Piracy & DRM Article

carmen510

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An extremely intriguing, but long, article on piracy and DRM, and it addresses common misconceptions and arguments about said topics. There's also a substantial discussion of Steam as a form of effective DRM.

I personally find it enlightening, although I never truly hated DRM, and I've only encountered it with Call of Duty: World at War (Couldn't use a needed virtual optical drive) and possibly GTA4, where there were some problems with graphics I could only address by changing SecuRom's shortcut.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

Discussion welcome.
 
I have a very strong dislike of DRM as it only really bothers people who got the game honestly. Bioshock, Mass Effect and Fallout 3 have all had some form of protection on them that forced me to download a cracked copy of the game to play the bloody thing I just bought.

I wish they'd just get rid of the bloody DRM, they aren't going to discourage a pirate who simply removes the DRM entirely and meanwhile people like myself end up spending 48 hours waiting for a game I'm holding in my hands to make its way onto my computer.

That said I really like the system steam has and wouldn't mind if that became the norm (provided it was actually steam instead of a similar system, anyone else could really mess that up) the convenience of not having a disk to scratch up or lose really makes it an acceptable protection method.
 
DRM rarely works as intended, it's purpose is to protect the game for at least the first month if not a few more.

That doesn't work, most of the time it is cracked within the first week or even occaisionally before it officially hits the shelves (store emplyoees have been known to borrow a box from the back and upload a copy).

Steam is nice, I love it, I LOVE steam community, but even steam is not compeltely effective, although pirated copies of steam games can only play on special cracked servers as far as I know.

Gamersgate, Good Old Games and Impulse are even ebtter in some ways, Gamersgate and Good Old Games require no end user client, and Impulse's client is pretty good too, although they do lack the Steam community (which is nice, it works in many non-steam games too).

There is no need to force us to keep the disc in the drive to play the game, I HATE that, while it might not be much of a big deal to pop the cd in, when compared to having most of the rest of my games on my computer NOT needing the disc in the drive, it is a hassle and I could even quicker get into another game and start playing by the time I get the auto-run menu going.

Some DRm is tolerable, but the companies need to stop using intrusive DRMs that cause problems for legitimate users, especially SecuROM and Starforce (although I have never had a problem with Starforce and I'm positive it's on my system, some versions of it have created a lot of problems for other people).

SecuROM has a habit of coming up with rediculously stupid DRM checks, activating every 10 days (luckily that was shot down by the public before implementation),

Online activation is stupid, except maybe with Steam (but it would be good if Steam could improve their offline mode), there are people who still have a seperate comptuer not attached to the internet for their games, or might have their internet down for whatever reason, or maybe have a laptop and don't nesecaraly have an internet connection all the time.

A small wish list / requirements companies should do;

1. Release a demo. A good demo that actually gives you a taste of the game longer than 10 minutes (preferably at LEAST 30 minutes, The Witcher Demo took me SEVEN HOURS to complete!).

2. Create a decent game and price the game CORRECTLY to the quality and content/length of the game. One reason your game might not sell well and be pirated is because people do not think it is worth their money! That is why games sell so damn well during Steam sales. I don't have a link on hand, but in sales since the post-christmas one in one of the sales Left 4 Dead had a 3000% increase in sales iirc, and sales of the game in brick and mortor stores where there was no sale went up during that time as well.

3. DRM should NOT include;
CD checks
Online activation
Spyware (may not be part of DRM but there ARE gmaes with it, like that Left Behind rts)
Scan your system for progrms that are perfectly legal and are used mostly for legal purposes but could be used illegally. It's like trying to confiscate all the tools from a construction site next door ot a bank because they COULD use the tools to break into the vault.
Frequent checks to make sure your legitimate custoemr is still legit (reactivating online periodically)
Stop treating legit customers as if we are all potential criminals!
Anything else intrusive that I missed.
 
Have either of you actually read the article? :p

For example, the article states that STARFORCE said that the goal of DRM is not to prevent cracking totally, as that it is impossible, but rather to delay the cracking of a game so as to not have the great consequences of day zero or day one cracks hugely affecting sales, as the majority of gamers will use the first source available to them to get a game, and if its a pirating site, so be it.

Although I think everyone has heard of the DRM menaces, I've personally had a few experiences and only GTA4 had a really bad experience in addition to the graphics issues, and that was with Steam.
 
I read it in December or January. And yes I mentioned that DRM is only to delay cracking until after the majority of initial sales.

Some games are rediculously easy to pirate, others can be a pain - based off what I've been told by a friend who used to pirate a lot of games.
 
I would not touch a game on a store shelf if it had DMR on it, I especially hate the ones that limit you to how many times you can reinstall the bloody game. I prefer the Steam way.
 
I would not touch a game on a store shelf if it had DMR on it, I especially hate the ones that limit you to how many times you can reinstall the bloody game. I prefer the Steam way.

Yes, isntall limits are ******ed as well.
 
The problem is that if you don't carry a list around with you or something, you don't know if a game that looks interesting in a store has DRM. I see no indication on the box, the manual, or the license agreement. This happened to me with a game and by the time I realized it was too late cos the game was installed and started to play and unfortunatly I didn't want to stop playing. :(

I also noticed the SecuROM folder under User/Application Data is hidden. Hmmmm......
 
I read that article some time ago. I agree with a lot of things, except for the scale of piracy.

I have securom on my system, I've never had any problems with it, although I hate install limits. I would have lost three Far Cry 2 installs already if I wouldn't have resorted to alternate methods. I think it's ridiculous that I should have to crack a game I bought and paid for.
 
However, it does not limit the amount of reinstalls you can do.

DRM and number of installs are nearly unrelated (some forms of DRM enforce it, others don't - they are still DRM whether or not they do). StarForce allowed unlimited installs, but it is commonly demonized as the worst of the worst DRM out there.
 
I found it creepy that SecuROMs motto is "Get Maximum Control." Control of what? The end-users computer?

Also bothers me when DRM wants the disc in the drive, even though everythings on the HDD. Because my optical drive on the home computer is extremely noisy.
 
I found it creepy that SecuROMs motto is "Get Maximum Control." Control of what? The end-users computer?

Also bothers me when DRM wants the disc in the drive, even though everythings on the HDD. Because my optical drive on the home computer is extremely noisy.

I havn't used my Rome Total War disc since 2007, I created an image ISO/some file type of it and have it up on a virtual drive. Hell I don't even RUN daemon tools very often the time and the disc is still in that virtual drive. Perfectly legal too :)
 
DRM and number of installs are nearly unrelated (some forms of DRM enforce it, others don't - they are still DRM whether or not they do). StarForce allowed unlimited installs, but it is commonly demonized as the worst of the worst DRM out there.

Then explain to me why there are limited number of times you can install/reinstall Spore?! The DRMs that I have an issue with are ones that limits the amount of times you install a game or program and act as malware to your system (ie disabiling a second CD drive).
 
Then explain to me why there are limited number of times you can install/reinstall Spore?!

Because that is how EA configured their SecuRom to work.
 
I hate DRM because it keeps you from playing your game if you don't have a direct link to the publisher/seller. It's sort of reasonable when you're buying a digital download, but it's still annoying for a home system builder since that can force the DRM to think it's a brand new install. I prefer the old days of paper manual copy protection, but even CD in the drive protection is better. Better if Pirates had their thumbs tortured.

Oddly enough, Valve considers Steam a DRM product.

Steam is DRM because you can't just spontaneously shut down your internet connection and still play a game offline. You have to tell Steam that you're going offline, while still online. So it's technically still DRM.
 
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