell you that console ports play a good part in this. We're disgusted by the half-hearted, piss-poor attempts some companies make by just porting code byte-by-byte from the console to the PC. Quite frankly, we're disgusted by the blatant greed shown in these attempts."

I am too. But I don't think it's as bad as a lot of people claim it is. But that's a non-issue to this discussion.

Allow me to deconstruct this argument by pointing you to this article

Your article deconstructs nothing. Merely points out human error in one example. A fair point to make, the fallibility of fudged numbers, but it has next to nothing to do with the point I made.

However, it does prove how overzealous anti-piracy is, and is one example of taking things too far. Going as far as lying to get something across? I will not support that.

It also doesn't help that many schemes which do work aren't functional in years to come. Take the disc checks of old, they often only function correctly when used with drives produced about that time. Not with older/newer models.

Indeed, so it's merely a refinement of anti-piracy of software that would do well, not really just abandoning it entirely. I will agree with that 100%. No security system is infallible, but if it's flawed, one should at least strive to improve it.

It was very much intentional. They knew full well what Securom was going to do.

Um... You mean they outright intended for the game to not work on certain drives regardless of whether they purchased a copy or not? I think you do not get what I was saying...

Yes, after a month or two, and only after the huge backlash that they got. That's the sad thing, that it took something like that to solve a stupid policy.

That is how it works in the business world, and not just in gaming. It is how it ALWAYS worked. You gotta gauge the amount of energy, resources and effort with the payoff that it will yield. And if a huge backlash is recieved, then time and money will be spent to resolve it. No rational company is going to cater to a minority if they deem the time unworthy of it.

There are billions and billions of rules, policies, and laws that plenty of people in this world find stupid. It simply is not economic to go around solving them all, which is why it takes a lot of people to influence taking care of even one. That is just how things work in general.

"Where do you live? Software piracy has been huge here for as long as I can remember. If anything, I see a lot more people buying original games here now, even if there is still a lot of the old mentality left"

Oh of course it always has been. But look at it this way...

When I bought my copy of Doom 2 (When it was fresh and new) I knew one person from my dad's workplace that had pirates copies of video games. One guy, and he distributed these to everyone. This made things limited, but the piracy existed. It could still be considered "big" because everyone there had a copy of their favorite game for much cheaper than a legal copy. (I still bought Doom 2 legally because I wanted it to be "special" in that way. >_< )

At school, only 2 kids in the entire building were our "go to" guys for free games, movies, and even porn. But even this was hindered as they occasionally wanted favors like money and such. And in the end, they only gave these out to people they liked.

Phase to the year 2008...

Everybody at work, at college, and people I know on friendly "personal" terms online... only one of them actually buys their games. Piracy is as easy as 1 2 3, and even google contributes to this heavily as it can locate torrents and P2P programs with enough ease that a 6 year old boy can do it. And 6 year old boys DO do it. So now, there is no source to find to get your games cheap, or even free. Merely a few clicks on ANY internet connection, and free games are yours for the taking.

Count that against the thousands of people I saw playing both seeder and leecher the last time I used my torrent client... Nay my friend. I may not have any official proof, and I suppose neither of us will find anything truly conclusive, but it strikes me as a very real deal that piracy is as big as ever. If you know people that have grown out of it, I tip my hat to them and admire their integrity.

I have personally vowed not to pirate 'good' games, or at least the ones I find good, on grounds that I fear I am only one of very few left to support them. And the fact I work in a store that sells video games, which sell pretty poorly regardless of the existance of a DRM yet still everyone seems to own a copy, just adds to my perspective.

"The main reason for bad sales is certainly not piracy."

Wait... This is "certain"? Please post up the official records and proof that indicate this. I am curious as to how you managed this conclusion...

"1.) The games are not good enough.

2.) The game costs are getting higher.

3.) We are being hit with the same kinds of games on the PC. How many arcade games from big companies have there been on the PC in the last 5 years? How many fighting games like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter etc.? How many games like Golden Axe? How many of them were actually good? Now think about the number of FPS games, RTS games and the various types of RPG."

1.) Your opinion, which I CAN say for certain is not shared by everyone. (However, I will concede that I agree with this opinion. )

2.) In what way? 50 - 60 dollars has always been the standard. I used to buy NES games for that price. The value of the US dollar has decreased substantially in all this time, and this range is still maintained. If anything, they've gotten a lot cheaper.

3.) Believe it or not, a lot of people make claims that it's because of piracy that these games have not been very high quality.

"1.) Make better games."

To be honest... This was something I was hoping not to hear in a debate like this. It kind of dissappoints me that opinions are being brought into this, as opposed to anything more productive. A lot of people look back on the games of old, that once did terrific, and find them to be inferior to even the worse selling PC games nowadays. This generation of gamers just aren't the same, and the appeal had to be changed.

Now, I will be fair. If games were really, REALLY, good then things like the DRM would probably not seem so bad. Easy trade off. It would DEFINITELY not dissuade piracy alone, and to be frank... I am not sure it would make the sales it deserved due to modern piracy tactics.

"5.) Learn something about markets. If you're making a game aimed at an already overcrowded market, chances are, it might not sell enough. Instead, do what Stardock did, aim at a market which is not overcrowded and djust your budget accordingly."

That's not a practical market strategy. When Master of Orion 3 came out, it was a one-of-a-kind in style TBS. I honestly can't think of any other game that played with the same level of depth, management, and gameplay in the TBS genre, not even prior MOO games. Master of Orion 3 did TERRIBLE in the markets. Even though the TBS genre is so sparse, it still did awful.

People do not want a 'new' game. They want the same old thing with maybe one more feature to it. It's like something DragonHawk told me last week about X-COM. They could make a TERRIFIC X-COM game with the works in graphics, depth, and strategic elements, and we both know it will do awful in sales because we know nobody wants a new X-COM, we want to play THE X-COM. And we won't be satisfied, after all this time, unless Jesus himself burst from the screen.

However, when it comes to issues like this, I feel it is much too unrelated to the DRM or other anti-piracy issues. I'd prefer to discuss game quality elsewhere from here on.

There are legitimate reasons for monthly fees, that being server maintenance and adding features etc.

YES, absolutely right! But 10 years ago, these "legitimate" reasons were not so easily recognized. People just saw themselves being robbed of their money just to play a video game. It didn't matter what maintenance was required to keep the games moving... Why pay over 160 dollars the first year you play Ultima Online when only 50 dollars that same year could yield a game you will play for free for the rest of your life?

It was new. People didn't understand the necessity of it, and it was fought against with enough effort that Origin/EA was sued (Though the suit was dropped due to lack of validity.) just like what seems to be happening here.

"Correlation does not imply causation."

Which is why I said "curiously", FullAuto. Clearly the conclusion has been made by the majority in the market, and they are acting on it. Current methods may not be the best, but every company in the PC Gaming Market seems to believe strongly enough in this that they are risking the anger of fans to prevent further monetary loss.

This came at the decision of people looking at this correlation and making a judgment. People with more involvement in gaming marketing than any of us.

As for piracy becoming more prominent, while it has certainly propagated over the internet, my personal view (which may not be an accurate view of piracy as a whole, I don't claim to be omnipotent unlike some) is that piracy has decreased.

Well, it's definitely a regional thing but I won't say that anything is so conclusive. My experience has yielded the exact opposite in every way. (Except I, like you, pirate a lot less frequently now than in the past. To the point where I can never even remember how to use my damned Torrent software...)

As for falling PC sales, look at stiffer competition from consoles (a market that has grown considerably in size, IIRC), the constant costs of gaming on the PC (latest graphics cards, more RAM, faster processors), the lack of innovation in and rising costs of the games themselves as development budgets keep increasing.

All extremely valid reasons for lack of PC gaming sales, and, as a gamer of all platforms, I agree with them all. But these reasons have always existed, and I personally observed the growth of consoles over the years with a good deal of frustration. Piracy is easier to target than dealing with economizing computer parts, or competing with more user friendly gaming platforms, and thus appears to be a more economic approach for the time being.

And once again, game costs are not rising. At least nowhere in the USA.

"How many, of those people, would have bought the game if it had not been available to pirate?"

I don't like this argument either... This moves on from being a logistic about loss of sales to the personal effect it has on developers, and other artists, that make this material copyrighted.

Now, if you are the type that enjoys making freeware games, music, and video, all the more power to you. But some of these people make games, music, and video for a living and it's a slap in their face to just take their work for free. To put it very bluntly "If you can't or won't pay for the luxuries you have, do you really even deserve it?". A quote I made back in my XCAS days, and I couldn't really get a straight answer out of anyone with it...

They put in the work to make these games so that they can make the royalties off it. Pirating is virtually stealing, and I feel that developers and/or publishers have every right to fill their software with all the anti-pirate material they want to preserve the right to sell their material as opposed to getting it distributed for free at their expense.

"Of course, a certain amount of online complaints are just those frustrated kids, but not all of them. Some people are serious, and again, there's no way to know the real numbers. Could be just a few. Could be quite a big chunk of the potential audience."

I only apply that tag to message forums. The reason being is that I've attended hundreds of forums in my lifetime and very VERY rarely see a lot of merit in mass spamming on them. Usually I pay more attention when people start trying to reach more serious channels, which seems to have happened in the case of Mass Effect here.

However, to close this post, I must come out and say that I am very well against most forms of anti-piracy that cause difficulties to legitimate users. I am contesting the things being said here for several reasons...

1 - It's being repeated over and over again that DRM and other anti-piracy is hindering the rights of the gamer. This is simply not true, and I've not seen a demonstration of this. It may be more of an ass pain, but I'm a damned liberal and I can't even see where I am losing my rights here...

2 - While the danger of piracy cannot be accurately tracked, it seems that the consensus among gamers (Not the developers or publishers, curiously enough) is that it's not a big enough deal to be fighting so hard. The problem with this is that gaming companies are seeing this from a very different perspective than us, and they see piracy as enough of a threat because their jobs rely on sales and not popularity. With pirated games, popularity and sales are not synonymous.

3 - While I feel current attempts at fighting piracy is flawed and not as practical as it could be, I find it foolish to be fighting it the way we do. We're smart people here... Instead of accusing Bioware of pulling a "bonehead move" with it's anti-piracy, or complaining non-stop that DRM software is no good... Can't we come up with better solutions? Something more economic? And something more serious than "Make better games"?

Seriously. I'm trying not to take the sides of badly produced anti-piracy software, but some of the things I read (Not all of which I have read on this topic, so don't go taking offense. ) genuinely makes it hard for me to fight the companies producing them.

Gimli · May 11, 2008

"Um... You mean they outright intended for the game to not work on certain drives regardless of whether they purchased a copy or not? I think you do not get what I was saying..."

You quoted me on the 2K forums thing and Bioshock, so I thought you were talking about that example. You should have made it clear that the example you were talking about was Serious Sam 2 and not Bioshock. Doesn't change much, though. They should have simply not included the DRM so their customers would not have to go through with it or at the very least make a DRM which doesn't depend on HDDs or anything else as stupid as that.

