Mise
isle of lucy
Every single time you play it? Yes...
Should DRM be banned?
- Thread starter Tommy Vercetti
- Start date
AlpsStranger
Jump jump on the tiger!
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2009
- Messages
- 5,820
Banning DRM would accomplish nothing but effectively ending PC Gaming. Which I guess someone might be okay with, but why would someone who was okay with PC Gaming dying care about DRM? It makes no sense.
The fact is that developers would be very unlikely to look warmly on the PC sans-DRM. I don't even think it's rational since pirating DRM games is so easy, but I do think we'd see a significant drop in AAA and AA titles.
The fact is that developers would be very unlikely to look warmly on the PC sans-DRM. I don't even think it's rational since pirating DRM games is so easy, but I do think we'd see a significant drop in AAA and AA titles.
Banning DRM would just make game publishers focus on platforms that are naturally locked down, or on subscription models which puts customers even more at their mercy.
I don't think this is something that can be mandated from on high, it'll just lead to more convoluted and intrusive ways of safeguarding publishers' interests. The problem will only be solved if players collectively say "we aren't taking this any longer".
Sucky business practices in the industry are strongly correlated with sucky games - if they don't respect customers as customers, they probably don't respect them as connoisseurs of fine games either.
Most of my favourite games are either ancient or free, and those I consider interesting diversions for a few months tend to be commercially avaialble without undue corporate dickery.
If we demand spectacle that can only be satisfied by ever-increasing budgets, we're paying in souls. Reliably recouping the investment will require cynical marketing, excessive safeguards against piracy/secondary markets, and artistic concessions to appeal to the broadest possible audience.
I don't think this is something that can be mandated from on high, it'll just lead to more convoluted and intrusive ways of safeguarding publishers' interests. The problem will only be solved if players collectively say "we aren't taking this any longer".
Sucky business practices in the industry are strongly correlated with sucky games - if they don't respect customers as customers, they probably don't respect them as connoisseurs of fine games either.
Most of my favourite games are either ancient or free, and those I consider interesting diversions for a few months tend to be commercially avaialble without undue corporate dickery.
If we demand spectacle that can only be satisfied by ever-increasing budgets, we're paying in souls. Reliably recouping the investment will require cynical marketing, excessive safeguards against piracy/secondary markets, and artistic concessions to appeal to the broadest possible audience.
AlpsStranger
Jump jump on the tiger!
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2009
- Messages
- 5,820
Exactly. And people can't understand why those "eeeevil devs" keep making Call of Duty 36 or whatever. It's obvious why. Sure, it would be really nice if we could have a modern El-Fish with the budget of Call of Duty, but it's just not an economic reality.
In my opinion we've crossed some kind of horrible diminishing returns horizon. Games used to be ugly, sure, but they were beautiful for us at the time.
I honestly have more fun with stuff like Dominions 4 and Crawl Stone Soup most times. On particularly bad gaming sessions I'll actually play NES/SNES games instead.
The Kickstarter/Greenlight scene is my favorite trend right now. Really looking forward to Mighty Number 9.
Link to video.
I'm starting to focus on what I guess you could call "artistically sustainable" gaming. Devs small enough that they don't have to pander to trends OR go for the lowest common denominator.
EDIT: How much easier would it be to get, say, Master of Magic 2 if people didn't expect it to be a brain-exploding 3D Spectacle? What if they were content with a crisp, modern 2D style instead?
So pirating DRM games is easy, yet banning DRM games would end PC gaming? So what is the difference? There's other ways to make money other than selling the game itself.
DRM only accomplishes that games are available for download only one day later and the only downside is that it's a bit more of a hassle and that you can't play online.
And sometimes you can.
Look, Team Fortress is available for free. The producers make money off merch, DLC and some other stuff I don't know about.
There's a business model that needs to change but the game and music industry are only recently catching up and are 10 years behind. They wasted all that time on trying to ban pirating. Adding DRM only costs precious development time and resources.
I think the idea is that without DRM / steam some publishers would have been put off bothering to convert their games for PCs. Ending gaming on PCs is a bit extreme given that the next gen of consoles are seemingly PCs anyway.
AlpsStranger
Jump jump on the tiger!
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2009
- Messages
- 5,820
Yeah, I should've made the clearer. The developers wouldn't bother to do things like port GTA5 to the PC and such, significantly lowering the buzz around the platform.
This is true, actually. Isn't ATI doing something called Mantle specifically to make porting games from the PS4/XboxOne easier?
I think the SteamBox thing is a really funny case of history repeating itself ( though hopefully less pathetically. )
Mr.WorldWide
Smugly Inferior
Discs are my (relatively) long term protection against EMP bombs. 
Mostly I use my disc drive for watching my relative's extensive library of DVD/BD movies.
If you want DRM free games just buy the ones on GOG, lots of quality games that time forgot.
Mostly I use my disc drive for watching my relative's extensive library of DVD/BD movies.If you want DRM free games just buy the ones on GOG, lots of quality games that time forgot.
