DRM Tolerance

tom2050 said:

Who in the world has been voting for Starforce...???? it's like voting to have your computer destroyed by a nuclear explosion.

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Now this made me laugh.

tom2050 said:

Who in the world has been voting for Starforce...???? it's like voting to have your computer destroyed by a nuclear explosion.

Impulse method was okay... because it required you to login to get updates and patches to the game, but this gives consumer choice to do so. It was not Required and forced down the consumers throat against their will.

Requiring Internet to even install the game is almost as bad as requiring internet to play the game. It's a nice way of them to tell you to bend over and take it up your pant-leg. Dial-up users and non-internet users might meet a nasty surprise after game purchase from the store to play single player.



Firaxis should grow a spine. 2K even hired someone to comb the forums to sanitize dissent.

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I voted all of the options. If I liked a game enough I would accept all DRM, as long as it still allowed me to play the game normally. If the game had an alt-tab to the desktop every ten minutes or so and asked you to enter your cd-key or the game would lockdown, that is what would get to me. In a normal situation though, whatever registration or whatever the means the company had me do, I'd do it.

And you can say impulse is ok because it is not 'forced' upon the user, but it practically is. GalCiv II is a meagre game that became good with a few patches. It was promising but not all-that out of the box. You may have not been forced to patch the game, but if you wanted to get all the bang for your bucks then you needed to register on impulse.

Now some people may see impulse as something you can choose to get or not, but it is almost as forced as steam is unless you want to own a copy of a game that is decent but not all that it can be.

Maybe I'm just a relic of the early days of PC gaming, but I really do not think that I should be forced to have an Internet connection in order to play a game - not all the time, not a few times, not once. Yes I obviously have one, but that isn't the point.

I don't think you should have to have a CD check or anything else either (and I'm not even going to mention Starforce etc).

DRM, to me, is a whole lot of phooey. Video games are one of the most lucrative entertainment industries that exist today. The revenues have ballooned, and continue to balloon every year. $9.5 billion in 2007, $11.7 billion in 2008 - what regular industries providing tangible, crucial goods like cars or medical products wouldn't give for that kind of growth! Even the pharmaceutical industry isn't growing that fast, and they're milking people who need their products to live.

All these crocodile tears about pirates robbing developers blind is utter nonsense; just another bunch of people crying victim for profit.

Vordrax said:

I don't recall making an argument or a comparison. I believe I made a statement of fact for clarification, so quit being so argumentative and trying to pick a fight. It doesn't make you look witty or intelligent, it makes you look obnoxious.

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Er what? Why mention it if not to draw some sort of parallel? And for heavens sake, I was hardly being argumentative - a jokey "a bit mad" with a smiley is rather a friendlier jibe than "obnoxious".

frekk said:

Maybe I'm just a relic of the early days of PC gaming, but I really do not think that I should be forced to have an Internet connection in order to play a game - not all the time, not a few times, not once. Yes I obviously have one, but that isn't the point.

I don't think you should have to have a CD check or anything else either (and I'm not even going to mention Starforce etc).

DRM, to me, is a whole lot of phooey. Video games are one of the most lucrative entertainment industries that exist today. The revenues have ballooned, and continue to balloon every year. $9.5 billion in 2007, $11.7 billion in 2008 - what regular industries providing tangible, crucial goods like cars or medical products wouldn't give for that kind of growth! Even the pharmaceutical industry isn't growing that fast, and they're milking people who need their products to live.

All these crocodile tears about pirates robbing developers blind is utter nonsense; just another bunch of people crying victim for profit.

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A one-time internet check for a DD game, where you have to buy the game and download it off the internet, to me- is the exception to that rule. That's fine, since you're obviously on the internet anyways.

An every-time check for a non-MP only game, isn't.

Usually companies that cry about piracy are those that lack the business sense to make a profitable product. (not accusing Firaxis of this)

Shurdus said:

I voted all of the options. If I liked a game enough I would accept all DRM, as long as it still allowed me to play the game normally. If the game had an alt-tab to the desktop every ten minutes or so and asked you to enter your cd-key or the game would lockdown, that is what would get to me. In a normal situation though, whatever registration or whatever the means the company had me do, I'd do it.

