By RPS on July 1st, 2009 at 1:55 pm.
Don’t know what DRM is? Don’t care about it? Please vote in this poll. Lots of people are keenly outspoken about their dislike of digital rights management, and you can be sure they’ll make their feelings known here. If you don’t know what DRM is, or don’t care, please give us your input alongside everyone else: it’s important for us to get a clear picture.
See below for the poll. And ignore the n, it’s a crazy bug.
n
{democracy:27}
n
{democracy:28}
n
{democracy:29}
n
{democracy:30}
Hopefully this will make some difference. I try to avoid buying any games with DRM if i’m honest. GOG is the way forward chaps.
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Why the specific “Do you buy games via Steam?” What about GamersGate, Impulse etc?
I have not bought any games via Steam because they INSIST on regional pricing which makes everything ridiculously expensive in Australian dollars. I have however bought heaps of games from both Gamersgate and Impulse who price globally in US dollars.
Interestingly the one title that has caught me out not being able to play is Empire Total War – which I bought the old fashion way in a box from the store. But just recently I couldn’t play for 24 hours due to various Steam “cant contact servers” etc messages.
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Im interested where you are going with this, but I feel the second question might be a bit… narrow in a way. I said no, because I dont actively persue non-DRM games. However, I have decided not to buy a game or two because they had intrusive DRM.
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DRM normally doesnt bother me, I dont mind stuff like securom if its just a normal CD check, but I dont like the ones that require an install of some nasty drivers (Starforce?) AFAIK, my copy of space rangers 2 has that, and I also remember having to install (and update several times) Starforce when I worked on GTR2.
Ive just bought a game that I know has starforce, but appreantly its a ‘lighter’ version of the one that requires installation.
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@Talorc – because GamersGate/Impulse both have one-time activations for DRM, wheras Steam is a constant monitoring approach with a very wonky ‘offline’ mode.
There’s quite a bit of cognitive dissonance amongst the people who complain loudest about DRM – the number of people who’ll decry how horrible it is and how it’s ruining gaming, but buy without hesitation off Steam is rather amusing.
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Personally, I’m sick of the whole DRM debate. There are whole other sites dedicated to discussing and raging about it, and they’re better suited to the subject. I’ve lost count of how many otherwise good comment threads on RPS have been horribly derailed by DRM rantings.
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I will not buy anything with limited activations other than that I am good.
I have been caught out by Steam refusing to start in off-line mode on many an occasion. The trouble seems to be, if you are connected to a network but not the internet it deletes your off-line profile so you have to connect to the steam servers before you can start in off-line mode. The only way I have got it to work is by disabling my network card before steam starts.
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Does last wuestion include “Games for Windows Live!’?
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“question”, not wuestion.
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The only DRM I’ve had problems with is Steam, with its incredibly stupid offline-mode. It’s not enough to make me avoid it (though the euro-prices usually are), but it’s been effing annoying at times.
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No edits? When I say “I’m good” I mean happy. I don’t mean I pirate the other games, I just won’t play them. I don’t care if I miss out on Far Cry 2, if it has limited activations I won’t be playing it.
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My policy is to circumvent any DRM which causes me any inconvenience.
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So, elaboration time.
1 – Yes – only in one instance wasn’t a crack available at the time of purchase (Bionic Commando: Rearmed).
2 – Yes – Dark Athena and ANNO 1404 are such casualties of the War on DRM. Dark Athena has since been cracked, but now I’m content to wait for a discount.
3 – Yes – online multiplayer games are okay by me, so are indies exclusive to the service. Only exceptions are Overlord and the Orange Box, bought both with epic discounts. Otherwise, it’s still an annoying form of DRM.
4 – No – did get caught by disc-checks, a DRM’d installer, to be precise. Otherwise, installing cracks are a standard part of the installation procedure for me now, just like updating to the latest version.
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I’ve tried buying EU3 on gamersgate since I know it has much more lenient DRM than Steam, however I had problems with billing. It rejected my both my credit cards.
I then bought it on steam. So I tried to avoid restrictive DRM but failed in the end :(
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“The only way I have got it to work is by disabling my network card before steam starts.”
To be fair, while annoying and I’d wish they’d fix it, it’s pretty simple to get around:
1. Right-click on the connection icon in the notification area and select “Disable”.
2. Startup Steam.
3. Right-click on the connection icon in the notification area and select “Enable”.
But yes, there are a few things Valve really need to do to improve Steam. One major one would be to automatically authenticate the game after downloading – _not_ waiting for the user to start up the game. If they try to do this offline, of course, it won’t start.
But count me as another one bored with the DRM debate, and amused at the amount of people who will appear to cut off their noses to spite their faces.
P.
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I have no real policy on DRM. I don’t like it, but I’ve still bought games that I want which would be considered DRM-broken.
