I've seen that scrennshot. Show's the whole problem. People don't take a stand, and get shafted as a result, but keep on smiling anyway
Ubisoft still don't get it do they?
- Thread starter barmyllama
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I've seen that scrennshot. Show's the whole problem. People don't take a stand, and get shafted as a result, but keep on smiling anyway
That's what a lot of people thought about the music industry too - now DRM free legal downloads are the norm.
That is one example of hypocrisy. There are many examples of people boycotting products, where they stuck to their guns. I could pick one of them, and say, "if there's one thing that example has taught me, it's that people always see things through." It's a little ridiculous, isn't it?
Still, that is a funny example.
As someone's said, the 30 day timer doesn't start until the 3rd install. So, say you have a laptop and a PC you game on, that's 2 installs. You upgrade the PC and get a new hard drive, that's the 3rd. Hard drive turns out to be faulty, you RMA it, get a new replacement drive, BZZZT can't install the game you bought for another 30 days. Why not? You're clearly a pirate. Or something.
Pirate downloads the game, installs it whenever he wants to.
Like I said in my last post, DRM is good if it does not get in the way of a normal user. As soon as it becomes an inconveniance, it has failed IMO. MeMeMeMe seems to be the perfect example of someone hurt by this, but people don't seem to be able to see it.
As for the MW2 thing, to be fair the steam group was open for anyone to join. Thus I'm pretty sure they were trolled by loads of people joining it because they played MW2, just for the lulz. Though I am sure a large portion of people did buy it anyway. The way I see it, if its a single player game, people will pirate it to avoid the DRM. But if its a multiplayer game, you can't pirate to play multiplayer anyway, so people will be forced to buy it, so DRM isn't really needed besides some kind of cd key that can be checked with the master servers, or is tied to an account, and that sort of system has been around for years.
^The thing is though what you've done there is already beyond what some traditional EULAs used to legally allow anyway (installing on multiple machines at the same time). If you registered your cdkey on your PC you wouldn't be allowed to use the same key on a laptop.
Yes for single player games people never really gave a monkeys about what the EULA said but technically speaking for some publishers you were only allowed to have it installed on one machine at a time.
I'd say 3 times in 30 days is fairly reasonable, at the end of the day if things get that bad that I'm unable to play the game due to needing to constantly reinstall the game then waiting a month for that specific game is probably going to be the least of my worries.
I'm not saying I am a fan of DRM but (like plenty of others on here) I remember the days when playing a game meant waiting 20mins for the cassette tape to load, or you needed to get your manual out and look up word 5, paragraph 2 on page 67 in order to get through the copy protection. One game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I think it was, even had this weird red strip thing that you had to hold up to a light. Things really aren't that bad nowadays, with this Tages thing and Steam you don't even need to have a disc in the drive.
Yes for single player games people never really gave a monkeys about what the EULA said but technically speaking for some publishers you were only allowed to have it installed on one machine at a time.
I'd say 3 times in 30 days is fairly reasonable, at the end of the day if things get that bad that I'm unable to play the game due to needing to constantly reinstall the game then waiting a month for that specific game is probably going to be the least of my worries.
I'm not saying I am a fan of DRM but (like plenty of others on here) I remember the days when playing a game meant waiting 20mins for the cassette tape to load, or you needed to get your manual out and look up word 5, paragraph 2 on page 67 in order to get through the copy protection. One game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I think it was, even had this weird red strip thing that you had to hold up to a light. Things really aren't that bad nowadays, with this Tages thing and Steam you don't even need to have a disc in the drive.
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Stopped caring there, read the rest.
Basically you don't care if it hurts other people as long as it doesn't happen to you, which is a nasty way to think and a poor card to play in this discussion, I'm out.
I pretty much memorised the civ 1 tech tree so I could go through the copy protection! I had the cheapskate version that had the manual as a pdf on the CD, which was pretty stupid when its needed for copy protection!
And Lord of the Rigns only had about 5 different questions, I memorised one, and just kept restarting the game until it asked me for the one I knew XD
But I digress, I do see where you're coming from, but again there's ways that are far less intrusive. Again, Steam like you mention does it will. It adds a whole lot of value for the end user with minimal inconveniance. Tages just creates problems, the end user gains nothing from it, just the publisher.
Soldato
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I don't care as it's not going to affect the large majority of users, and those it does affect still aren't permanently blocked from playing, unlike other systems.
Besides in most examples given in this thread have a playable copy on another machine/laptop... just use that while you wait your 30 days.
Yes we'd be better off without it, it's not going to happen though.
Aww, bless. <3 you too.
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As I said before I think it's an incredible shame how far PC gaming has fallen and how used to excessive DRM people have become.
We started off with manual checks and code wheels.
Then we went to disc checks
Then to internet activation
Then to limited activations
Then to locking games to accounts
Then to always online connections required.
Now we're at the stage that for many games we can't return them for refund if they don't work due to the DRM, and on top of that we can't even sell them on or even give them to another user. Oh and we don't get demos to try them in advance either, so it's a blind purchase with no chance of refund.