"When I bought my copy of Doom 2 (When it was fresh and new) I knew one person from my dad's workplace that had pirates copies of video games. One guy, and he distributed these to everyone. This made things limited, but the piracy existed. It could still be considered "big" because everyone there had a copy of their favorite game for much cheaper than a legal copy. (I still bought Doom 2 legally because I wanted it to be "special" in that way. >_

At school, only 2 kids in the entire building were our "go to" guys for free games, movies, and even porn. But even this was hindered as they occasionally wanted favors like money and such. And in the end, they only gave these out to people they liked."

Not how it worked here. Again, they were just as easily exchanged as they are now.

"

"The main reason for bad sales is certainly not piracy."

Wait... This is "certain"? Please post up the official records and proof that indicate this. I am curious as to how you managed this conclusion..."

Simple enough. Pirates will not buy your game anyway. If they will not buy it, you have not lost anything, because you would not have gotten that money in the first place.

"1.) Your opinion, which I CAN say for certain is not shared by everyone. (However, I will concede that I agree with this opinion. tongue.gif)

2.) In what way? 50 - 60 dollars has always been the standard. I used to buy NES games for that price. The value of the US dollar has decreased substantially in all this time, and this range is still maintained. If anything, they've gotten a lot cheaper.

3.) Believe it or not, a lot of people make claims that it's because of piracy that these games have not been very high quality. wink.gif "

1.) True.

2.) Cost of producing games. I should have been more clear. But anyway, if it costs you more to produce a game, you have to sell more to break even.

3.) Can you provide proof? I certainly have never heard of this. How many of these games have you even seen on the PC in the last 10 years or so? People won't buy something if it's not in there in the first place. It's like people who say that you can't make a profit from TB RPGs. How many of them were made in the last few years?

"To be honest... This was something I was hoping not to hear in a debate like this. It kind of dissappoints me that opinions are being brought into this, as opposed to anything more productive. A lot of people look back on the games of old, that once did terrific, and find them to be inferior to even the worse selling PC games nowadays. This generation of gamers just aren't the same, and the appeal had to be changed."

Sorry, but a lot of people is not a good argument. I find most games on the PC today vastly inferior to old games in terms of gameplay. And in fact, I also know a lot of people who agree.

"That's not a practical market strategy. When Master of Orion 3 came out, it was a one-of-a-kind in style TBS. I honestly can't think of any other game that played with the same level of depth, management, and gameplay in the TBS genre, not even prior MOO games. Master of Orion 3 did TERRIBLE in the markets. Even though the TBS genre is so sparse, it still did awful."

So then how do indie developers survive? How does Spiderweb manage to sell their games year after year? Also, perhaps the problem was that MoO 3 did not reach its target audience? Are you thinking that it needs to sell to everyone? That is why I am speaking about markets. You try to sell to the highest possible number of people that you think will be interested in the game in the first place. You do not try to sell your game to everyone and their mother if everyone and their mother are not interested in the game in the first place. You sell the game to those who are interested and adjust the budget accordingly. This is exactly what Spiderweb did, and despite a horrible interface their games turn a profit. Why? Because people who buy them find them fun and can ignore the interface issues.

"People do not want a 'new' game. They want the same old thing with maybe one more feature to it. It's like something DragonHawk told me last week about X-COM. They could make a TERRIFIC X-COM game with the works in graphics, depth, and strategic elements, and we both know it will do awful in sales because we know nobody wants a new X-COM, we want to play THE X-COM. And we won't be satisfied, after all this time, unless Jesus himself burst from the screen."

No, old fans may not want a new game, and even then only some. You should take a look at what is being said about Fallout 3. NMA, RPGCodex and some people outside of those sites want it to be like Fallout 1 and 2, but there are also lots of people who are happy with what Bethesda is making.

As for X-COM, that's really just your opinion and if you check around the internet, especially with the new rumors now, you will see that there are lots of people who want something different. In fact, Apocalypse was quite a bit different from UFO and TFTD yet there are lots of people who like it, some even like it more.

"However, when it comes to issues like this, I feel it is much too unrelated to the DRM or other anti-piracy issues. I'd prefer to discuss game quality elsewhere from here on."

Sorry, but I feel it is very much related, otherwise I wouldn't have brought it up.

"YES, absolutely right! But 10 years ago, these "legitimate" reasons were not so easily recognized. People just saw themselves being robbed of their money just to play a video game. It didn't matter what maintenance was required to keep the games moving... Why pay over 160 dollars the first year you play Ultima Online when only 50 dollars that same year could yield a game you will play for free for the rest of your life?

It was new. People didn't understand the necessity of it, and it was fought against with enough effort that Origin/EA was sued (Though the suit was dropped due to lack of validity.) just like what seems to be happening here."

It's their own fault for not being able to explain to their users why there was a subscription fee. I have yet to see a justified reason for Mass Effect's (canceled) DRM.

"I don't like this argument either... This moves on from being a logistic about loss of sales to the personal effect it has on developers, and other artists, that make this material copyrighted.

Now, if you are the type that enjoys making freeware games, music, and video, all the more power to you. But some of these people make games, music, and video for a living and it's a slap in their face to just take their work for free. To put it very bluntly "If you can't or won't pay for the luxuries you have, do you really even deserve it?". A quote I made back in my XCAS days, and I couldn't really get a straight answer out of anyone with it..."

Again, we are saying that they wouldn't have gotten the money in the first place. I agree that it is unfair to steal these games, but it should not affect the customers who do buy the games legitimately.

"They put in the work to make these games so that they can make the royalties off it. Pirating is virtually stealing, and I feel that developers and/or publishers have every right to fill their software with all the anti-pirate material they want to preserve the right to sell their material as opposed to getting it distributed for free at their expense."

They have the right to protect their software as long as it does not negatively reflect on the customers that will legally. Actually, no, they have the right to do whatever they want as long as it is not against the law. However, just because it is not against the law, doesn't mean that it's OK. If the company is abusing the holes in the law, then I will fight back instead of accept being treated poorly.

"However, to close this post, I must come out and say that I am very well against most forms of anti-piracy that cause difficulties to legitimate users. I am contesting the things being said here for several reasons...

1 - It's being repeated over and over again that DRM and other anti-piracy is hindering the rights of the gamer. This is simply not true, and I've not seen a demonstration of this. It may be more of an ass pain, but I'm a damned liberal and I can't even see where I am losing my rights here..."

Err... hello? The right to play the game when your internet connection is down for more than 10 days?

"2 - While the danger of piracy cannot be accurately tracked, it seems that the consensus among gamers (Not the developers or publishers, curiously enough) is that it's not a big enough deal to be fighting so hard. The problem with this is that gaming companies are seeing this from a very different perspective than us, and they see piracy as enough of a threat because their jobs rely on sales and not popularity. With pirated games, popularity and sales are not synonymous."

And it has been so in the past and every copy protection scheme has been broken. It is futile to fight it by means of copy protection which will sooner or later be broken and yet damages the legitimate users. Copy protection is fine as long as it is sensible. Mass Effect's copy protection wasn't.

"3 - While I feel current attempts at fighting piracy is flawed and not as practical as it could be, I find it foolish to be fighting it the way we do. We're smart people here... Instead of accusing Bioware of pulling a "bonehead move" with it's anti-piracy, or complaining non-stop that DRM software is no good... Can't we come up with better solutions? Something more economic? And something more serious than "Make better games"?"

We already have, yet you make it out like we have only provided the "Make better games" as an argument. It is not the only solution, but it is part of the solution. Is it enough on its own? No. It is a step in the right direction, though. And again you seem to ignore the fact that Stardock manages to sell good numbers without any copy protection whatsoever.

Matri · May 11, 2008

I hardly feel the circumstance is comparable. Your game doesn't stop playing unless the DRM discovers you're not a legal user. Just like Police won't take your car away unless it's registered as illegal or if you're using it illegally.

Now you are just deliberately mis-interpreting me.

The whole point of an online authentication system is to authenticate the installed copy. The need for an online connection is to determine this fact. If it was as simple as disabling the internet connection to defeat this authentication scheme... I don't think I need to point out what this means.

My analogy still holds true. Without an active internet connection and a working authentication server, you will not be able to play. Just as without the police and the records of your driving license, you will not be able to drive your car. You still have the game installed and the car in your possession, you're just blocked from using them.

Strong Bob · May 11, 2008

"Not how it worked here. Again, they were just as easily exchanged as they are now."

Ah, so children as young as 6 were downloading thousands of dollars worth of software without the slightest effort and literally everyone knew where and how to get copyrighted material? You must've had some smart people and a powerful distribution system 20 years ago...

You'll pardon me if I don't believe you. Tactics were too different back then, often requiring the means of physically copying data onto floppy disks and/or transfered to VHS tapes. It took longer and was more effort, and not everyone knew about it. And when it came to shareware you often required some skill with hacking to unlock games. Nowadays, all that has been cut out of the loop. Now it's "Click, click, click" Done.

"Simple enough. Pirates will not buy your game anyway. If they will not buy it, you have not lost anything, because you would not have gotten that money in the first place."

But that is not good logic. That's pretty much delving into the stealing category anyways.

How do you know they would not have bought it anyways? I don't see that as a decent argument, because if pirated copies weren't so easily accessable, then there wouldn't be the incentive. And if they won't buy it, they shouldn't be playing it.

3.) Can you provide proof? I certainly have never heard of this. How many of these games have you even seen on the PC in the last 10 years or so? People won't buy something if it's not in there in the first place. It's like people who say that you can't make a profit from TB RPGs. How many of them were made in the last few years?

I take it you haven't been paying much attention to why copy protection has been on such an incline? More money = more resources for better games.

However, I'm an avid PC gamer, I rarely move onto consoles unless the game is terrific. I've seen things go on the downgrade since the days of System Shock 2, right up into the disaster of Bioshock. I'm sorry to say, yeah things have certainly downgraded a lot since then. I've not noticed a decline in the number of games, but I have seen the decline in quality AND in the advertising. People stopped buying, so the quality is sure to move onto different, more popular, areas.

Sorry, but a lot of people is not a good argument. I find most games on the PC today vastly inferior to old games in terms of gameplay. And in fact, I also know a lot of people who agree.

That was exactly my point. Which is why it dissapointed me that opinions were brought into this. They're not good argument at all. I am curious as to why you didn't see this when you first made your point on this...

So then how do indie developers survive? How does Spiderweb manage to sell their games year after year?

9 times out of 10? They really don't. I can't tell you how many independent game developers just come and go, but then I think I have a broader realization of them because I used to befriend a whole mess of computer hackers. >_<

If you look at some independent developers like the people on Battleon, they're often working part time jobs on the side. (Not all of them, of course. As some indies do a much better job than others. But I know Battleon is in that area.) This doesn't indicate anything in either direction for me. Just that some people have more success than others.

Also, perhaps the problem was that MoO 3 did not reach its target audience? Are you thinking that it needs to sell to everyone?

Um, nope. I don't think everyone would like any of the MoO games in such unison... What on Earth are you talking about here? Advertising or game quality? By all means MoO 3 was built for TBS gamers, and advertised for them, and thus reached their target audience. However, there was not a good reception at all. This means making an original "good game" is not at all an answer when clearly attempts have been shot down.