The only time I’ve had trouble with it is with Company of Heroes off Steam. I bought it last year and as of yet still have not been able to play it due to login/cdkey/steam/drm issues, which is pretty frustrating.
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Hah, I can’t read. Turns out question 2 isn’t “do you deliberately try to not purchase games that use DRM”. Well, the answer is still yes, but the elaboration is not all that relevant anymore. Picked up Braid from Impulse for this reason alone.
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157 people bought DRM-infused games compared to 18 “otherwise” at the mo. If the other 156 who’ve voted so far are anything like me they have done this because DRM is unavoidable. Could have done with a question saying “Have you purposefully not bought a game because it had DRM” (I know that’s a lot like question 2)… because that would have been a yes from me also.
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I love how the bar graphs are slightly less functional than most promised features in a Peter Molyneux game
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I wonder if everyone who said “No” to question number one has really fully thought it through. Serial numbers and disc checks are (fairly innocuous) forms of DRM, and pretty much every retail game has at least one of them.
I would put money on the face that publishers are intentionally using the door the face technique with bad DRM like Starforce and Securom so that when they eventually do drop them, gamers are then happy to then only have to deal with less invasive, but equally pointless and broken DRM.
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Ok, maybe not so much like question 2 … even more reason to show publishers that DRM is a real dealbreaker on any game that falls short of spectacular.
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*fact
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Voted yes to the first DRM question, and yes to Steam. Steam is the only sensible, (even useful for online play),non-intrusive DRM I’ve ever come across.
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“Have you ever been caught out by online checks and activations and not been able to play your game? (Be honest!)”
What do you mean ?
Original or “suspicious” game ?
I will assume you talk about original games.
I had many problems with Battlefield 2142.
Also my internet provider is quite funky. And they do some kind of QOS trottling. So it Steam would take ages to connect ( up to 20 minutes) but it would detect internet connection. So i could not play even the single player games I own.
Also. Thanks to DRM. You can not return the game anymore.
What if game has problem with your hardware configuration ?
Happen to me by Fallout 3. Even after 6 patches , game freezes my PC ever so often.
And what about limited installs ?
I installed NWN1 at least 10 times across 4 PCs (Yes i love that game) I would not be able to do that , if it had DRM…
That are just some cases against DRM , and there are many more….
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Have voted “yes” for the Steam question, although I don’t anymore, these days, because of being unable to pay in $ without proxy shenanigans and their insolent policy of charging me more in € than they would in $, even with EU taxes included.
But I have in the past and would again if wouldn’t be so ridiculously expensive apart from sales, so I guess that counts as a yes, as far as relevance to DRM is concerned.
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-Yes
-I have no policy
-Yes
-Yes
I’ve only ever been bitten in the bum by DRM once (in spite of buying other games other people had serious bother with) and that was Football Manager 2009. Had to wait ’til the next day in the end to get it working.
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Question 2 is the most important question here.
It asks if people will refuse to buy a game if it has DRM or will find the game elsewhere if its only got DRM from that particular shop.
If the answer is Yes then companies are losing sales due to their DRM. Simple.
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1) Voted I don’t know, but probably not. Then again, I do own two EA games (WAR and Battle for Middle Earth 2).
2) No policy. I purchase games I like. DRM, if severe, is a deterrent, and it’ll depend on how severe it is and how much I would like to play the game in question.
3) No.
4) Yes, once, I’m ashamed to say. Later on I bought the game in question.
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I draw the line at activation limits. Having a system check how many times I have installed my game. Loosing an activation when my pc crashes? That means that when my pc crashes 3x, I can’t play. No!
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As an option perhaps, not as a rule, I’d say. If you have a slower/older system it can take 10 to 20 minutes to authenticate a game, slowing down the whole thing. In those cases it’s nice to be able to preload, as it were, without needing to immediately authenticate too.
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Obviously, there’s a point here, as others have noted, trying to be made about Steam being DRM and the inherent cognitive dissonance supposed in people who are “anti-DRM” and “pro-Steam”. The problem is actually that people who dislike DRM dislike “DRM that doesn’t actually benefit them” – Steam’s DRM has enough benefits (in terms of allowing you to install anywhere you want as many times as you want) that the downsides (reliance on Valve’s existence, inability to resell) are ameliorated for many people.
It would have been nice to have had a “Which of these things do you associate with DRM” kinda question, with positive and negative answers…
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Question 1 is hard; where do you draw the line between ‘DRM’ and something else? If you’re going with ‘limited activations’ then no (although I got a copy of Far Cry 2 with a CPU, but would’ve bought the CPU if it didn’t come with the game), but if you’re including CD checks or Steam then yes (the latter grudgingly, but I’ll put up with it for cheap games as it’s likely to hang around for a while, I never re-sell games anyway, and the Offline mode actually works for me. I dislike its in(cl/tr)usion in primarily single-player boxed games, though.).
