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Post by Raison D'etritus on May 9, 2011 16:32:10 GMT -5
This is probably old news to everybody else, but I've only just recently learned the state of affairs with modern PC games (I play mostly old/console/and old console games), and I must say the education is a disconcerting one. For those unfamiliar, I'll list a few (disturbing) examples: - Many, or most, modern games require internet access to connect to the host site for activation. Often for EACH play, not just installation. No internet, no game.
This also ensures that if a company goes under, or stops supporting a game, then the "owners" of individual copies will be without a functioning product.
- DRM. Games are installing unwanted and unnecessary stuff on your PC which may conflict with other programs (I've read of people having problems because they so much as HAVE Daemon Tools installed)
- Limited installation. You pay for a game, but you may only install it so many times before it becomes inactive. (so you're essentially only renting the game for so many uses, as opposed to actually purchasing it)
- And the most horrific thing I've heard yet was concerning somebody who asked on Bioware's forums if they'd sold their souls to EA. As a result he was banned from the forum. . . and his copy of Dragon Age II was rendered unplayable.
I'm sure people more up to date can provide more horror stories (please share). While this deprivation of end user rights seems to extend primarily to a PC gamer stranglehold, it does seem to set a potentially nasty precedent that could easily extend to console games as well, and could, if left unchecked, well devolve into an even tighter consumer noose. So what are some thoughts on this increasing trend of corporate control over our beloved pastime? Are the extreme measures a justified reaction to the threat of piracy, or a blatant encouragement for people to hack, crack, patch, and upload games?
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Kuro-chan
Limendy
Clones are awesome! ... Even with the wrong hair colour...
Posts: 228
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Post by Kuro-chan on May 9, 2011 20:19:14 GMT -5
Biggest problem I see is piracy is often a result of people not wanting to pay for the game because it is either too inconvenient to obtain or too expensive. I really do not see why games need to be $50-80 each anyway when the actual print media is hardly a fraction of that. Games with a cap of $30 each may end up yielding a LOT less piracy because it falls under a 'more affordable' category.
Also, I very much disagree with the notion of paying for a game more than once, which is why I will never EVER play World of Warcraft. I can get just as much enjoyment playing a copy of Tetris for Gameboy and I pay for it 'only' once.
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Post by psybuster on May 9, 2011 23:33:22 GMT -5
World of Goo is like what, $10? Comes with a supposed 90% piracy rate...and the game has no DRM. These days there are too many people who feel entitled to have things without paying for them just because they can, especially in the case of "casual" people who don't think there's anything actually wrong with occasionally looking for that MP3 they want once every couple weeks.
And yes console companies want this to happen too via full on digital downloads being the only method to obtain games, but it's noticeably harder for them because at the moment only about half of the current gen consoles owned now ever go online in the first place. PSP Go flopped for a reason, but that's still their goal in the long run.
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Post by gctKAZ on May 10, 2011 2:11:33 GMT -5
For myself, the very root of the issue is simply summarized: There is one thing that will make me want to buy a game - if it's a good game. Anti-piracy measures do not in any way make me want to buy a game legit, and can even turn me away from a purchase.
C&C Red Alert 3 - I know it's not a good game, but I have a soft spot for C&C. I installed it a few times since I re-format my hard drive from time to time. Then suddenly I get a message saying I have reached my maximum number of activations. Well F that, off to gamecopyworld I go. I did make an actual purchase however.
Dawn of War II - I purchased a hard copy and then found out that I need to install Steam before installing the game itself. WTF I refuse to infect my PC with Steam. Off to piratebay.
Civilization 5 - same deal as DoW II, except I haven't bought the game. It's a damn shame since I really want to give my support, but I can't bring myself support this kind of platform. Straight to piratebay.
Unfortunately it's not realistic to appeal to the honour of the consumer, so the days of being able to do whatever the Hell I want with my disc are largely over.
A great example of the way things should be is Civ IV Complete. Totally DRM-free and I was absolutely happily and willingly bought it. I can install it guilt-free on all my computers, unlike my other games where often I never even use my legit installation keys, going instead straight to gamecopyworld for cracks so I don't "lose a life", so to speak...
edit: To address an earlier post, I don't think it's reasonable to ask why games cost so much more than the price of manufacturing the print media - there's the whole development and publishing staff and then the printing and distribution and all the others I don't know about. So they are expensive. But as I said, I am willing to give my support to the makers of a good game, though maybe less willing to support poor anti-piracy decisions.
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Kuro-chan
Limendy
Clones are awesome! ... Even with the wrong hair colour...
Posts: 228
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Post by Kuro-chan on May 10, 2011 12:59:39 GMT -5
Alright, fair enough with the price tag. To me it makes sense, but having my own experience with running an archive website, it's difficult to deal with the concept of "Freeloaders". With money getting tighter, it's a good argument. If you can get it for free, you may as well, right?
I remember in the old days of shareware games where studios would launch the first section of the game as a "Try Before You Buy" kind of deal.
Old school sierra games had methods of protecting their game through the use of their manuals. You would need to refer to a section of the manual to solve a specific puzzle within the game or even just to get into the game itself. Ingenious in many ways, though it had drawbacks. I remember there were Computer Game rental stores where you could rent the game and copies of their manual for cheap. ...The rest kinda explains itself.
DRM is kinda based on the old movie industry, though: Make it so everything goes to them and bribe governments to toughen the laws so they benefit at the expense of the public. A few of my anime DVDs I have noted you are stuck with this mountain of unskippable nonsense, seriously discouraging me from buying from certain production teams. When you punish your customers through your legitimate purchases, you are "Literally" inviting piracy!
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Post by gctKAZ on May 10, 2011 14:45:49 GMT -5
It's understandable for game companies to want to protect their bottom line, to keep their staff employed, but these are days of fast internet connections and cracks being released even before the games are out on the street.
