Surely if people stop copying games (lol all get bored at once and decide to clone pandas) then id still doubt DRM would go away, as people have said it allows devs more control of their title after its released either to control what content is being released and to make even more money from it. Not only that but the devs would think they 'wtfpwnd' the pirates. What I wouldnt mind seeing (as much) is drm being used on release for a while so the devs can do what they want with updates and dlc like they are now but then remove them afterwards. Once its passed its prime and they have no more updates/content to give out then let it free amongst the community. Would help with its lengevity, keep up the second hand market and enable more sales for people who whouldnt buy it with the restrictions (some might already do this, not really looked far into it), its not as if pirating would be that much of a problem after the major selling period (and the fact its already been pirated regardless of pointless drm). At least let us remove the game from a steam account after so long - I dont need hundreds more games sat on a shelf that ill likely never play again.
What’s it going to take for PC game publishers to drop DRM altogether?
- Thread starter Th3D0n
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As soon as publishers can make it impossible to sell games once purchased, then DRM will stop. Publishers don't loose sales to piracy, they loose them to second hand sales.
This ^^^
The partner of a friend of mine works for an investment bank on a 6 figure salary and probably hasn't paid for a single game, movie or album for the past 10 years.
Owns all the latest consoles, every single one mod chipped. Really gets on my nerves actually, i always like to point out how much i enjoy playing online MP as they know their machines would be blacklisted the second they plug in that RJ45.
The best approach is to make it as enjoyable and invisible as possible, give away free beta keys with a purchase or offer desirable download content via a key in the box. Just sticking on some horrible DRM is a waste of time.
and borrowing your friend a game is piracy! because they no longer need to buy it!
Man of Honour
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You would still buy the latest games irrespective of whether you had cash from selling and old game.
I have over 100 games in my Steam account I can't sell, doesn't stop me from buying new games.
DRM is bull****, it's there to increase the profits of multi-million companies, publishers, record industries and god knows who else is counting money on behalf of hard working programmers. Think of DRM in terms of DVD/Blueray films. What if you could only use them on a single DVD player? Want additional content? Behind the scenes for £10, director's commentary for £5. Watching a foreign film? You can download the subtitles for just £1. **** you DRM.
Years ago nobody would think of buying a ****ty DLC for £20 that adds a less valuable content than an average mod that can be downloaded for free and will probably get updated over a year or so.
Don't blame piracy, it's always been there, it's never crited the industry for over 9000. People who pirate games/software/music/movies are ******** but hell no, they do not decrease revenues whatsoever. Pirates will pirate, nobody takes them into account when forecasting the profits. They're a good place to seek further revenues though, look up the fines that surround hundreds of cases related to intellectual property theft (logically it's not even a theft but copying the idea; patent law anyone? at least people don't make any profit pirating these days...). They're ordered to pay more than most serious criminals who are either sick-****s or actually profit from their wrong-doings.
Pirates are scum but so are drug users. Doesn't mean you have a right to blame them for the whole thing.
Most games being overly expensive, unless released without a major hype around them, are also console ports. We all know that it's the games that drive the profitability of console world so releasing a pc port will not cost anything on top of general fixed costs.
I'm not going to argue that their lifetime expectancy is usually less than 2-3 days and some can last as long as 3 movies (why aren't they priced accordingly?
).
Where are the times where you could actually get something extra with a retail game you purchase? My copy of Bad Company 2 came with a 16-pages long instruction manual and a leaflet
I thought that's how you distribute low-budget productions?
Steam and similar to follow the success would be a massive winrar IF the industry decided to focus their efforts on marketing proper free DLC content and long-term support for their products at reasonable prices (half-priced anyone?). As long as it's sales only, I'll stick to traditional stacks of boxes.
Years ago nobody would think of buying a ****ty DLC for £20 that adds a less valuable content than an average mod that can be downloaded for free and will probably get updated over a year or so.
Don't blame piracy, it's always been there, it's never crited the industry for over 9000. People who pirate games/software/music/movies are ******** but hell no, they do not decrease revenues whatsoever. Pirates will pirate, nobody takes them into account when forecasting the profits. They're a good place to seek further revenues though, look up the fines that surround hundreds of cases related to intellectual property theft (logically it's not even a theft but copying the idea; patent law anyone? at least people don't make any profit pirating these days...). They're ordered to pay more than most serious criminals who are either sick-****s or actually profit from their wrong-doings.
Pirates are scum but so are drug users. Doesn't mean you have a right to blame them for the whole thing.
Most games being overly expensive, unless released without a major hype around them, are also console ports. We all know that it's the games that drive the profitability of console world so releasing a pc port will not cost anything on top of general fixed costs.
I'm not going to argue that their lifetime expectancy is usually less than 2-3 days and some can last as long as 3 movies (why aren't they priced accordingly?
).Where are the times where you could actually get something extra with a retail game you purchase? My copy of Bad Company 2 came with a 16-pages long instruction manual and a leaflet
I thought that's how you distribute low-budget productions?Steam and similar to follow the success would be a massive winrar IF the industry decided to focus their efforts on marketing proper free DLC content and long-term support for their products at reasonable prices (half-priced anyone?). As long as it's sales only, I'll stick to traditional stacks of boxes.
This, can't stand sponging ******s at the best of times to be fair. Pirating games is just another form of sponging.