And you can say impulse is ok because it is not 'forced' upon the user, but it practically is. GalCiv II is a meagre game that became good with a few patches. It was promising but not all-that out of the box. You may have not been forced to patch the game, but if you wanted to get all the bang for your bucks then you needed to register on impulse.

Now some people may see impulse as something you can choose to get or not, but it is almost as forced as steam is unless you want to own a copy of a game that is decent but not all that it can be.

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Unlike Steam, you could intall Impulse, patch, uninstall Impulse- and your game would run fine. Impulse was not needed to run the game, period. You're right about the game being limited to start with, that wasn't intentional on Stardock's part, but because they kept adding features. You could also eventually find the patches outside of Impulse and run them I believe also- though Stardock obviously does not like that (unsure on that, as I saw no need)

Steam- you need Steam running to play a Steam game- and Valve can if they choose, de-authenticate your game. (not saying they will, but they can)

arstal said:

An every-time check for a non-MP only game, isn't.

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Do we know for certain that it's not possible to play Civ V with Steam set to "offline"? Because if you can (like with most games on Steam) then the situation really is like how you describe - go on line, download, go offline, play.

It was said you need Steam running to play Civ V, offline or not. I don't want that.

Read these things. This is a rare case, but this is why I don't want Steam running every time.

http://consumerist.com/2009/01/help-steam-randomly-charged-me-in-pounds-instead-of-dollars.html
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5406-WFZC-5519

#
Payment Fraud

Any fraudulent credit card use, credit card chargebacks, or Paypal chargebacks (regardless of when the transaction occurred).


***

Chargebacks are great when you get defrauded. While I'm not saying Steam will actively try to rip you off, mistakes happen, things that can impact your credit report if you run a low balance, or they could fatfinger something. If you try to assert your rights with the credit card company, Valve can brick ALL your Steam games. BTW companies tend to view all chargebacks as fraudulent, especially in cases where one hand doesn't know what the other is doing.

With Impulse/Gamersgate, you might lose the ability to patch, but what you paid for won't be bricked.

frekk said:

Maybe I'm just a relic of the early days of PC gaming, but I really do not think that I should be forced to have an Internet connection in order to play a game - not all the time, not a few times, not once. Yes I obviously have one, but that isn't the point.

I don't think you should have to have a CD check or anything else either (and I'm not even going to mention Starforce etc).

DRM, to me, is a whole lot of phooey. Video games are one of the most lucrative entertainment industries that exist today. The revenues have ballooned, and continue to balloon every year. $9.5 billion in 2007, $11.7 billion in 2008 - what regular industries providing tangible, crucial goods like cars or medical products wouldn't give for that kind of growth! Even the pharmaceutical industry isn't growing that fast, and they're milking people who need their products to live.

All these crocodile tears about pirates robbing developers blind is utter nonsense; just another bunch of people crying victim for profit.

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agreed...completely.

the problem is though, given the age of some folks all they know is that which the industry is doing 'now' versus how it was before. given this...to the younger generation out there 'this' practice is the norm and we who are against it are apparently off our rockers for 'daring' to speak out against it. sad thing is...what we would like to see happen actually benefits them as well. ah well...so it goes.~

frekk said:

All these crocodile tears about pirates robbing developers blind is utter nonsense; just another bunch of people crying victim for profit.

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A lot of these dollars flow into the pockets of the major developers. Smaller companies might indeed suffer some nasty side-effects from piracy. Also you mention how much the industry makes, but it is still not clear how much profit they make. Without knowing the specifics on a per-company basis your statement is rather hollow and unfounded.

I for one would gladly accept any DRM imposed on me by 2K, no matter how pernicious.

Including only being able to play the game at the 2k corporate headquarters, naked, whilst being closely supervised by 2k anti-piracy executives.

It would be necessary to do cavity searches on players entering and exiting the gaming area, to ensure that copies were being taken out. Naturally these probes would be respectful but robust. Lube would only be used for purchases of the Deluxe Pack.

arstal said:

It was said you need Steam running to play Civ V, offline or not. I don't want that.

Read these things. This is a rare case, but this is why I don't want Steam running every time.

http://consumerist.com/2009/01/help-steam-randomly-charged-me-in-pounds-instead-of-dollars.html
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5406-WFZC-5519

#
Payment Fraud

Any fraudulent credit card use, credit card chargebacks, or Paypal chargebacks (regardless of when the transaction occurred).