As for X-COM, that's really just your opinion and if you check around the internet, especially with the new rumors now, you will see that there are lots of people who want something different. In fact, Apocalypse was quite a bit different from UFO and TFTD yet there are lots of people who like it, some even like it more.

I don't think this is my opinion at all... Just look at the history of games revitalized.

Doom 3, Bioshock (Advertised as a successor to System Shock), Turok, etc... Things meant to revitalize the classics of old have a tendency to be overhyped to the point where even a damn good game will turn out badly in the opinion polls. X-COM isn't as popular as it used to be, so it probably has a much better chance overcoming any hype.

It's their own fault for not being able to explain to their users why there was a subscription fee.

I was twelve years old and understood the whole idea entirely when I read the Ultima Online FAQ in the manual... The people complaining and attacking Origin/EA were grown adults that could've forgone so much frustration if they just opened up the book that came in the box.

We should not be blaming game developers and publishers. We sometimes forget that the people running those companies are human beings just like us. There is always a method to the madness, and while the method may not be a good idea... It's better to criticize the method, and not the madness.

As for Mass Effect's canceled DRM, the justification is simple. "Prevent Piracy". However they discovered the bad press was hurting them on a more visible level than piracy, and decided to change it. A clear indication that sometimes it only requires a little voice in the right places to help matters.

Err... hello? The right to play the game when your internet connection is down for more than 10 days?

When you buy a game with a DRM system, you did not have that right in the first place. Now, if you bought Mass Effect, it did not have a DRM in it at first, and THEN they installed one in an update later down the road... Then your rights are lost. In which case I could very well agree that it's a bonehead move.

And it has been so in the past and every copy protection scheme has been broken. It is futile to fight it by means of copy protection which will sooner or later be broken and yet damages the legitimate users. Copy protection is fine as long as it is sensible. Mass Effect's copy protection wasn't.

Wait... I'm confused. You're saying any copy protection can be broken and that it is futile to fight it... But sensible copy protection is okay. How would you define sensible in this case? I mean a real example and not "Just protection that doesn't hinder gameplay."

We already have, yet you make it out like we have only provided the "Make better games" as an argument. It is not the only solution, but it is part of the solution. Is it enough on its own? No. It is a step in the right direction, though.

Of course it is. But that seems to be, literally, the one and only response YOU have made. So my question is what kind of copy protection could you accept that fights piracy and yet allows casual gameplay? Methods of the past are obsolete, as well as current methods will be. So not only do we need a method now, we need to determine where it should go in the future.

Now you are just deliberately mis-interpreting me.

The whole point of an online authentication system is to authenticate the installed copy. The need for an online connection is to determine this fact. If it was as simple as disabling the internet connection to defeat this authentication scheme... I don't think I need to point out what this means.

My analogy still holds true. Without an active internet connection and a working authentication server, you will not be able to play. Just as without the police and the records of your driving license, you will not be able to drive your car. You still have the game installed and the car in your possession, you're just blocked from using them.

Matri, you are simply not making yourself clear, or you have never really encountered a police officer before. There is nothing deliberate about a "misinterpretation" so please be more clear on things.

I know exactly how a DRM works. Your analogy is flawed because the DRM works almost exactly the same way it works to licensed drivers. You pretty much make this clear in your final paragraph... Without records of your license you are forbidden to drive. You could always cheat the system and hop into your car and drive around unlicensed anyways, lots of people do it. It's harder to get away with it, and runs the risk of being arrested. Just like pirating a game without it's DRM runs the risk of legal action, and is much easier to do. Lots of people do it. Now this is why a number of places in the USA have things they call "checkpoints" where they actually will stop you and demand a license, and if you have none they will keep you for a background check. Now, this is primarily to prevent intoxicated drivers, not the unlicensed, but the method is still pretty similar to a DRM. But anyways... I still understand your problem, and while your analogy doesn't fit, I can see what you're trying to get at. If that is not the case, then please try again, because all I'm seeing is bitterness at requiring an internet to play games.

Azrael Strife · May 11, 2008

As much as I dislike this sort of copy protection, I have to agree with Strong Bob The consumers' rights are in no way being damaged; no one is forcing you to buy a game, and as long as the licence is there to tell you how the DRM will work, there is nothing wrong. As BB said, you don't legally own the game, you merely pay a licence to be able to play an original copy, by agreeing to the licence and thus being able to play the game you are also agreeing to the type of DRM the publisher chose.

That said, I still think copy protection of any sort is 100% useless, if someone wants to pirate a game, they will, all protections are eventually broken. Maybe the solution to piracy is reduction of costs and higher game quality, as I think Gimli said. 95% games today are ... junk.

FullAuto · May 11, 2008

"How many, of those people, would have bought the game if it had not been available to pirate?"

I don't like this argument either... This moves on from being a logistic about loss of sales to the personal effect it has on developers, and other artists, that make this material copyrighted.

No, this is still about logistics, honest. Suppose 5000 people pirate the game. If those 5000 people didn't really care about the game, or they really want the game but won't pay for it, and only pirated it because it was free, there have been zero sales lost. So this is an extra complication that you can't quantify. Like I said, it could just be a small percentage of those pirating the game. Or it could be a lot of them.

All extremely valid reasons for lack of PC gaming sales, and, as a gamer of all platforms, I agree with them all. But these reasons have always existed, and I personally observed the growth of consoles over the years with a good deal of frustration.

But not to such an extent, surely? The console market has simply got bigger and bigger, and it seems to me that upgrading your PC to stay at the forefront of things must be done more and more often (someone feel free to correct me on this if I'm wrong). Compared to the console world, where each iteration gets 4-5 years, PC system requirements are rushing headlong. So when you release a AAA game, what proportion of those who own a PC can actually play it? I mean, out of the total amount of PCs, how many of those are cutting edge? I do a fair bit of PC gaming, but I freely admit to lagging well behind something needed to play Crysis, say.

2 - While the danger of piracy cannot be accurately tracked, it seems that the consensus among gamers (Not the developers or publishers, curiously enough) is that it's not a big enough deal to be fighting so hard. The problem with this is that gaming companies are seeing this from a very different perspective than us, and they see piracy as enough of a threat because their jobs rely on sales and not popularity. With pirated games, popularity and sales are not synonymous.

The problem is, they see piracy as the sole reason for falling sales. They use piracy as a whipping boy to explain away other problems, and it's such an effective cover they won't let go of it. It's not lack of innovation, or publisher's conservatism, or overhyping or overdoses of advertising, it's piracy that's the problem. There is no proven link between falling sales and piracy. Nor will there ever will be, unless Skynet turns up and starts working for EA. But they are proceeding, not just as if it is a belief, but as if it is a fact. It's much easier to blame an external factor than look at yourself and say "Well, maybe we shouldn't have made six sequels." or "Maybe we shouldn't have bought up that innovative developer only to close it down." and so on.

3 - While I feel current attempts at fighting piracy is flawed and not as practical as it could be, I find it foolish to be fighting it the way we do. We're smart people here... Instead of accusing Bioware of pulling a "bonehead move" with it's anti-piracy, or complaining non-stop that DRM software is no good... Can't we come up with better solutions? Something more economic? And something more serious than "Make better games"?

I honestly have no doubt we could. But I also have no doubt that there would be no point. No-one's going to be changing their minds after saying "Piracy is stealing and evil." for years, to "Oh, actually, piracy isn't that bad after all, it's actually stupid business practices that have got us here. We dug this hole ourselves and now we're drowning in our own shit." Piracy has been built up to be this huge, teeming threat, a sort of copyright-violating fifth column that could overwhelm the bastions of ownership if we don't take drastic measures right now. And it's a great excuse to whip out whenever anything happens. If you've brought out the seventh sequel and it's a rushed, dull game with nothing except some updated trivial aspects, you can always say it didn't sell well because of piracy.

Per the overhyped AAA titles, surely you only need to protect against piracy for a short time from release date onwards, as that's when the majority of sales will be made? Releasing the title in all regions simultaneously may also be an idea.

Stardock seem to be successful despite not using DRM. I think it's Stardock. Too many names begin with "Star" these days.

The consumers' rights are in no way being damaged; no one is forcing you to buy a game, and as long as the licence is there to tell you how the DRM will work, there is nothing wrong.

I seem to recall Starforce, Securom and those lovely Sony CDs creating security loopholes on PCs, drivers not uninstalling, and actual damage to drives. I don't recall hearing about how those consumers were notified this would happen when purchasing the prodcuts containing the DRM.

95% games today are ... junk.

Always have been, I think. I pine for the good old days, but nostalgia isn't what it used to be. Most games are crap. I think we always hearken back to an earlier age because the good stuff really stands out and we prefer to forget the bad.

Matri · May 11, 2008

Not at all. I would protest having the police chain your car until they can check the legitimacy of your driving license, at which point they will then release it. And I believe you will protest this too. Especially if they keep coming back every 10 days.

I believe I made myself quite clear. And your words were:

Your game doesn't stop playing unless the DRM discovers you're not a legal user. Just like Police won't take your car away unless it's registered as illegal or if you're using it illegally.

Nowhere did I say impound. I said your car is chained. You still have possession of the car, just like your game is still installed. However, without being able to authenticate, it will not run.

I believe I made myself quite clear on these points. I fail to see how they can be misinterpreted unless deliberate.

Gimli · May 11, 2008

"Ah, so children as young as 6 were downloading thousands of dollars worth of software without the slightest effort and literally everyone knew where and how to get copyrighted material? You must've had some smart people and a powerful distribution system 20 years ago..."

Uh... let's see:

A:

copy *.* C:

Not so difficult is it? I was 5 when I started playing games, by the way. Copying a game is extremely easy. And hey, if you don't know, you can always ask someone who does. It is about as little effort as it is to do the same thing in Windows. Believe it or not, it does not take a genius to learn how to use such simple commands. Nobody downloaded the software, but as you said yourself, there were diskettes...

"You'll pardon me if I don't believe you. Tactics were too different back then, often requiring the means of physically copying data onto floppy disks and/or transfered to VHS tapes. It took longer and was more effort, and not everyone knew about it. And when it came to shareware you often required some skill with hacking to unlock games. Nowadays, all that has been cut out of the loop. Now it's "Click, click, click" Done."

Maybe it's faster for you, but if I tried to download a game today it would take me more than an hour to download 1GB of data (best case scenario). Most of the big games today are what? 5-6 GBs? Granted, my university has a pretty fast connection and no download limit, but I don't want to download a game illegally, because it's stealing. But anyway, copying data from diskettes back then was still quite a bit faster. Of course, with time, applications got bigger, but then we started transferring to CDs.

"But that is not good logic. That's pretty much delving into the stealing category anyways.

How do you know they would not have bought it anyways? I don't see that as a decent argument, because if pirated copies weren't so easily accessable, then there wouldn't be the incentive."

How do you know that they would have? And how do you know that those who get the game illegally won't get it legally?

"And if they won't buy it, they shouldn't be playing it."

Yes, I agree, but it's a slow process here. Still BSA has been saying that piracy here has been dropping, though to be honest, the numbers they claimed seemed a bit far fetched at the time I read them.

"I take it you haven't been paying much attention to why copy protection has been on such an incline? More money = more resources for better games. wink.gif"

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Could you rephrase and elaborate?