The final question is ‘no’ because I’ve been really careful about what I’ve bought – because I *did* get caught out once when buying music with similar restrictions. Once bitten, etc.
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I think, to be honest, I have more things in my life to worry about than DRM. Although I do miss those funny old plastic lenses you had to hold against your TV screen to decipher the word displayed underneath. That was a really effective copy-protection system.
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As I know a few developers, and how much damage piracy potentially does to their businesses, I have no issue with DRM at all.
So long as it doesn’t get in my way.
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Damnit, though I should, in all fairness say that I do refuse to install things that install rootkits and such shite. Windows runs crufty enough without some bunch of numpties bodging shell extensions in VB to sell to clueless game devs.
Ooh. I practically ranted there. How liberating.
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DRM is so 21st century stuff. I play games older than DRM.
HAR, Har, har. .
(Children eaten by DRM today: 5280)
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You should add a question – have you endangered your PC by installing incredibly dubious noCD fixes, hacks and other .exe files likely cooked up by austic Russian hackers as a vechicle for their latest worm varients, percisely to disable the DRM on games you paid cash money for but don’t actually work otherwise – because I’m sure a sizeable proportion of people will answer ‘yes.’
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Have you ever been caught out by online checks and activations and not been able to play your game? (Be honest!)
Not sure if it counts as being caught out or not, but I once bought a game via the EA store which still refuses to activate claiming that I stole it (ie, the CD key they provided me has already been used by someone else). Of course, the reality here is that EA stole my money and then never gave me the game.
But other than EA store games, I don’t care too much about DRM. SecuROM has never caused me any problems, neither has StarForce in any of the games I bought then later found contained it. As far as hardware/PC crashing, virtual drives, etc., goes that is.
It’s the limited activations that turn me off of purchasing, not the actual form of protection chose to enforce them, and as long as there is a revoke tool, the limited activations aren’t a problem either. For example, I won’t buy the new Riddick game as there is no revoke tool. And if I buy Dawn of Discovery, it’ll be from GamersGate as they will simply ignore the 3 activations limit.
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1/ Yes – it’s unavoidable natch
2/ Yes – or perhaps more specifically, DRM is often a tipping point for both a particular game and also for ‘loyalty’ to a company. It depends on the type of DRM, to be honest.
3/ Twice – Plants Vs Zombies, and Defence Grid. If either were available boxed, I’d have bought that instead; as is I would never pick a digital over a boxed copy.
4/ Yes – although with a caveat, mostly to do with trying to play Half Life 2 on a plane (and also to install bioshock). Also had what I think was DRM related problems with GTA4 (provided I understand the consequence of what happens to a ‘pirated version’ – i.e. deliberate camera and control glitches to make it unplayable). I think Fallout 3 gave me a few problems, too.
(As an aside, I’ve only ever pirated one game in my life, and that was purely to see if it’d run on my then archaic system – it didn’t. There was no demo / benchmark of course.)
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I buy games and then crack them. I don’t care if I don’t have a legal right – other people have stepped in to cover up to idiotic crippling of what the publishers have done to their own games. I most definitely have a moral right – these people have my effing money!
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Oh, how sneaky. I wanted to say that I haven’t purchased any DRM-containing games and then you followed it up with the Steam question, forcing me to re-evaluate my answer.
In short, aside from absolutely no DRM, Steam’s the only game in town for me. If a title on Steam has measures that go beyond Steam authentication, I don’t buy it.
For instance, I wanted to pick up BioShock when it was priced at $5 but shied away when I remembered that it had that absurd ‘limited number of machines’ limitation.
And SecuROM? Forget it! I refuse to allow a videogame to install software that can interfere with the Windows kernel and device drivers.
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@bansama: why did you give up, you are in the right, if you still have proof of purchase you should take them to court.
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Clarification, for question 2 I voted: I have no policy, which isn’t quite accurate. DRM does indeed factor into my decision, however I will not specifically buy a game just because its lacking in DRM, nor will I entirely avoid a game which I was looking forward too just because it contains it.
However, the presence of strong DRM is likely to disuade me from purchasing a title, and may be a major contributing factor in me avoiding a purchase. Similarly, an encouraging lack of DRM may lead me to consider a title which I’d have otherwise ignored.
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I’ve been caught out by activation issues with legit games now and then. DRM is an aggravating and semi-doomed technology. But it is hard to take the moral outrage it inspires entirely seriously. Boycotts!! It’s like the games contain palm oil or baby seals or something.