***

Chargebacks are great when you get defrauded. While I'm not saying Steam will actively try to rip you off, mistakes happen, things that can impact your credit report if you run a low balance, or they could fatfinger something. If you try to assert your rights with the credit card company, Valve can brick ALL your Steam games. BTW companies tend to view all chargebacks as fraudulent, especially in cases where one hand doesn't know what the other is doing.

With Impulse/Gamersgate, you might lose the ability to patch, but what you paid for won't be bricked.

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This is something that applies to every single service that requires you to provide your credit card info, including impulse. Just like you can get pickpocketed if one is not careful, one may fall victim to thieves online. And even if one is careful, one may still be robbed by crafty and very clever thieves. This is by no means steam exclusive and it falls in the paranoids category in my filing cabinet.

Also after explaining why you think impulse is fine and steam is not, all the notable difference you noted was 'steam must run'. If you had to manually insert quarters to fire up steam each and every time, then I would get why it is a problem. But it happens to be so that steam is a passive program that is just there. If steam is too dangerous to use, then any webbrowser on your pc is certainly ten times as dangerous.

Where is the line then? Given many have no issues with having a 3rd party program needed to run a program that is primarily a solo experience I would then assume that they would also have issues if/when there are multiple 3rd programs needed to run? Or is this going to far? How long until such time that all games require us to be logged into the internet via multiple 3rd parties just to play a solo game? Given I am providing the extreme we actually do see this occuring to a small degree even now on a couple games out there (the need to be logged online to play a single person game). Is it really all that bad to ask that we as consumers be, at the very least, given the 'option' of whether we want to be online or not when attempting to enjoy the product we purchased?

To many, imo, are quick to jump on the corporate bandwagon that DRM is "required" and "needed" for things that surely are more 'guestimates' than pure facts. The current drive will not, and will never prevent piracy, but it will seriously kill the second hand market for games…which I suppose is the true purpose as the second market is a true loss to them in terms of dollars earned and represents a much larger threat than piracy itself.

So again I ask…how much is to much until you folks say…enough is enough? How much will it take for us as consumers to say "no"?~

snowlyon said:

Where is the line then? Given many have no issues with having a 3rd party program needed to run a program that is primarily a solo experience I would then assume that they would also have issues if/when there are multiple 3rd programs needed to run? Or is this going to far? How long until such time that all games require us to be logged into the internet via multiple 3rd parties just to play a solo game? Given I am providing the extreme we actually do see this occuring to a small degree even now on a couple games out there (the need to be logged online to play a single person game). Is it really all that bad to ask that we as consumers be, at the very least, given the 'option' of whether we want to be online or not when attempting to enjoy the product we purchased?

To many, imo, are quick to jump on the corporate bandwagon that DRM is "required" and "needed" for things that surely are more 'guestimates' than pure facts. The current drive will not, and will never prevent piracy, but it will seriously kill the second hand market for games…which I suppose is the true purpose as the second market is a true loss to them in terms of dollars earned and represents a much larger threat than piracy itself.

So again I ask…how much is to much until you folks say…enough is enough? How much will it take for us as consumers to say "no"?~

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You seem to think of steam as nothing but a DRM thing. It also incorporates various multiplayer features in the game, so choosing steam as a platform is not all bad or money-driven, but it is also easier on the coders who do not have to worry about building these features from the ground up.

Also there are tons of things in life that are meant for you as a user but that come with restrictions. A few examples: you cannot set your own house on fire. It is not allowed. If you want a car you need to get insurance or you cannot drive it, not even on your own property. The tv signal that comes into your house may be subject to quite a few limitations too, especially the new digital tv signals.

Enough is enough when the companies start issuing limitations that do not protect their valid interests. If the clientele is becoming more and more tech savy and stealing property becomes easier with the internet becoming more and more affordable, then companies need to set up boundaries to protect themselves. Banks do the same thing, and a lot tipped over in the crisis when they had done so poorly. Just saying.

snowlyon said:

Where is the line then? Given many have no issues with having a 3rd party program needed to run a program that is primarily a solo experience I would then assume that they would also have issues if/when there are multiple 3rd programs needed to run? Or is this going to far? How long until such time that all games require us to be logged into the internet via multiple 3rd parties just to play a solo game? Given I am providing the extreme we actually do see this occuring to a small degree even now on a couple games out there (the need to be logged online to play a single person game). Is it really all that bad to ask that we as consumers be, at the very least, given the 'option' of whether we want to be online or not when attempting to enjoy the product we purchased?