JaymesKeller
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2014
- Messages
- 3
Thing is, this argument has been rendered moot since..30 years ago. If DRM was made illegal, then most games would not be released at all, even on a console. This is coming from someone who has a love-hate relationship with Steam, mind you.
At least Steamworks tries to get out of your way, but it says "Oh, if you need anything, just press these keys and you'll get the overlay." That I can understand, since it gives me something in return. A vast majority of DRM schemes out there don't give anything back to the user, they just take.
At least Steamworks tries to get out of your way, but it says "Oh, if you need anything, just press these keys and you'll get the overlay." That I can understand, since it gives me something in return. A vast majority of DRM schemes out there don't give anything back to the user, they just take.
classical_hero
In whom I trust
The problem with DRMs is they are treating the consumer straight away as criminals. They average consumer does want to make sure that the people who make the games they like are able to continue to making games they like to play, so most will pay for their games. Another problem is that it means you can then resell the game once you are finished. Imagine if you couldn't resell your car after you have bought a new one and no longer needed it, or that only a few people could drive it and after that no one could drive it afterwards. That would be insane, yet we allow this in the game industry?
Mise
isle of lucy
Then we'd all have a car.
Not necessarily, the industry would find a way to create artificial scarcity.
The concept of buying and selling, so natural to us that we usually don't question it, works for scarce goods.
A good that can be replicated at (practically) zero cost is a "Public Good" (strict definition: you can't use them up, you can't exclude anyone from benefiting from them. Traditional physical example would be lighthouses) or close enough to make no difference. Those are impossible to sell. So as long as you want to be able to buy software, there needs to be a way to make it artificially scarce.
That's not to say we wouldn't have commercial software if copyright didn't apply and articficial limitations were outlawed. Service models would still work, as would commissions - crowdfunding would be an option, although without further revenue by sales the target goals would presumably be much higher.
I think we'd be better off that way because it better reflects the economic realities, but quite naturally everyone who's commercially successful in the current model is opposed.
The concept of buying and selling, so natural to us that we usually don't question it, works for scarce goods.
A good that can be replicated at (practically) zero cost is a "Public Good" (strict definition: you can't use them up, you can't exclude anyone from benefiting from them. Traditional physical example would be lighthouses) or close enough to make no difference. Those are impossible to sell. So as long as you want to be able to buy software, there needs to be a way to make it artificially scarce.
That's not to say we wouldn't have commercial software if copyright didn't apply and articficial limitations were outlawed. Service models would still work, as would commissions - crowdfunding would be an option, although without further revenue by sales the target goals would presumably be much higher.
I think we'd be better off that way because it better reflects the economic realities, but quite naturally everyone who's commercially successful in the current model is opposed.
Mise
isle of lucy
Nah, I'm pretty sure we'd all have cars if the marginal cost were literally $0. Like, you could literally make a car right now, for free, if you wanted one. Why wouldn't you?
(P.S., public goods are also non-rivalrous, but that doesn't change any of what you wrote. Just an "fyi".)
(P.S., public goods are also non-rivalrous, but that doesn't change any of what you wrote. Just an "fyi".)
Because there may be fixed costs involved, parallel to the software situation: It costs quite a bit to be able to ship the good, but the cost is the same (or nearly so) whether you ship 1 copy or a million.
As in, you still have to build (expensive) factories, which can magically conjure up cars out of thin air. Makers have an interest to restrict the supply if they want to sell things. Or, they could give away their cars for free and live from fuel/consumables sales... that's rather fragile though.
This is the situation for pretty much everything kept in artificial scarcity, e.g. by intellectual property laws. It's one of the ways to let the private sector produce what would be public goods, but a very inefficient one.
('Can't use them up' may not have been the best way to phrase non-rivaly.)
As in, you still have to build (expensive) factories, which can magically conjure up cars out of thin air. Makers have an interest to restrict the supply if they want to sell things. Or, they could give away their cars for free and live from fuel/consumables sales... that's rather fragile though.
This is the situation for pretty much everything kept in artificial scarcity, e.g. by intellectual property laws. It's one of the ways to let the private sector produce what would be public goods, but a very inefficient one.
('Can't use them up' may not have been the best way to phrase non-rivaly.)
Mise
isle of lucy
That situation may be analogous to a software company, but it's not analogous to software per se. There isn't just one guy with a magic car conjuring factory -- we literally all have a magic car conjuring factory, in our homes, right now. You can literally copy MS Office as many times as you want, for (near) zero cost. Pretend it's actually zero. Why would you or I not take one copy of MS Office and make a million copies, for free, and sell them?
You're right about artificial scarcity, I totally agree with that. But the point I'm trying to make (which is clearly different from the point Zelig is trying to make) is that if we all had magic car copying devices in our homes, then we'd all have cars.
You're right about artificial scarcity, I totally agree with that. But the point I'm trying to make (which is clearly different from the point Zelig is trying to make) is that if we all had magic car copying devices in our homes, then we'd all have cars.
Only if there exists dishonest people.
DRM isn't about scarcity, it is about control. MS would happily provide everyone in the world with Windows 8, if they all paid for it and if MS could verify and control their license restrictions.
Similar threads