Same. Piracy also affects the game as soon as its released almost (sometimes even before its released or not long after) during its main marketing phase when most people are likely to buy it. I cant imagine the second hand market does anywhere near the amount of damage especially for games such as mw2, orange box, oblivion - where most gamers either keep the game or its a long time before they sell it i.e. when a game is no longer on shelf or being supported by the dev. And as you said the money from selling it goes on to usually purchase another game so it still theoretically is giving money to the devs.
And not everyone is you. I only buy a handfull of games a year as most of my money goes to other things. I sell old pc parts and games in order to buy newer games etc. Every person is different.
I dont buy games because im able to sell them on but i do sell games in order to buy more. if I cant sell games then I cant buy as many. Its that simple.
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Yeah thats why they use it. Because DRM clearly hasn't been used primarily to prevent mod support so publishers can release more DLC
Sorry mate, that just sounds like a load of tin foil conspiracy to me.
Steam has been active DRM since long before we had DLC for PC.We have DRM because people pirate games. To see DRM disappear altogether, you'd have to see piracy disappear.
As pirates are greedy (regardless of the BS excuses they come up with. Can't afford it, want to demo the game etc.) Piracy isn't going anywhere because of this greed, hence neither is DRM.
Sorry mate, that just sounds like a load of tin foil conspiracy to me.
We have DRM because people pirate games. To see DRM disappear altogether, you'd have to see piracy disappear.
As pirates are greedy (regardless of the BS excuses they come up with. Can't afford it, want to demo the game etc.) Piracy isn't going anywhere because of this greed, hence neither is DRM.
And if Piracy dissapears. Then DRM goes. Then Piracy returns and so does DRM. Its here to stay unfortunatly. Either as prevention or deterant (neither of which its very good at).
Sorry mate, that just sounds like a load of tin foil conspiracy to me.
We have DRM because people pirate games. To see DRM disappear altogether, you'd have to see piracy disappear.
As pirates are greedy (regardless of the BS excuses they come up with. Can't afford it, want to demo the game etc.) Piracy isn't going anywhere because of this greed, hence neither is DRM.
But DRM doesn't stop piracy, it only delays it at most. There's also a factor of many unhappy consumers who have to cope with DRM.
problem with that, is that the Dev's dont usually have anything to do with the DRM, and generally have no control over it either
most publishers know that it doesn't stop piracy, its not there to stop it.
its there to delay it, so the pirates have to wait.
althou some will just wait till its fully working (and these u would never be able to sell to anyways) others will descided they want it quicker and just buy it.
so in that respect, it does work.
some of them also make the pirates jump through hoops to be able to play them, which also puts a few ppl off and turns them to buy the game
Well there will always be some who are tight plus the poor people who really cant afford them, but... if DVD's moved to being £40 over night do you think piracy of movies would stay the same, decrease or increase? the current poor value of games has a lot to do with the piracy of them. That's not even taking into account that movies last a lifetime whereas most games are superseded in a little over a year for further profits.
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After being stung with undisclosed DRM on previous games I now flat-out refuse to buy any PC game which has limited activations or a requirement for a constant internet connection. I don't pre-order anymore. I wait until I know what DRM a game has before buying it. If it has bad DRM I'll boycott it - games I've boycotted include Far Cry 2, Assassin's Creed 2 and Alpha protocol.
Tying PC games to hardware makes no sense, as PCs aren't static pieces of hardware, unlike consoles, and a hardware failure could cause you to permanently lose access to a game.
Constant internet connection DRM is not only unreliable and draconian, it also prevents a large number of people who travel a lot and game on laptops from playing the games at all. This includes a large number of active servicemen.
It's even worse when companies refuse to patch out DRM when the pirated versions become widely available. At that point they're slapping their customers around the face for buying the game, while the pirates are enjoying a DRM free experience.
And I say this as someone who works in the games industry, and I've had some of my games massively pirated. So much so that a sales bonus I was hoping for never happened due to poorer than expected sales.
Tying PC games to hardware makes no sense, as PCs aren't static pieces of hardware, unlike consoles, and a hardware failure could cause you to permanently lose access to a game.
Constant internet connection DRM is not only unreliable and draconian, it also prevents a large number of people who travel a lot and game on laptops from playing the games at all. This includes a large number of active servicemen.
It's even worse when companies refuse to patch out DRM when the pirated versions become widely available. At that point they're slapping their customers around the face for buying the game, while the pirates are enjoying a DRM free experience.
And I say this as someone who works in the games industry, and I've had some of my games massively pirated. So much so that a sales bonus I was hoping for never happened due to poorer than expected sales.
Sorry mate, that just sounds like a load of tin foil conspiracy to me.
We have DRM because people pirate games. To see DRM disappear altogether, you'd have to see piracy disappear.
As pirates are greedy (regardless of the BS excuses they come up with. Can't afford it, want to demo the game etc.) Piracy isn't going anywhere because of this greed, hence neither is DRM.
Oh come on, no DRM has ever proved effective. Now the only way they can even come close to an effective DRM is to demand you be connected to the internet at all times in a world that simply can't do that yet. And mysteriously a lot of these games with hardcore DRM that *should* support modding, don't, because the publisher has complete control over what you do. Even if its not done for some games for the purposes of DLC its almost certainly done to completely eliminate the second hand market as if it was in some way stealing from them.
Its funny how DRM has always caused more problems to legit customers than to pirates. I fail to see how the connection between 'anti piracy' and 'DRM' can be maintained when that is the case.