What poses a greater threat to the gaming industry?

[Sarissi]

In my view, DRM encourages Piracy of Games and other software. Every new DRM scheme challenges Pirates to crack it. Draconian DRM, like Ubisoft's not only drives current customers away, but also prevents potential customers from becoming customers.

[davycrockett]

praise be brothers and sisters bet you can guess which way i voted , i try to avoid buying anything steam , cd key i can suffer .

so i now find myself looking in my local games exchange shop for second hand games which pre date steam picked up some great games for peanuts id spend a great deal more if it werent for such draconian measures

[brokenergy]

Costs, as the cost of AAA game increases due to worker's skills. Hence it's a lot harder for a game to be produced in the US or Canada than in Eastern Europe. Developers need ways to lower this cost that doesn't bring in protests and at the same time produce a quaility game. DRM and :pirate: are really just a drop in the sea for them

[eltucu]

I'd like to know how some DRM software like SecuROM or StarFORCE is priced. I suspect it costs as much as paying a licence for an engine.

 

Besides DRM and general data protection is a serious business. You dont go to the shader guys if you need a custom DRM. So Ubi and EA probably have tons of internet security techies designing their DRM (or in the case of EA, very few people working 12 hour shifts from monday to saturday :P )

Edited May 28, 2012 by eltucu

[Dan3345]

All those people who are whining about DRM are just people who think they deserve better than being treated like a pirate. Though i realy cant see how DRM is a threat to anything( exept sales of course).

Oh really? I remember a certain EA game I made the mistake of buying a while ago, what was it called? Oh yeah From Dust. i could not play the game. I was lucky to get 20fps, and I got fed up with it so I spoke to the steam people and the refunded my money. The cause of horrible performance and gamebreaking bugs was the DRM EA insisted on forcing us to use. And heres what really gets me. The DRM does not and will never stop piracy. twenty minutes after from dust launched there were already cracks up for it. So the pirate gets away with a better gameplay experience while the paying customer literally pays for what he/she purchased. Does that make any sense to anyone?

[HeyYou]

DRM poses the biggest threat to PC gaming...... it is also one of the main reason folks pirate games these days. All the corporate whining about 'lost sales' is so much smoke in the wind. How many lost sales has DRM caused? I bet they don't pay attention to that particular statistic.

[brokenergy]

All those people who are whining about DRM are just people who think they deserve better than being treated like a pirate. Though i realy cant see how DRM is a threat to anything( exept sales of course).

Oh really? I remember a certain EA game I made the mistake of buying a while ago, what was it called? Oh yeah From Dust. i could not play the game. I was lucky to get 20fps, and I got fed up with it so I spoke to the steam people and the refunded my money. The cause of horrible performance and gamebreaking bugs was the DRM EA insisted on forcing us to use. And heres what really gets me. The DRM does not and will never stop piracy. twenty minutes after from dust launched there were already cracks up for it. So the pirate gets away with a better gameplay experience while the paying customer literally pays for what he/she purchased. Does that make any sense to anyone?

 

That was Ubisoft, not EA.

[ThomasKra]

My votes: DRM and Yes.

 

Why? Well, want to know why I refuse to buy Mass Effect 3? I think you can guess.

[Beriallord]

DRM's and Piracy are related to each other in more ways that just one. The companies often use piracy as the reason for DRMs. But the catch 22 is that some people are driven to piracy because of the DRMs. So either way you look at it I feel like DRMs made to increasingly take control over the gaming products are a negative. Also the DRMs mostly effect the people who pay for the games and support the developers, the pirates are not even affected by them. Most popular games are cracked on released date, and whatever DRM the game had, is bypassed. Games like Diablo III with the "always online" DRM are the ones that take time for the pirates/hackers to crack. They would essentially have to make something that emulates the battle.net server. Its been done before and will be done again, its just a matter of time. I believe the future trend for gaming is that most games in the future is going to have an "always online DRM", with the data stored on servers, instead of the end user, because that is the only proven way for them to at least throw a wrench for a couple months into pirates getting their hands on the game. And that would be an absolute disaster for the gaming community. Imagine if PSN or XBL went down and when that happened, you couldn't play any of the games you paid for? Just look at the way Diablo III is now, it seems like the game is down for maintenance frequently and they also frequently have random problems with one thing or another, daily that adversely effect people from playing the game, whether its the auction house, or the login server being too busy. Now imagine if most every game in the future was like that? Even if the game should theoretically be able to be played single player. Would you still support the gaming industry? I sure as hell wouldn't.

 

I see a lot of people on this site are hating on the current trend for DRMs, and I believe that is a good thing. Now the question I got, is if TES VI is an "always online" DRM with your character data stored on Bethesda's server, and you playing the game subject to the availability of their server, would you still buy it? Are all the ones hating on the DRMs capable of putting their money where their mouth is? Because that is the only thing the gaming community as a whole can do to stop it. If we keep buying their games, then they will just continue making increasingly more intrusive DRMs. Don't support the companies who do this. It really is that simple.

 

I recommend that nobody buy Diablo III, because the DRM with it is possibly one of the worst I've ever seen. I bought a digital copy of the game, and was able to get a refund, so I did. They asked me why, and I told them why I wanted a refund. I bought the game due to hype, and I will never fall for that one again. I assumed that after 8+ years of development they would have have been prepared for pretty much anything, and if anyone had the capacity to host millions of players, Blizzard would. I was terribly wrong to assume. Don't be an idiot like me and buy Diablo III, if you got a digital copy, try and get a refund just to make a point.

Edited June 4, 2012 by Beriallord

[davycrockett]

I'v been doing a little digging and found a great article on Bohemia and their approach to tackling piracy and the DRM called DEGRADE which they use. Its well worth a read and frankly i don't feel so hard done by now but the likes of steam and tages can still take running jump , you might even get a giggle or two from it I did .

 

www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/17/interview-bohemia-interactives-ceo-on-fighting-piracy-creative-drm

Edited June 6, 2012 by davycrockett