IMO Wyrdwad has part of it right (what the other parts are, I don't know either). But when the experience of the game itself can be pirated so easily, publishers should offer an experience outside of the game that is not so easily reproducible, or at least not quite so satisfying when a digital reproduction is attempted.
Then again, this only appeals to the type of person who likes having piles of mostly useless (but oh so pretty) trinkets. I like LE packages, but I feel like I'm at a point in my life where I need to simplify and it's no longer appropriate to have my spaces decorated with toys and gaming paraphernalia and whatnot.
Another thing that might be harder to do is to make games that are so good that people want to own them. Remember the times of Diablo and Starcraft where you could install unlimited copies of a multiplayer spawn? I'm sure that contributed greatly to the successful sales of both games.
I know I've been giving very inconsistent arguments. In general, if I feel a game is worth my time to play, then it should be worth my money to purchase. There's Civ5, according to this principle I should buy it, and eventually I will, but I don't think I will ever install the legit version.
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Post by Raison D'etritus on May 10, 2011 19:26:46 GMT -5
My thoughts have pretty much been summed up adequately across several humans. I DO think a large part of the problem is greed from the industry. Blockbuster and Netflix deal a great bit of damage to the movie industry by hampering DVD/Bluray sales, yet I don't have to go online every time I want to watch Holy Grail. Likewise, PDFs, E-texts, and even libraries are a detriment to authors, publishers, and booksellers like Barnes and Noble, yet a new hardcover doesn't come locked with a retinal scanner. The stuff is being stolen, overreacting by cracking down on those who DON'T steal, I think, is a ~bit~ of an overreaction.
The irony in the situation is that the austere preventative methods inflicted upon consumers do -nothing- to prevent piracy. As FM-Seldane has said, crack 'em. Which you can. Because the cracks are out there, being circulated (along with entire rips of the games) within a month after the release. Maybe more necessary cracks mean a little more time before people can download the game for free, but ultimately it makes no difference, and the only people suffering from these bad decisions are the honest consumers who bought a copy of something that needs to remedied with third party cracks. (cracks as unavailable to the internetless as are the purchased games)
And then there's the fact that bad publicity hurts business. The ratings for (PC) Bioshock 2 on Amazon are none too flattering. Just looking at the stars you'd assume it's a terrible game. Until you read WHY people are so pissed. (pissed enough to tell potential buyers it's a terrible game with their rating-vote) And likewise Bioware. When I read the story about the guy who was denied the right to play a game he'd already purchased, I made the conviction to never again give my money to Bioware. Not saying I'm going to go steal everything they make, but whether people are playing without paying or simply not playing, it makes the same difference to the company coffers. Of course, my individual purchase isn't to be mourned. But neither is a single pirated donwload. The question becomes just how many customers are being alienated by these extremist policies. Hopefully, enough.
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bugs
Lyus
Posts: 126
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Post by bugs on May 10, 2011 20:12:55 GMT -5
I have a horror story about DRM that cost me a DVD Drive.
Around 05-06, Ubisoft started using a particularly nasty DRM scheme called Starforce. This would install a rather intrusive piece of software that would refuse to run the game you bought if you had ANY program installed that could be used for CD copying. Meaning that if you had legit software like A120 or Nero your game wouldn't work.
I had bought Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones not knowing about this new program. Well after getting rid of all of my CD burning software it still wouldn't run. After even more research I found out that the program blocked the game from running if you had multiple DVD drives on one IDE ribbon. Instead of opening up my machine like a sensible person. I downloaded a program that said that it could mask devices connected to the peripheral slots on the mother board. Well it worked and the game ran but i never could get that machine to recognize my second DVD drive again. I tried putting the drive in another machine and it still wouldn't work.
I haven't bought a Ubisoft product since.
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Lenalia
Wilewarer
Awesome Custom Title
Posts: 456
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Post by Lenalia on May 10, 2011 21:17:02 GMT -5
Starforce was notorious for bricking drives even if you weren't doing anything out of the ordinary.
...In general, I think everyone else summed up my thoughts pretty well. I've heard people talk about PC gaming dieing, and increasingly onerous DRM is just making it worse. They're not reducing piracy, not that much -- if anything, they're just making the pirated version more appealing, and companies really ought to wisen up to this.
Even if you take piracy out of the equation, for top-tier titles there's usually a console version. You put an Xbox 360 disc in an Xbox 360 and the game runs, and that's it. There are disadvantages to console games (no fan-made mods, for instance), but that's kind of mitigated by the fact that the console version will always work if you have a working console and a working game disc. It's not like there isn't piracy on game consoles, too -- but the copy protection on those is still pretty consumer-friendly. (Excepting some XBL Indie and PSN downloadable games, apparently, but even those don't have activation limits or keep you from playing if you get banned from the company's forum.)
PC gaming was tricky enough as it was (with hardware compatibility issues and the like) -- they don't need to make it worse.
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Post by psybuster on May 10, 2011 23:17:15 GMT -5
There's also the alternative argument that DRM isn't really intended to stop piracy (but companies just say that because it's an easy scapegoat/to please stockholders), but rather to kill the second hand market via single use CD keys/codes and whatnot. You can see console games pushing in that direction too with tactics like single use codes for online play modes in EA sports games, and I believe the newest Mortal Kombat does the same thing.
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Kuro-chan
Limendy
Clones are awesome! ... Even with the wrong hair colour...
Posts: 228
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Post by Kuro-chan on May 14, 2011 9:33:17 GMT -5
I would love to see their over-protection, unnecessary extra fees and nonsense backfire on them anyway. I pay for a game but once and stick with that! Classic, easy-to-play games for all!
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