"That was exactly my point. Which is why it dissapointed me that opinions were brought into this. They're not good argument at all. I am curious as to why you didn't see this when you first made your point on this..."

I am curious why you don't see that in your own post:

"I don't think this is my opinion at all... Just look at the history of games revitalized."

"Doom 3, Bioshock (Advertised as a successor to System Shock), Turok, etc... Things meant to revitalize the classics of old have a tendency to be overhyped to the point where even a damn good game will turn out badly in the opinion polls. X-COM isn't as popular as it used to be, so it probably has a much better chance overcoming any hype."

Yet Bioshock didn't turn out badly in the opinion polls. Ken Levine had everyone eating out of his hand prior to release, including TTLG. Only after the release has there been a backlash from TTLG and even there it's not one sided. And most places I have been to praise Bioshock, not to mention all the GOTY awards.

I am not sure what you are referring to when it comes to the popularity of X-COM. Are you referring to the genre?

In any case, I've been following the rumors of a possible sequel for a while. I spend an unhealthy amount of time searching for news and more importantly I read comments on lots of different forums. Some are more mainstream, some are less, but there is a lot of difference from site to site and from person to person. If you want, I can collect links for you to read the next time I do this, they are quite interesting. You can start with the most recent news post about IGN, there's some fifty or so comments. The question is, what would this hypothetical sequel be? X-Shock? X-Freedom X-Force? Something else?

"9 times out of 10? They really don't. I can't tell you how many independent game developers just come and go, but then I think I have a broader realization of them because I used to befriend a whole mess of computer hackers. >_

9/10 indie developers don't survive? Where have you gotten these numbers from? And do they differ in any way from the number of big developers that don't survive? The rest is answered below.

"If you look at some independent developers like the people on Battleon, they're often working part time jobs on the side. (Not all of them, of course. As some indies do a much better job than others. But I know Battleon is in that area.) This doesn't indicate anything in either direction for me. Just that some people have more success than others."

People don't have success just because. What you need to do is analyze whether or not you there is a potential market for your game big enough to buy it. Then you need to make sure you develop a quality product with a budget according to the number of people you estimate will buy it and you need to make sure that you reach the highest possible audience from the aforementioned market. By reach I mean: make them aware you have something that will interest them and then sell them on it.

I do not see how you could fail in that case, and the Spiderweb example proves that it is possible to succeed. Since others didn't I have to conclude that they failed at one of these.

"Um, nope. I don't think everyone would like any of the MoO games in such unison... What on Earth are you talking about here? Advertising or game quality? By all means MoO 3 was built for TBS gamers, and advertised for them, and thus reached their target audience. However, there was not a good reception at all. This means making an original "good game" is not at all an answer when clearly attempts have been shot down."

Just because it was advertised for them, doesn't mean that it reached everyone in the target market. Didn't reach me for example. You also have not provided me with sufficient information for that example. You have not said why it was not received well, nor told me in what ways it was marketed, nor what the budget was, nor how many copies it sold. What do other people who didn't buy it say, why did they not buy it?

"I was twelve years old and understood the whole idea entirely when I read the Ultima Online FAQ in the manual... The people complaining and attacking Origin/EA were grown adults that could've forgone so much frustration if they just opened up the book that came in the box."

So what was stopping Origin/EA from explaining it?

"We should not be blaming game developers and publishers. We sometimes forget that the people running those companies are human beings just like us. There is always a method to the madness, and while the method may not be a good idea... It's better to criticize the method, and not the madness."

Correct me if I'm reading this wrong, but the way I see it, that's exactly the thing that people had done. They had criticized the bad method of copy protection.

"As for Mass Effect's canceled DRM, the justification is simple. "Prevent Piracy". However they discovered the bad press was hurting them on a more visible level than piracy, and decided to change it. A clear indication that sometimes it only requires a little voice in the right places to help matters."

No, they realized that people will not put up with draconian copy protection which hinders them from playing the game because of it.

"When you buy a game with a DRM system, you did not have that right in the first place. Now, if you bought Mass Effect, it did not have a DRM in it at first, and THEN they installed one in an update later down the road... Then your rights are lost. wink.gif In which case I could very well agree that it's a bonehead move."

If I have bought a copy of the game and a license to play it, then I should be able to play it as long as I meet the criteria. So far, for offline games my right has been to play it whenever I want as long as I meet the hardware and software requirements. They decided that I could only do it if the copy protection could contact the server every 10 days. This is something that people did not want, because should their connection go down for a longer period of time, they won't be able to play it. Hence the backlash against a stupid copy protection system. My rights have not been damaged within the game itself, but they are lower in comparison with games that do not use it.

"Wait... I'm confused. You're saying any copy protection can be broken and that it is futile to fight it... But sensible copy protection is okay. How would you define sensible in this case? I mean a real example and not "Just protection that doesn't hinder gameplay." "

Bad phrasing on my part. I even saw it, but hoped you would correctly interpret what I wrote. It's my fault though, so I'll explain:

"It is futile to fight it by means of copy protection which will sooner or later be broken and yet damages the legitimate users."

The part in italics refers to "copy protection" in that sentence. I'll try to reword it and hopefully it will come out right this time. I think that you're reading it like this:

"It is futile to fight it by means of copy protection, which will sooner or later be broken and yet damages the legitimate users."

Note the comma after the word protection. There isn't one in my sentence, which means that the rest of the sentence refers to the "copy protection" bit.

But to elaborate. I think that copy protection is OK as long as it is not draconian. This is a general statement, and in the case of Mass Effect it would have been not being able to play the game when my connection is down for a longer period of time. A requirement like they made was not because of something in the game itself, it was completely unrelated to it.

It may be OK to do it from a legal standpoint, but law does not always equal justice and in this case I feel it is unfair to add a copy protection which will not allow me to play the game when my connection is down for a longer period of time. They can try to do it, but I can also raise my voice against them and boycott them or at least threaten them with one. Which is exactly what happened and they had to cave in. Since other offline games allow me to play without having to reactivate it every ten days, I see no valid reason to not be able to do the same here.

"Of course it is. But that seems to be, literally, the one and only response YOU have made. So my question is what kind of copy protection could you accept that fights piracy and yet allows casual gameplay? Methods of the past are obsolete, as well as current methods will be. So not only do we need a method now, we need to determine where it should go in the future."

It is not my job to figure out how to deal with piracy for them. This is their problem, and it is they who have to find a good solution to it. What they have there may or may not be a good solution for them, but it is not a good solution for the legitimate users of their games. Hence why people are complaining. I have come up with a few ideas listed above, but I'll repeat them again:

2.) Stop driving the costs up.
3.) Start making more quality games from the genres I mentioned above.
4.) Stop serving us with poor console ports and expecting us to buy them.
5.) Learn something about markets. If you're making a game aimed at an already overcrowded market, chances are, it might not sell enough. Instead, do what Stardock did, aim at a market which is not overcrowded and adjust your budget accordingly.

Here's another one. Developer "alliances". Kind of like what id has been doing. They made an engine, then made a game with it and licensed the engine to other companies to make some games for them. If I am not mistaken this was the case with ET: Quake Wars? Where there was one developer for one platform and another developer for another platform. Another example would be Puzzle Quest which was made by one developer, but the DS (or was it PSP) port was done by Vicious Cycle Software (Dave Ellis and few other ex X-COM devs). This means that you could share technology with them and they would make the game for you and then share profit.

You still haven't told me why Stardock's games sell despite having no DRM, though.

FullAuto · May 12, 2008

but I don't want to download a game illegally, because it's stealing.

Doesn't it actually fall under copyright violation? I mean, of course it varies with local laws, but here in the UK at least, I think it's a civil matter, not a criminal one. It's not technically piracy, either, which is a special type of robbery, I believe.

Bomb Bloke · May 12, 2008

Technically, with software piracy you're not "taking" anything. The original owner is left with exactly what he started with.

But the movie companies like to use the term "stealing" so they can compare piracy with car theft and the like.

Strong Bob · May 12, 2008

"Doesn't it actually fall under copyright violation? I mean, of course it varies with local laws, but here in the UK at least, I think it's a civil matter, not a criminal one. It's not technically piracy, either, which is a special type of robbery, I believe."

That depends on where you are, I think, I can't speak for anywhere else but here. In American law, stealing and theft are two definitions. Theft is the criminal act of taking something tangible. Stealing is just taking something that isn't yours. For example, I can indeed "steal" your idea and cause a copyright violation. But I would not be commiting theft.

Though to be honest I find it hard to distinguish the moral semantec between downloading a game and taking it off a shelf. By all means, it doesn't make much of a difference, merely silly terminology to complicate the English language further.

But not to such an extent, surely? The console market has simply got bigger and bigger, and it seems to me that upgrading your PC to stay at the forefront of things must be done more and more often (someone feel free to correct me on this if I'm wrong).

Of course, and now console games range in top selling categories whereas PC games aren't even the 3rd best seller of anything.

But all things considered, the point I was making was that if 5000 people are downloading this game, 5000 that would not have spent money on it in the first place, then that's pretty much the metaphorical slap in the face to the people that worked hard to build it. They're going to strike back and try to lock their game up tight so only those they absolutely know paid for it are going to buy it. And I applaud them for it. Not so much a logistic matter, but a personal matter of standing up for themselves.

"I seem to recall Starforce, Securom and those lovely Sony CDs creating security loopholes on PCs, drivers not uninstalling, and actual damage to drives. I don't recall hearing about how those consumers were notified this would happen when purchasing the prodcuts containing the DRM."

Of course there are bad apples here and there. But I feel that problematic software is a realm of it's own. Even classic games had problems that damaged hard drives. I seem to recall, YEARS ago, when the Ultima Collection version of Ultima 8 had a problem in it's uninstall procedure that caused it to delete the primary files in C: on some computers. But that doesn't mean Ultima 8 was a bad game or was inherently hindering my rights to having a functional hard drive.

In the cases you describe? I am behind you 100%. Things like that need to be figured out beforehand and not allowed to happen again. But that is not an inherent aspect of copy protection and are rather design flaws instead.

Maybe it's faster for you, but if I tried to download a game today it would take me more than an hour to download 1GB of data (best case scenario). Most of the big games today are what? 5-6 GBs? Granted, my university has a pretty fast connection and no download limit, but I don't want to download a game illegally, because it's stealing. But anyway, copying data from diskettes back then was still quite a bit faster. Of course, with time, applications got bigger, but then we started transferring to CDs.

Back in the day, when I made copies of Ultima Underworld and Wing Commander for friends, I would let the machine run while I watched a movie. Sometimes the copy would not be complete in the 2 hours after the movie was done. And there was also the problem of listening for that PC speak "beep" for whenever I needed the next diskette. Not only that, there was the minor issue of getting them to some friends, but that's only small distribution problem.

Now, I can download 6 different copies of games at once while having a few other minor downloads in the forms of music, movies, pictures, etc. All at once, while I leave home and go about my day without giving my downloads a second thought.

How do I distribute personally? There are several free webservers where you can host files of an enormous size for download. (I don't want to link them publically, however.) And if I don't use one of those, I can easily host it on my own, if I have one. From there the files are free to take by anyone with a connection. Which, I believe, is a rather high population.