To many, imo, are quick to jump on the corporate bandwagon that DRM is "required" and "needed" for things that surely are more 'guestimates' than pure facts. The current drive will not, and will never prevent piracy, but it will seriously kill the second hand market for games…which I suppose is the true purpose as the second market is a true loss to them in terms of dollars earned and represents a much larger threat than piracy itself.

So again I ask…how much is to much until you folks say…enough is enough? How much will it take for us as consumers to say "no"?~

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As long as I can see that each third party program is there for a reason, I'd be fine with it. Adding another layer of DRM on top of Steam, for instance, would not be fine. That wouldn't add anything to the game, since they've already got DRM through Steam. Same thing if they required a different program to handle achievements or multiplayer matchmaking. Since Steamworks offer these, there is no need to add another one.

If on the other hand, they required a third party program to handle a superior AI, that wouldn't bother me (don't see such a program being standalone any time soon, but as an example). I don't go by the principle that the maker of the game has to have written all the code themselves. If there is third party software that does the trick, and also is tested, tried and at least as good/reliable as we could've expected from the game developers, then by all means use that software!

I see downsides with requiring Steam, of course. The mere fact that it is a third party program isn't one of them. Complain about it requiring internet connection and username/password all you want, but complaining about it being developed by a different company seems pretty pointless to me. If Firaxis trusts them on this matter, then you should simply consider it part of the game.

edit: About DRM being needed/required, I simply don't bother with that discussion. As long as the publisher/developer thinks it is (which almost all of them clearly do), I'll respect that fact. Then all that remains is the choice of DRM.

Shurdus said:

You seem to think of steam as nothing but a DRM thing. It also incorporates various multiplayer features in the game, so choosing steam as a platform is not all bad or money-driven, but it is also easier on the coders who do not have to worry about building these features from the ground up.

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as far as I go...I dont play multiplayer so all the fancy features dont mean a thing to me that steam offers. so in a sense, it is nothing more than a DRM issue for myself and thus the arguements of the "fancy features provided by Steam" goes out the window as they do not apply to me.

so all I was thinking was that it would have been nice if they had provided the option to run the program without the requirement to have yet another 3rd party program running to play....after all, how long till multiple 3rd party programs are needed that require us to be online? given some of the answers you folks provide...seems this is totally acceptable and for me...yeah...not so much, and I am willing to say something, not just here but with my pocketbook.

but in the end it is a choice we all get to make...life is good. ~

I'm shocked that CD-Check is so popular.

1) It is so easy to crack (in many cases) that it does nothing.

2) It is very inconvenient for paying customers.

I think someone didn't realize the 90's ended.

arstal said:

Steam is flat-out inferior to Impulse and GG to me in terms of being convenient.

Steam is superior only in amount of titles and better sales.

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The second sentence is off-topic in this thread.
The first, well, Steam offers services that may be better than Impulse, but we're talking DRM here. I can't understand how one could find Steam's DRM scheme better than Impulse's. If you think the DRM part is better, can you explain?

I also think CD-key is too different from CD check (physical) to be included in the same option. To me, CD in drive is no, CD key is yes.

@LDiCesare: He wrote "inferior", so I think you two are agreeing...

About Impulse. As far as DRM go, Impulse could probably have been considered. When it comes to Impulse Reactor being an alternative to Steamworks, that was likely out of the question. Reactor wasn't released freely to third parties until march 2010.

Even so, I think the user base of Steam could easily make a publisher/developer choose Steamworks over Impulse Reactor. But that's obviously off-topic when discussing DRM...

Vordrax said:

The last thing I want is for it to go: Civil discussion, insults, flame war.

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Moderator Action: Wise words - so @everyone: you are welcome to post on topic and discuss each others posts, you are not welcome to attack each other personally.

I will take any DRM that the manufacturer feels compelled to use. It's a fact of life that people can complain about, but it gets me the games I want. If the world were an honest and trusting place I wouldn't have DRM on my software and locks on my doors. Whether either really works is a matter of debate, but both have become pervasively commonplace. So, I voted for all choices.