The only reason EA backed down on DRM was due to users protesting. If we don't protest about excessive DRM then it'll just be ratcheded up gradually (boiling frog technique) until eventually we'll all be just renting games whilst paying full price for them. That's essentially what Steam is doing, though at least they give something back in return, unlike the other DRM systems.
Our rights are now so restricted compared to console games that it's really starting to get to me. Though it now looks like console games will be going the same way due to the aggressive marketing of used games, which in some ways is worse than piracy.
We started off with manual checks and code wheels.
Then we went to disc checks
Then to internet activation
Then to limited activations
Then to locking games to accounts
Then to always online connections required.
Now we're at the stage that for many games we can't return them for refund if they don't work due to the DRM, and on top of that we can't even sell them on or even give them to another user. Oh and we don't get demos to try them in advance either, so it's a blind purchase with no chance of refund.
The only reason EA backed down on DRM was due to users protesting. If we don't protest about excessive DRM then it'll just be ratcheded up gradually (boiling frog technique) until eventually we'll all be just renting games whilst paying full price for them. That's essentially what Steam is doing, though at least they give something back in return, unlike the other DRM systems.
Our rights are now so restricted compared to console games that it's really starting to get to me. Though it now looks like console games will be going the same way due to the aggressive marketing of used games, which in some ways is worse than piracy.
Wait, you're the guy who was at Particle Systems right? When they made the I-War games? Seen you post on GOG's forum. It's a shame these days nobody will take a risk with a unique game like that. Apart from perhaps Fallout New Vegas, I can't think of a recently released game I'd want to purchase.
This is why I applaud the publishers (THQ and Atari come to mind) that remove the DRM\disc checks in an update or make them as unobtrusive as possible to begin with.
People still seem to be missing the point here - the 30 day countdown starts after your last activation, regardless of when your first two were. You could only ever install it on one machine - uninstall it after a while, come back and reinstall it, do a fresh install of Windows 3 months later and reistall it a third time, and only then do you get the 30 day limit. It doesn't matter if you install it 3 times in a week or over the course of a couple of years. If you install it on a fresh hard drive or a new windows install, there's a one in three chance it'll hit that limit and you won't be able to reinstall for 30 days. It's not like you need a laptop to make the examples viable.
It would be interesting to know how developers feel about DRM. As I always thought they had no input on the release method, as that is the publisher’s decision.
If the developer received additional payments based on a % of post release continual sales then it makes sense they would like to protect their work. But if the developer only got paid a flat fee regardless of how successful a game was, would they prefer maximum exposure of their game - be it by any means?
One thing with this DRM (with the retail version I own) is it prevented me lending it to friends after I finished it. As there is no automatic reset of limit, and I'm not even sure how I would go about resetting limit when issue arises. But that hasn't generated any more sales of the game.
Edit: Was referring to Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena DRM
If the developer received additional payments based on a % of post release continual sales then it makes sense they would like to protect their work. But if the developer only got paid a flat fee regardless of how successful a game was, would they prefer maximum exposure of their game - be it by any means?
One thing with this DRM (with the retail version I own) is it prevented me lending it to friends after I finished it. As there is no automatic reset of limit, and I'm not even sure how I would go about resetting limit when issue arises. But that hasn't generated any more sales of the game.
Edit: Was referring to Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena DRM
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I'm a developer, and the only time I was in a position to be asked if I wanted DRM on a PC game (a disk check like Safedisc or Securom - this was before limited activations) I said no.
I've had games I've worked on pirated - sometimes hugely, yet I'm still against DRM because it affects legit customers.
The only piracy I personally believe you can do anything about is zero day piracy, because many gamers are impatient and will be tempted to pirate a game if they can get it before release.
Once a game has been released and has had its peak sales I see no reason to continue with DRM as it will make neglible difference to your sales, but will in fact continue to be a support issue. I wouldn't be against DRM schemes so much if there was a cast iron garuantee a patch would be released to remove them after six months. As it is only a few games have their DRM patched out, and even then it's often over a year later by which time I've lost interest.
I've had games I've worked on pirated - sometimes hugely, yet I'm still against DRM because it affects legit customers.
The only piracy I personally believe you can do anything about is zero day piracy, because many gamers are impatient and will be tempted to pirate a game if they can get it before release.
Once a game has been released and has had its peak sales I see no reason to continue with DRM as it will make neglible difference to your sales, but will in fact continue to be a support issue. I wouldn't be against DRM schemes so much if there was a cast iron garuantee a patch would be released to remove them after six months. As it is only a few games have their DRM patched out, and even then it's often over a year later by which time I've lost interest.
Here the thing though, I can understand that they want to, but DRM doesn't do that. Never had and probably never will. So why bother.
This is not a bad idea. I could probably stomach that and would buy most games if that were the case, or wait until the patch was actually out as I'm not one that has the desperate need to play games day 1.