The methods improved dramatically. Easier, more accessable, and more people are aware of it. Although I am guessing the demonization of Piracy is a more prime suspect of it's popularity.

"I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Could you rephrase and elaborate?"

A simple matter of the resources needed to make a game compared to how well they do. You will notice that when sequels to bestsellers come out, they tend to have higher budgets. This philosophy tends to work with media in general, not just games.

"Yet Bioshock didn't turn out badly in the opinion polls."

Because Bioshock was rated as a perfect game across the board in game magazines and professional reviewers, but everywhere I go (Where gaming companies do not sponsor) Bioshock is regarded as a piece of garbage. (What is this TTLG you speak of? Another site? It's the only acronym you've mentioned I cannot identify...) At first this made me wary until recently a man was fired for making a bad review of Kane and Lynch. (Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Gerstmann ) At this point, I don't believe a damned review that comes from a gaming magazine, which is unfortunate, since it used to be my only means of finding a game I liked.

I am not sure what you are referring to when it comes to the popularity of X-COM. Are you referring to the genre?

No, just X-COM. Everybody that has been a gamer long enough will know X-COM. But the current generation of gamers weren't even alive when it came out. And even us fans here seem to be scarce in the X-COM section.

It's good, it was popular, but it's fading and I think that's a good thing. It will feel more fresh if a sequel or remake comes out.

9/10 indie developers don't survive? Where have you gotten these numbers from?

That's not an official number, merely something I noticed. In fact, it's probably even more than that. Any idea how many people try to come up with a cool game and make their own independent "company name"? I don't. But I know it's a hell of a lot more than those that actually succeed. This exact same thing can be said about independent film makers and bands. Hundreds of them exist in my state alone, yet so few of them are even able to scrape a living out of it.

Frankly, I'd say an independent game developer's failure is hard to track because they tend to die silently, and too frequently to note. Anybody know what happened to that gang that made the remake of Ultima 1? Then turned it into an original game? Then decided to drop everything and change their name without contact information of what they were moving on to?

People don't have success just because. What you need to do is analyze whether or not you there is a potential market for your game big enough to buy it. Then you need to make sure you develop a quality product with a budget according to the number of people you estimate will buy it and you need to make sure that you reach the highest possible audience from the aforementioned market. By reach I mean: make them aware you have something that will interest them and then sell them on it.

That is a LOT of estimating. From my brief stint in film, I can tell you that the majority of success in an industry dependent on entertainment, a lot of it has to do with taste. Marketing plays a huge factor, you are very right about that, just like you're right about gauging your budget. But none of that is gonna matter unless you make something that people will enjoy.

It's "developing a quality product" that is the real matter. A "quality product" is an extremely relative term, and many people have different ideas about it. Bioshock, being our example, is clearly seen in two extremes (Being both godly and garbage, depending on who you ask.) for example. Just look at Doom 3, I found it to be very high quality, but plenty of people don't think so. Half Life 2? I, and numerous others, found it to be a dull game meant for killing time. Others found it's quality extraordinary enough for the history books of gaming.

Point is, you can do all the marketing you want. But the game needs to appeal in it's own way. It's "quality" is to be determined by the fans public opinions and game magazine's pseudo reviews.

Just because it was advertised for them, doesn't mean that it reached everyone in the target market. Didn't reach me for example. You also have not provided me with sufficient information for that example. You have not said why it was not received well, nor told me in what ways it was marketed, nor what the budget was, nor how many copies it sold. What do other people who didn't buy it say, why did they not buy it?

Depends on who you ask, of course. Reasons are as varied as any other game that exists. These include reasons such as the game being "too slow" to the fact it's completely different from it's predecessors on terms of interface.

Though I will say the one commonality that frustrates me to no end. People who didn't buy it, didn't do so because they read bad reviews in PC mags.

Actually, with Wikipedia already open in another window... Maybe this will provide you with the information you want. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_3#Criticism Some of the "bug" information is actually wrong there... But that is Wikipedia for you. And even that small piece of wrong information is probably enough to dissuade sales. An action not even on the part of the developers nor publishers.

So what was stopping Origin/EA from explaining it?

They did. Some people just didn't like something so new and inconvenient and fought it. Just like we are fighting DRM software.

My rights have not been damaged within the game itself, but they are lower in comparison with games that do not use it.

Lower, yes. But not hindered. I may not like having less rights in one game compared to another, but if it's a good game, then I will play it the way they want me to. I could consider it part of the cost and consideration for what they've done.

If I find it's too much to pay for? I won't buy it. Not sure if I would boycott it outright unless I felt it was truly harmful.

"You still haven't told me why Stardock's games sell despite having no DRM, though."

1 - Because I never made a claim otherwise, nor did I ever say piracy was causing a downfall everywhere in gaming.

2 - I hate Stardock's games, so I know next to nothing about them.

3 - It makes no difference either way. So I pretty much ignored the matter. Lots of games still come without a copy protection, (Like StarCraft for example.) and can still be a success. Piracy is not an uber-defining factor to bad sales, but a factor nonetheless.

It is not my job to figure out how to deal with piracy for them. This is their problem, and it is they who have to find a good solution to it.

I suppose this is why I tend to have problems with protesters... Normally, when I feel something warrants the energy of complaint, it warrants the energy to come up with a solution. Otherwise, I feel I should just keep my mouth shut, if I can't think of a "better way". I guess... Is this why people just want to say "No more anti-piracy", it's because they don't want to think of better anti-piracy solutions?

Although I apologize. I missed the one aspect of your list that isn't essentially simplifying the matter to "just make better games".

2.) Stop driving the costs up.

How would you propose they do this? Make the developers work for less? Use slightly lower grade technology?

Actually, I think lower tech would be a great idea. Move the modern mindset away from pushing graphics and try to deepen the games on a play level. But that's just my own view of "quality."

Bomb Bloke · May 12, 2008

What is this TTLG you speak of? Another site? It's the only acronym you've mentioned I cannot identify...

Through The Looking Glass. It's a site based around Looking Glass's stuff (for example, System Shock II). Got quite a large forum.

Gimli · May 12, 2008

"Back in the day, when I made copies of Ultima Underworld and Wing Commander for friends, I would let the machine run while I watched a movie. Sometimes the copy would not be complete in the 2 hours after the movie was done. And there was also the problem of listening for that PC speak "beep" for whenever I needed the next diskette. Not only that, there was the minor issue of getting them to some friends, but that's only small distribution problem.

Now, I can download 6 different copies of games at once while having a few other minor downloads in the forms of music, movies, pictures, etc. All at once, while I leave home and go about my day without giving my downloads a second thought.

How do I distribute personally? There are several free webservers where you can host files of an enormous size for download. (I don't want to link them publically, however.) And if I don't use one of those, I can easily host it on my own, if I have one. From there the files are free to take by anyone with a connection. Which, I believe, is a rather high population.

The methods improved dramatically. Easier, more accessable, and more people are aware of it. Although I am guessing the demonization of Piracy is a more prime suspect of it's popularity."

Back in the day you could fit 5-10 games on one diskette. Then they got bigger. The problem was that for a long time there wasn't a good cheap replacement for diskettes. The transition from CD to DVD and so on is happening much faster from what I can tell.

On the other hand, it would take me days... more likely a week or more to download 6 games and have ,ore downloads in the background.

"A simple matter of the resources needed to make a game compared to how well they do. You will notice that when sequels to bestsellers come out, they tend to have higher budgets. This philosophy tends to work with media in general, not just games."

OK, though I have no idea what it has to do with anything.

"Because Bioshock was rated as a perfect game across the board in game magazines and professional reviewers, but everywhere I go (Where gaming companies do not sponsor) Bioshock is regarded as a piece of garbage. (What is this TTLG you speak of? Another site? It's the only acronym you've mentioned I cannot identify...) At first this made me wary until recently a man was fired for making a bad review of Kane and Lynch. (Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Gerstmann ) At this point, I don't believe a damned review that comes from a gaming magazine, which is unfortunate, since it used to be my only means of finding a game I liked."

Yet almost everywhere I go it is lauded as a brilliant game. Except TTLG, which I'm surprised you never heard of, but OK, now you know. Outside of TTLG I really haven't seen much criticism. From what I've been able to tell, the game sold quite well and Bioshock 2 is being made so it would seem to me that it was a success to Take 2.

While I haven't found most game reviews satisfactory for a long time, it does not change the fact that it got lots of positive feedback from them. And as I said, I really haven't seen much negative feedback outside of TTLG. Perhaps the sites you visit are not mainstream, just like TTLG? I am asking here more because I am interested in this kind of sites as they have shown to be a more accurate source of information when it comes to game quality for me.

"No, just X-COM. Everybody that has been a gamer long enough will know X-COM. But the current generation of gamers weren't even alive when it came out. And even us fans here seem to be scarce in the X-COM section.

It's good, it was popular, but it's fading and I think that's a good thing. It will feel more fresh if a sequel or remake comes out."

That's true, though I think that there are lots of older fans, more than most people think. SC isn't really the center for X-COM fans though, xcomufo.com is. At least in the number of forum members. And it seems to me that the number of members there has been growing quite fast for a game series that has been dead for a long time. As I recall, it was ~8000 3 or so years ago, now it's almost 16000. That seems like a potentially good enough number for good sales. It's still difficult for me to do an accurate estimate, so take this with a grain of salt and merely as an observation. Even if I was right, there's a lot of variables there that I am ignoring.

"That's not an official number, merely something I noticed. In fact, it's probably even more than that. Any idea how many people try to come up with a cool game and make their own independent "company name"? I don't. But I know it's a hell of a lot more than those that actually succeed. This exact same thing can be said about independent film makers and bands. Hundreds of them exist in my state alone, yet so few of them are even able to scrape a living out of it.

Frankly, I'd say an independent game developer's failure is hard to track because they tend to die silently, and too frequently to note. Anybody know what happened to that gang that made the remake of Ultima 1? Then turned it into an original game? Then decided to drop everything and change their name without contact information of what they were moving on to?"

Yes, but I don't think that is any different from "big" developers.

"That is a LOT of estimating. From my brief stint in film, I can tell you that the majority of success in an industry dependent on entertainment, a lot of it has to do with taste. Marketing plays a huge factor, you are very right about that, just like you're right about gauging your budget. But none of that is gonna matter unless you make something that people will enjoy."

I agree with this.

"It's "developing a quality product" that is the real matter. A "quality product" is an extremely relative term, and many people have different ideas about it. Bioshock, being our example, is clearly seen in two extremes (Being both godly and garbage, depending on who you ask.) for example. Just look at Doom 3, I found it to be very high quality, but plenty of people don't think so. Half Life 2? I, and numerous others, found it to be a dull game meant for killing time. Others found it's quality extraordinary enough for the history books of gaming."

Yet that is exactly my point. You are going to have to find out what the people you are selling the game to want. Not everyone will want the same thing for every detail, but for major design points you will want to hit the most of your potential targeted market.

"Point is, you can do all the marketing you want. But the game needs to appeal in it's own way. It's "quality" is to be determined by the fans public opinions and game magazine's pseudo reviews."

Well of course, I don't think I've claimed that good marketing alone is enough. I think I made it clear that it has to be accompanied by other things.

"Depends on who you ask, of course. Reasons are as varied as any other game that exists. These include reasons such as the game being "too slow" to the fact it's completely different from it's predecessors on terms of interface.

Though I will say the one commonality that frustrates me to no end. People who didn't buy it, didn't do so because they read bad reviews in PC mags.

Actually, with Wikipedia already open in another window... Maybe this will provide you with the information you want. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_3#Criticism Some of the "bug" information is actually wrong there... But that is Wikipedia for you. And even that small piece of wrong information is probably enough to dissuade sales. An action not even on the part of the developers nor publishers."

My impression from that is that it wasn't as good a game as it seems to you. It lists quite a bit of flaws, not just interface and bugs. And since it was hitting mostly the market of the existing fan base, it fell flat with most fans of MoO 1 and 2 as the article says.

"They did. Some people just didn't like something so new and inconvenient and fought it. Just like we are fighting DRM software."

Yes, but if they had not done that, they wouldn't have been able to keep the game servers up thus people wouldn't be able to play it. But in the other case you haven't really shown that removing or changing the DRM software would in fact hinder the game in any way. Yet, if they had left it in, they were risking losing some potential customers.

"Lower, yes. But not hindered."

But it does hinder you from playing the game when your connection is down for a longer period of time, does it not?

"I may not like having less rights in one game compared to another, but if it's a good game, then I will play it the way they want me to. I could consider it part of the cost and consideration for what they've done."

Well that's just it. All of the complaints have been made because of the aforementioned reason by people who do not want to be hindered from playing the game when their connection is down. For lots of us this is a step back from other games and we don't want such a stupid DRM just because the publisher wants to prevent piracy.

"1 - Because I never made a claim otherwise, nor did I ever say piracy was causing a downfall everywhere in gaming."

So then why the need for such drastic copy protection? Also, we're talking about PC gaming, not gaming everywhere.

"3 - It makes no difference either way. So I pretty much ignored the matter. Lots of games still come without a copy protection, (Like StarCraft for example.) and can still be a success. Piracy is not an uber-defining factor to bad sales, but a factor nonetheless."

And as FullAuto mentioned, some publishers tend to blame piracy for everything so they "solve" it by trying to enforce copy protection which has so far proved not to work, and now we're getting to the point where the copy protection has become invasive or even dares to restrict us from playing a game when our connection is down for a longer period of time. Which is, as I pointed out several times, the problem here, and why people have been complaining in the first place.

"I suppose this is why I tend to have problems with protesters... Normally, when I feel something warrants the energy of complaint, it warrants the energy to come up with a solution. Otherwise, I feel I should just keep my mouth shut, if I can't think of a "better way". I guess... Is this why people just want to say "No more anti-piracy", it's because they don't want to think of better anti-piracy solutions?"

Again, it is NOT my job to fix things for them. If they feel they are losing money because of piracy, then it is THEIR problem, and THEY should fix it. Is piracy hurting me? No. So how is piracy my problem? Secondly, I didn't say I couldn't think of a way if I really tried to, I just said that it is NOT MY PROBLEM.

"Although I apologize. I missed the one aspect of your list that isn't essentially simplifying the matter to "just make better games".

2.) Stop driving the costs up.

How would you propose they do this? Make the developers work for less? Use slightly lower grade technology?"

Actually, I think lower tech would be a great idea. Move the modern mindset away from pushing graphics and try to deepen the games on a play level. But that's just my own view of "quality." "

That last bit is a good start. Developer alliances are another good idea. More ways of distribution too, which is slowly catching up. This means less money spent on things like paper manuals, game discs and game boxes. At the same time, you can see if there is interest for so called limited editions, like Bioshock had and then price them accordingly.

Bad console ports have nothing to do with make better games. The problem is not that the game is not good, the problem is that such a console port is lacking in comparison with the game on the console or that it has not been properly transfered on the PC. Inadequate interface and bugginess are the most common complaints I hear.

Learn something about markets also has nothing to do with making better games.

The same goes for developer alliances.

Strong Bob · May 16, 2008

(Ahem, forgive if I do not address everything you wrote before. I read it all, don't worry. But the excessive quoting from the both of us is giving me a headache. I'm going to try to condense this the best I can without leaving out anything critical. >_< )

Regarding piracy in the old days... I'm guessing you're a bit older than me. When I pirated games before, there was no way in hell I could fit more than one game on a 3.5 diskette. Games frequently came with more than 3 or 4 of them just for installation at the time. And it was a while before I figured out how to zip files across several diskettes. Things only got easier when I finally got Windows 95 and my first CD Rom drive. But uh... I'm drifting from the point here. All things considered, pirating a copy of a video game took more effort back then, than it does now.

Another thing you should look at... Media. If you look at television, movies, and such back in the late 80s early 90s, there was virtually nothing (At least nothing I noticed) that made note of piracy of any kind. Maybe in a movie here or there you would find someone noting bootlegged movies but not much more than that. Nowadays, I see it everywhere from the news, movies poking fun at it, and big "figures" (Eg: Bands, corporations, etc.) all over the place making some public note of piracy of some kind. And it was amusing to me to see it referenced to heavily in cinema these past few years. (The best, I believe, was the Simpson's Movie opening introduction. "I will not download this movie illegally." Heh)

18 years ago, it was nowhere except word of mouth. Now it's everywhere and freely accessable by everyone and their tech-illiterate grandmother.

Also, I'm using a basic high-speed internet service that costs under 15 USD a month. It takes maybe a little over a day to download a few games at a time. A bad torrent might take a couple days, but it is ergonomically efficient compared to my youth, because I can leave the thing running while not giving it a second thought.

As for Xcomufo.com, I've been there a couple times. But I must ask you, since I probably won't be going there for a while, how many of those members you listed are active members? A common problem, on any forum, are bots and spiders making dummy accounts, followed by sheer numbers of people whom spot topics located by google that have nothing to do with the fandom. (IE: Look at the most recent post in XCAS...) But that doesn't matter much, X-COM has a decent following, and from my experience with people and there fanaticism, I have doubts people will enjoy it for what it is.

Yes, but I don't think that is any different from "big" developers.

The difference between the two was noted by you, not me. There isn't any difference in that regard, except that big developers have larger and more competitive teams to work with. Because of this competition, money becomes more of an issue to the big companies as opposed to the independent developer which usually works another job on the side. (At least when they're starting out...)

My impression from that is that it wasn't as good a game as it seems to you. It lists quite a bit of flaws, not just interface and bugs. And since it was hitting mostly the market of the existing fan base, it fell flat with most fans of MoO 1 and 2 as the article says.

I think that's my problem with it. I disagree with most of what the article says, and one piece was flat out wrong. (The parts I disagree with appear to be misinterpretations or confusing from the perspective of other gamers. The diplomacy, for example, was perfectly fine to me and reflected a very realistic social environment.) I am a huge fan of both MoO 1 and 2 and I could still see the beauty in MoO 3.

MoO 3 was a great and well thought out game. People didn't want it because it was too different, too confusing, and "not like" the originals. A lot of other people didn't like it because it simply wasn't their cup of tea. I'm not saying it's wrong to dislike MoO 3 by any means.

However, the downfall of MoO 3 will stand for me as a marker that it doesn't take originality, depth, or even something as linear as "quality" to make a good game nowadays. What people want is not something "new" in the current generation of media. This is why they're making a super killing simply rehashing old TV shows, video games, and movies. (They're actually remaking the movie "Short Circuit"... Can you believe that?) MoO 3 didn't follow in those footsteps of simply being a rehash, and it suffered.

You're right. MoO 3 probably would've been pretty nice if it simply took after it's predecesors. But then I have a feeling I would see people complaining about there being "too many sequels" and nothing original after that. But that's just my point here...

But it does hinder you from playing the game when your connection is down for a longer period of time, does it not?

I thought about this aspect for quite a bit while I was working just the other day...

Obviously we are talking about the frustration of needing to authenticate more than once. (I'm going to discard the aspect of copy protection that potentially harms your system in any way because I am on your side in that one.) Would we have a problem if it was only one authentication at the start? Probably not, lots of games have that, and they never recieved flak like this.

We're angry about losing the rights to play our game after 10 days of no internet. Alright, so let's look at other games with a similar aspect.

MMOs of various kinds. We've brought this up before and you have explained it away that the internet connection is necessary. However, let's look at it this way. I paid 60 dollars for my copy of Ultima Online/World of Warcraft/anything else MMO, and pay for the monthly fees. Now... Let's say I lose my internet connection for reasons beyond my control.

I'm paying them the monthly fee, I paid the starting amount of 60 USD to purchase my copy to begin with. I've made my dues, and just because I lost the internet I cannot play my game AT ALL with no such 10 day grace period. By all means I have LESS rights to play an MMO than I do with a DRM single player game.

But this is forgivable, right? Why should it be? Why can't they at least have some kind of single player module if I can't play for a month or so, if a telephone pole collapses and repairs are slow? I paid them every which way, and I'm shafted by pure circumstance. They won't return that monthly fee to me, I KNOW that at least. Money wasted.

What about CD keys? Don't they work well? Nobody EVER complained about those, right? It's just a set of letters and numbers listed somewhere within your copy of select video games. You enter it one time at installation and never again. Without it, you cannot install your game no matter what.

CD keys were mainly designed to individualize your online experience. Only your CD key would have the information for your username and such. (Battle.net on Starcraft and Diablo for example. The CD Key served the purpose of logging your name and rank.) I'm not sure how long this purpose stuck around until it was solely used as a means of copy protection, but it works, right?

However, if you ever uninstall your game, make sure that whatever your CD key was listed on does not get lost. Or else you can never install your game again, ever. Blizzard certainly would never have provided a new CD key (Trust me, I tried. And I was 100% legit.) and taking one from someone else would prevent them from playing online or installing their game. Otherwise, you would actually need to purchase a second copy to obtain a new key.

Now let's take a few steps backwards in time. Way back in the day we had copy protection that required you look into your game manual for a particular word. This was decent protection. Especially when it came to some games where the passwords were different between each copy. The internet can go in and out at it's leisure, nothing will happen!

But wait... God forbid you ever lose your copy of the manual, at any time. Because then you lose ALL right to play your game ever again. At least until you find your manual again, and anything could've happened to it.

But this is forgivable, right? Why? Because it's easy to keep track of a manual? But why should I have to have my manual to play the game? If I travel somewhere else with my copy of The Lost Vikings or X-Wing, and I misplace my manual along the way, I guess I'm in huge trouble.

These are all possibilities considering you do not pirate or crack your game. And to be honest, the DRM doesn't seem so bad to me considering copy protection methods of the past, and the actual play requirements of the present.

All they ask for is one check every period of time. This doesn't strike me as too problematic, just a little inconvenient compared to what we actually want. This inconvenience isn't much different than the norm we've been dealing with for a very long time. We deal with a greater version of this inconvenience on games that are merely "different", ala MMOs.

The DRM for Mass Effect was silly, I agree. But I do think that it is a step in the right direction, however clumsy it was.

Again, it is NOT my job to fix things for them. If they feel they are losing money because of piracy, then it is THEIR problem, and THEY should fix it. Is piracy hurting me? No. So how is piracy my problem? Secondly, I didn't say I couldn't think of a way if I really tried to, I just said that it is NOT MY PROBLEM.

It is your problem. You're the consumer sitting there complaining about their tactics and it is clearly affecting the way you play and experience the games presented to you. They're trying to come up with solutions, and unless you have a better idea to compare, then there isn't much validity you have to justify their solutions as being "bad".

You said it yourself, you would protest and boycott a game if you found it's copy protection was too stifling. You're saying you would do this without explaining there are alternatives? What is the point in even speaking out against it if there is really nothing you're trying to say except "do something else"? Even if there next choice might even be worse?

When you boycott something, you must be prepared to respond to the inevitable question "You have a better suggestion?" because it's hard to be taken seriously otherwise. In the case of Mass Effect's DRM, the better suggestion was to simply remove the DRM feature and favor it's limited installations. Though I am curious how you would react if they simply changed it to something else equally unacceptable to the masses... Would any of the protesters bother to step forward to explain acceptable alternatives? We're the consumers... It should be our job to explain the exact boundaries of what we do and do not find acceptable.

(I probably neglected to make note of some of the things in your last post Gimli. If you're curious, and if they're that important to you, just point them out again, please.)

Bomb Bloke · May 17, 2008

I have an alternative - No more DRM. Screw it. Sure, the game'll be available to pirates a week earlier (a month at the most), but with all the money the publisher just saved they'll be able to offer the legal copies at a slightly cheaper rate then they normally would.

That and the fact that the buyers don't need to worry about whether some fancy new DRM will allow them to play the game or not (or whether it'll open a massive hole in their systems for viruses to pour into) means they'll get more sales.

The gamers are happy, the publishers are happy. Granted, the pirates are also happy, and the DRM developers are the only ones who lose out, but I reckon that system'd work better then the current one.

Strong Bob · May 17, 2008

You may be right, but that isn't going to happen.

Like I said, PC sales are down in general. The reason is not fully clear, and to be honest I think consoles have more to do with this than piracy.

But this is not the conclusion they have come to, whether we believe they are scapegoating, wrong, or otherwise, and we're going to have to "roll with the punch" so to speak. Piracy had become popular right around the time PC sales went down, that much is curious at least. And this is how they're reacting to it.

All things considered, I think I would prefer something more hardcoded into the game as copy protection. You guys remember Ultima 7 part 2? In that game it kept bringing up copy protection quizes from the beginning and I believe 2 more times in the game just to throw you off guard. Wasn't something that could be so simply averted, and it required you studied the manual extensively rather than just find the answers in a column or something.

Matri · May 17, 2008

We're angry about losing the rights to play our game after 10 days of no internet. Alright, so let's look at other games with a similar aspect.

MMOs of various kinds. We've brought this up before and you have explained it away that the internet connection is necessary. However, let's look at it this way. I paid 60 dollars for my copy of Ultima Online/World of Warcraft/anything else MMO, and pay for the monthly fees. Now... Let's say I lose my internet connection for reasons beyond my control.

I'm paying them the monthly fee, I paid the starting amount of 60 USD to purchase my copy to begin with. I've made my dues, and just because I lost the internet I cannot play my game AT ALL with no such 10 day grace period. By all means I have LESS rights to play an MMO than I do with a DRM single player game.

But this is forgivable, right? Why should it be? Why can't they at least have some kind of single player module if I can't play for a month or so, if a telephone pole collapses and repairs are slow? I paid them every which way, and I'm shafted by pure circumstance. They won't return that monthly fee to me, I KNOW that at least. Money wasted.

Your argument is flawed on two points, both of which fundamentally ignore the basis of this discussion: Mass Effect and to a lesser degree Spore.

Point 1: MMOs explicitly require an internet connection. A majority of its content is online, and the entirety of its gameplay is online. As such, it will not function without it.

Point 2: Mass Effect is entirely singleplayer. All of its content is stored locally on the hard drive and the basis of its gameplay does not consider an internet connection even as an optional aspect.

If I paid money for an online game, I'd consider myself intelligent enough to acknowledge that an internet connection is a mandatory requirement.

If I paid money for an offline game, I'd consider myself intelligent enough to understand that an active internet connection is not supposed to be mandatory.

My analogy of clamping down cars still stands. You have yet to argue this point.

Strong Bob · May 18, 2008

Alright Matri... I will discuss with you how licensing of vehicles work and it's relation to a DRM. Since you clearly ignored what I was saying before.

When you buy a car, you can own one regardless of anything. In some places, a car can be in your name alone as young as 16, and you do not need a license to own it. You simply cannot drive it without the necessary requirements.

Now then... Let's make comparisons.

Your car is the game, Mass Effect. Your license is the internet, one of many various kinds. The police equate to the DRM.

You drive without a license? BZZT! That is illegal. You can do so, of course, but many various laws will have you arrested with various different repercussions depending on where you live. Anyone in a legal position will also point out that if they could find a system where people simply could not even turn on their cars without a license, it would very likely be put to use. (I could go on for hours about that one, but that is not the subject of discussion here.)

Now then, you are caught driving without a license, depending on your location they will do one of numerous different options. Ranging from fining you heavily to impounding your car. (Practically the equivalent of this weird "chaining up" you describe.)

You then must obtain a license to be capable of retrieving your car and drive it again without circumstance.

Now then... Let's compare. You buy Mass Effect (your car) and play it without the internet (your license). Your right to play it (to drive) is taken away by the DRM (the police). Except in BOTH cases, you never had that right to begin with, because you never had the one key requirement that makes it your right.

Gimli has made a much better, and more agreeable, statement that you do indeed have more rights with OTHER single player games. But by no means is this an 'unfair' treatment, nor does it hinder your rights. They simply didn't exist in the first place, and this goes well with all the American laws we have today.

Point 1: MMOs explicitly require an internet connection. A majority of its content is online, and the entirety of its gameplay is online. As such, it will not function without it.

Point 2: Mass Effect is entirely singleplayer. All of its content is stored locally on the hard drive and the basis of its gameplay does not consider an internet connection even as an optional aspect.

You miss the point of my post entirely. I was pointing out that this wouldn't be a problem to any of you if this wasn't so inconvenient. And other games, which require this up and down for absolute basic function, are even more inconvenient than this. With this logic in mind, it baffles me why people find this to be so terrible when we all deal with worse on other games without much complaint from us anymore. And this is why I also brought up the lawsuit with Origin/EA so many years ago, regarding these same inconveniences found in MMOs. People knew it was necessary, but still didn't like it, and fought as hard as people are fighting the DRM system.

Though I must point out other games that feature DRMs, and they still recieve no flak. Bioware (The creators of Mass Effect) have been using DRM software on Neverwinter Nights mods for YEARS. It's even worse in that case, because you need an internet connection upon every single startup, not every 10 days. So it's no surprise to me that they did not think it would cause any harm to put it on one of their games.

Gimli · May 18, 2008

Unfortunately my post got eaten due to a BSoD when I was almost finished with it. So now I have to type it all over again as well as reread the relevant posts. I am not amused.

StrongBob, I agree with the quoting, it's a bit unwieldy, although I'll quote where I think it's neccessary for the sake of being clear.

Piracy in ye olden days (and on) - Actually, we're the same age (as per your profile), but I guess I started gaming sooner (5)? Anyway, the point I am making is that pirating may have become easier for some, but not nearly for everyone. Whereas you pay less than 15$ for a high speed internet connection, I pay almost 30$ for a 2M/256k connection with a 10GB monthly download limit. Even if I did want to pirate games, I couldn't because of that limit. Of course, I could download it from the university (which I "abuse" for getting some MS products for free legally, thanks to MSDNAA) but then I'm in the minority there. Come to think of it, I'm surprised they haven't blocked access to P2P yet. Dad told me that BSA forced his company to block these when they found out about illegal P2P downloads. Now, my country is fairly representative for a lot of other transitional countries so I would say that he situation is similar there on average. And when you put them all together, that's a significant portion of the market. But as I said, from a personal observation, it looks like there's less piracy in gaming now here. And BSA's reports say that it has been dropping over the years. Though as I recall, the numbers they offered seemed a bit far fetched.

As for movies and music, I really couldn't give you anything more substantial for this region, simply because unlike most people I know, I don't rent movies much and I'm very picky about music.

I seem to remember illegal tapes for movies in renting places (what do you call those in English?) and people having illegal music cassettes. I know we had a radio which could record/copy cassettes, but we rarely used it for cassettes, mostly for radio stations. I do know that lots of music is illegal, but I also see lots of legal CDs. Part of the problem as I see it is that here you're forced to buy the whole CD. Now usually I will not like more than one or two songs on a CD. So it doesn't make sense to me to pay for all the songs that I will never listen to. A good idea to solve this is something like iTunes. The problem (until recently) was that Paypal was not available here, and from what I understand, it's the easiest method of online transactions. Now that it's here, I expect music piracy to slowly drop.

What's really annoying me with their claims: "It's all piracy's fault!" or "It's the number one reason!" is that they are claiming that but haven't nearly backed it up properly. I have yet to see a good analysis of how many games are pirated, with a breakdown per region, how it changed over the years, why people pirate games, would people who pirate games buy them if they weren't easily available etc. etc.

xcomufo - to be honest, I don't know how many are active. It doesn't say anywhere. But it's not all that important, because activity changes depending on several factors. Don't forget that there hasn't been anything important about X-COM for a long time. From personal observations it seems that growth of a forum is slower at those times. Which is why I found it interesting that it is growing so fast. It could be that I am missing something, though. In any case, one thing I can say with a fair amount of certainty is that if there is a game in the works, during the prerelease and immediate postrelease period, forums will have a substantially higher than usual activity. We'll have to wait and see, but so far all the pointers have been good and one that I may not have mentioned is Game Informer's report that TFTD was selling very well over Steam and they concluded that the chance of a new game is 99%. This is not a perfect factor though, because all it shows is interest in the older games, but necessarily newer. But I do think there is a correlation because TFTD is usually not people's favorite of the series, it's either UFO or Apoc. If I had to guess, I would say the popularity is: UFO > Apoc > TFTD. I wish they would release all three over Steam, that would be interesting to see. I'd also be interested in what numbers TFTD sold over Steam, I'll try asking the 2K representative the next time I communicate with him. I won't get exact numbers, but maybe they'd be willing to at least give a: "Yes, it's doing well." or "No, it's not."

The difference between the two was noted by you, not me. There isn't any difference in that regard, except that big developers have larger and more competitive teams to work with. Because of this competition, money becomes more of an issue to the big companies as opposed to the independent developer which usually works another job on the side. (At least when they're starting out...)

Correct me if I'm wrong (I forgot half of what I wrote by now ), but looking at my previous post, I don't think I said that. This is what I said:

"9/10 indie developers don't survive? Where have you gotten these numbers from? And do they differ in any way from the number of big developers that don't survive?"

What you said up here is my point, the fact that most of them "die" has nothing to do with a certain market being viable or not. I would not even go as far as saying that there is a higher competition for big developers. This was so before probably, but now I think there is a lot of competition, the small games market (as a total of all the markets it consists of) has grown quite a lot. I remember when I first started playing all those games published by Popcap some 8 years ago, I used to think they were a small company, but you know what, they keep publishing them year after year, to the point that I hear they're now the biggest company in the casual games market. Competing against them in that case is difficult.

Also a job on the side is not a bad idea either, although I would say it's not good during development for bigger developers, but in between projects it can be a good way to cover yourself. There is a local developer which has been making these bigger games, and while none have been all that good, they haven't gone under in 8 years that I have been following them. The reason for this, they say, is that they also make commercials for TV and what not.

MoO - I think the problem is that making a good sequel is very difficult. If you're too close, people won't like it, if you're too far, people won't like it. No matter what you do, someone won't be happy. Still, I do think it's possible to make a good sequel. Often times, developers will make the game too different out of fear of making it too similar, which will alienate the fans of the original. I think the best way to go around doing a sequel is to keep all of the significant design features and expanding enough upon them. But then we come to the too many sequels problem (EA sports games anyone?). I think you should wait quite a bit before making a sequel or if you plan to make another game, it seems episodes are a better solution, because you're not expected to do as much as a sequel. I don't agree that people don't want originality, they just may not want it in sequels, but they do want more original IPs. Plus, I don't think that originality or innovation always imply quality, meaning that you can have bad innovations as well. It just seems to me that innovation has been turned into a word which always means something good, which I don't think is always the case.

Internet connection - there are several things that I think are wrong with your argument here.

First of all, as Matri said, you require an internet connection to play the game in the first place. As you pointed out, you would be paying even if your connection is down. You then assume that I would be alright with that. But I'm not, which is (part of) why I don't play MMOs in the first place. Come to think of it, if there was an ability to have a per hour charge as well as subscription, it would be a lot better. I don't go for a subscription with cell phones precisely for the reason that I don't use my cell phone enough to get a benefit out of it.

As for CD keys and manuals, there is a difference, in that I have safety measures for those. I can write down the CD key somewhere, and the relevant part of the manual. It's not full proof, but it is a measure that will cover all but the most extreme and very rare cases.

Yet, I have no power over my internet connection going down.

The real crux of the problem isn't even Mass Effect itself so much, it's that if we allowed this, it's possible other publishers would do the same, regardless of the actual effectiveness of the DRM. So right now, if I had MMOs and my internet connection went down, I wouldn't be able to play MMOs. But if this DRM were to spread, then I wouldn't be able to play singleplayer games either, which don't even require an internet connection per se. I don't care about not being able to play MMOs, because I don't buy them, so it doesn't concern me. This however does concern me, and I will do everything I can to stop them from pushing this.

It is your problem. wink.gif You're the consumer sitting there complaining about their tactics and it is clearly affecting the way you play and experience the games presented to you. They're trying to come up with solutions, and unless you have a better idea to compare, then there isn't much validity you have to justify their solutions as being "bad".

You said it yourself, you would protest and boycott a game if you found it's copy protection was too stifling. You're saying you would do this without explaining there are alternatives? What is the point in even speaking out against it if there is really nothing you're trying to say except "do something else"? Even if there next choice might even be worse?

When you boycott something, you must be prepared to respond to the inevitable question "You have a better suggestion?" because it's hard to be taken seriously otherwise. In the case of Mass Effect's DRM, the better suggestion was to simply remove the DRM feature and favor it's limited installations. Though I am curious how you would react if they simply changed it to something else equally unacceptable to the masses... Would any of the protesters bother to step forward to explain acceptable alternatives? We're the consumers... It should be our job to explain the exact boundaries of what we do and do not find acceptable.

It is affecting my experience, so I solve the problem by telling them I won't buy their products. I can spend my money elsewhere, but they are then actually losing money. The way I see it, they are the only ones losing here. And again, it is not my duty to go figuring out how to solve their perceived problem. Even if I don't offer anything else (which I did) they do in fact have to take me very seriously, because they depend on my money. And I think that your "taking you seriously" is not a valid argument here, because the only who may not be taking me seriously is you. EA did take me (and others) very seriously, because they changed their decision because of that criticism.

My job here is to tell them that something is not good and implicitly I have already offered a better solution (for me). Part of the solution is to not have a DRM as bad as that one. This is something they have to accept, because a user may not know what he likes, but he does know what he doesn't. This same principle applies to making applications. Your consumer will typically not know what he wants, you'll have to tell him that, and then present him with a prototype. At that point he will take a look and tell you what he doesn't like. Then you have to figure out how to solve it. Your (average) consumer can't fix your application for you, because he knows next to nothing about programming or application design. When you figure out something better you show him the new version. Then again he decides if what he doesn't like and so on until he's satisfied. The ability to tell you what he would like doesn't come often and shouldn't be expected (although it's welcome).

Let me also point out that I really do not have to offer any solutions to them for free. If they want a better DRM, then shouldn't they be asking a company making DRMs to find a solution?

Strong Bob · May 19, 2008

Regarding our age, Gimi: I think I may have started gaming sooner than 5... I started school as I turned 5 years old and I know for a fact I was already a gamer child. Although at the time I played nothing mainstream, mostly Battletech text adventures and such. (On a humorous note, in my drawer I have a poster from that same year of kindergarten where I drew crude drawings of the Kell Hounds fighting the Draconis Combine from "The Crescent Hawks Revenge". The only mechs I even recognize in that crappy drawing are the Wasp and Locust. Although the latter might've been the Jenner. XD ) I, unfortunately, do not know what my very first game was. Probably something basic like Dig Dug or Pacman.

Point is, it wasn't until I was 8 that I finally had my own NES. I got the Genesis right around the same time. I didn't get many games for either, unfortunately. The clear majority of my experience in gaming has been PC gaming, only recently have I been paying more attention to consoles. (Namely the 360.)

To be fair, I did not pirate anything until uh... Not sure what age it was exactly. Probably between 8 and 10. When I learned the basic commands for DOS besides "cd filename" and "del *.*". Back then it was not hard to do, but I would certainly not call it easier than it is today. Especially if I wanted to find a game I wanted, I needed to know someone who had it first. And since I wasn't a huge mainstream gamer yet (It wasn't until I got the internet that I even MET anyone else that knew about Battletech text adventures!) that was the absolute hardest task. Mostly people only seemed to have Doom, Duke Nukem, and pirated copies of the extra episodes to Wolfenstein 3D. I remember those distinctly, because when asking people I made it priority to make note that those weren't the games I wanted. XD

Frankly, I can't gauge it any more than my perspective in how much more attention piracy has recieved. From way back then, where it seemed like bootlegs and pirated copies took some work to locate, transfer to disk, and then distribute, compared to nowadays where all it takes is a google search and "right click to save as". Not only that... There's the media thing, where I see it written all over the news and such. I never saw such a thing 10+ years ago.

I seem to remember illegal tapes for movies in renting places (what do you call those in English?) and people having illegal music cassettes.

Bootlegs? I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. I know I've heard of illegal copying of VHS tapes at video rentals, though. I don't know if there's any other word for it.

Also, does iTunes only use paypal in your region? Because I think it works differently over here. But that's a non-issue...

What's really annoying me with their claims: "It's all piracy's fault!" or "It's the number one reason!" is that they are claiming that but haven't nearly backed it up properly. I have yet to see a good analysis of how many games are pirated, with a breakdown per region, how it changed over the years, why people pirate games, would people who pirate games buy them if they weren't easily available etc. etc.

I agree that it is silly to blame something so unknown for drops in sales. But I actually haven't heard much in the way of piracy being blamed solely for all this. Merely that it is a factor and a big one. To be honest, logically, but not statistically, it seems to be true in that aspect. And like I said, they've come to this same conclusion.

We'll have to wait and see, but so far all the pointers have been good and one that I may not have mentioned is Game Informer's report that TFTD was selling very well over Steam and they concluded that the chance of a new game is 99%.

Game Informer is... Ugh. I got a subscription for free from my local game retailer. I am sorry, but that magazine is screwed in the head.

I read that same article you mentioned. But if you read some of the other entries it mentions, and look them up respectively, you'll find most of it's information appears to be fudged and not a lot of research was made on their parts whatsoever. (Look at the section on System Shock 2, for example. If you know about the circumstances behind the System Shock franchise, you can tell they don't.)

Add to that their awful reviews, and disgusting PR on their "letter to the editor" section... I must say it is the worst gaming magazine I've seen in my life. And I wouldn't trust a thing that came out of it.

Regardless, it means nothing. Just not a valid source of information. I do not know much of this X-COM sequel coming out, and I hope it does. I need a TBS fix that nothing produced since 2003 has been able to satiate.

You then assume that I would be alright with that. But I'm not, which is (part of) why I don't play MMOs in the first place. Come to think of it, if there was an ability to have a per hour charge as well as subscription, it would be a lot better. I don't go for a subscription with cell phones precisely for the reason that I don't use my cell phone enough to get a benefit out of it.

When I mentioned that, I was not just refering to you and you alone. I'm refering to the people in general. We know for a fact that over 7 million people have absolutely no problem playing a game of that kind, yet so many have that same problem with something only slightly less inconvenient?

The real crux of the problem isn't even Mass Effect itself so much, it's that if we allowed this, it's possible other publishers would do the same, regardless of the actual effectiveness of the DRM.

Yes, I've thought of that a lot. And that is why I keep refering to this DRM as "unrefined". Perhaps I'm being more optimistic than I should be, but I feel that a DRM can be seen as perfectly fine so long as a happy medium is attained. And the only way that will happen is if it's in action and refined to what people find acceptable. Much like any other piece of new software.

Correct me if I'm wrong (I forgot half of what I wrote by now tongue.gif), but looking at my previous post, I don't think I said that. This is what I said:

I wasn't refering to that quote. Before you asked me "how do indie developers survive?" after I pointed out that innovation isn't always accepted by the people. My rebuttal was that their survival rate is actually minimal, and I would attribute much more of it to luck, that enough people enjoy their games for them to survive without working other jobs on the side.

In fact, I don't really know what you were trying to get at when you mentioned indie developers, if that wasn't it. Going back and rereading what you wrote... I originally assumed that you meant indie developers were more down to earth and not affected by publishers with "draconian" DRMs, using piracy as an excuse. I went deeper into that because you asked me where those numbers came from, and I decided to point out to you that independent developers only see success very rarely. Perhaps rarer than the bigger companies due to costs and budgets.

Now... I'm not even sure, even after rereading, what you were trying to say with that. You move on to something else about Spiderweb's marketing strategy directly afterwards. Am I missing something here?

Matri · May 29, 2008

Al-right-y then!

Paramount silencing portions of Indiana Jones in theaters?

Bomb Bloke · May 30, 2008

That's it. I'm changing my status from "can't be bothered going" to "boycotting".

Matri · May 30, 2008

Let's not be a little too hasty. It's just one guy who saw the notice on one cinema. I can't find any "official" word yet.

Bomb Bloke · May 31, 2008

The comments on that very page are full of people who DID see the movie complaining about it. I don't think the movie companies would want to advertise this too loudly themselves.

Matri · June 1, 2008

True enough. Methinks someone in Marketing has a shred of intelligence, even if their higher-ups don't.

DRM is excellent/evil! I love/hate DRM!

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