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Wouldn’t a more relevant version of the second question be:
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Like a few others here, while DRM annoys me there has yet to be one that cannot be circumvented. If a game has idiotic DRM (Bioshock and Far Cry 2 come to mind) then I simple use the cracks that invariably surface a few days before the games release. There is not one game yet that has forced me to deal with invasive DRM. DRM is just a paper tiger and only causes issues, as has been said before, for honest gamers who simply expect their games to work when they buy them.
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I do not like steam for many reasons, and will only use it to get steam-required games (like TF2).
I recently made the mistake of buying games that I could’ve gotten outside of steam through steam, and ended up sitting on a banned account with half of the games being ones that I won’t be able to transfer to a new, not-banned account.
In even more simpler terms, steam screwed me out of my money, my time, and then wouldn’t let me transfer my non-screwed items to a fresh account.
Online activation isn’t that big, but please. I’d like to play my games offline, and not just by ticking the “play offline” button. I want the exe to run whether or not it notices a broadband connection.
No refunds, no resale, no transfer of games between accounts. Plus, there’s a variety of hidden stuff in the terms of service that enables valve to:
A. Pull away your games at any time, with no refund. They claim that when you buy from them, you never actually own the game, you just own the right to borrow the game from them.
B. In the same vein as A, they can claim you’ve been cheating at anytime, and take away your games.
C. They can remove or add mod functionality at any time.
D. They can render your CD Key unusable at any time.
All of these can be done without reason or proof. They can say, “hey we’re banning you because you cheated”, and when you ask for proof they say it’s not their problem.
This kind of industry-supported fraud shouldn’t be allowed to be covered up by great games and great deals.
I will never waste another $80 with them again.
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Question two
Surely option 2 and 3 are the same? Unless you’re suggesting people only buy the game because it has the DRM.
Also is disc verification or product reference count for question 1. If so I really don’t think anyone could answer no.
Reply to Aldo
Re: GTA 4 no bench mark shenanigans. I declare applesauce! http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest
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Last question I said no, only because I have been caught out but found other ways to get around it.
I would have liked a question more along the lines of “Does DRM have weight in your decision to buy a game or not” and a sliding scale with it.
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“For instance, I wanted to pick up BioShock when it was priced at $5 but shied away when I remembered that it had that absurd ‘limited number of machines’ limitation. ”
Um, see, that’s what I mean by the “cutting off your nose” attitude – $5 for one of the best games of recent years, and where said limitation was removed last year.
P.
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I’ve been caught without internet access and Steam not in offline mode. Another time D2D got me when I thought I was being clever by copying a bunch of games to an external HDD so I could play them on my laptop while traveling, but as they were never activated on my laptop and again no internet access, none of those games worked. At moments like those I fall back on free cell and spider solitaire. These problems are rare though, and I’ve never had any problems at home where my internet connection is steady and reliable.
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I try to avoid it as much as possible and preferably buy on steam.
Though i did give in and buy Mass Effect on amazon the other month but that was only because it was £4.29.
Thankfully EA released the tool to remove the DRM, which is great but realistically DRM shouldn’t be there in the first place.
As a paying customer it sometimes feels like we’re being abused.
I hope one day companies will understand.
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Back when GameTap was worth $10/month, the only major complaint I had about it was that the DRM was broken on some games. A few of the older AAA titles (hitman, I think … and a few others) had DRM that wouldn’t allow me to play, and I couldn’t find a way to get around it.
I should also note that I LIKE the Steam DRM system. Yes, it needs a connection to the internet but there are benefits to the system. The main benefit is that when I switch computers, to transfer all of my games, all I need to do is remember my Steam login. I don’t need to keep track of CDs and CD-keys, all I need is my Steam login.
I buy nearly everything through Steam because of that. I’m glad to allow online authentication in exchange for the ability to re-download my games any time I want.
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@ Duckmeister, seriously mate if you haven’t done something wrong you wont get VAC banned (I’m assuming this is what your referring to).
If you have been unfairly banned then provide proof you have done nothing wrong. While I don’t agree with all of their policies (including not being able to transfer games from account to account) I have spent a long time with steam and know many people who use it and never heard of something like that.
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I bought Bioshock on release too. The thing about the limited installs on that one is they were still far, far less onerous than what EA tried to pull with spore. You got those activations back on uninstalling the game.
Okay, there were initial bugs with re-instating activations, but that’s how it was intended to work. Not only that but they did remove the restrictions as promised.
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I think this set of polls is more than a bit simplistic, unfortunately—I try to avoid forms of DRM that I find especially odious. However, Steam is a form of DRM that I don’t particularly worry about. Basically, if I don’t trust the DRM system to be kept running in another ten years, I simply won’t buy a game that I know has that DRM. I trust Steam to stay around, because it has been and continues to be a successful business, and the business model really requires the service to keep running. I don’t trust Certain Game Companies to keep running their online activation DRM systems because I’ve seen the kind of support they give their games outside of DRM and it’s not great. (i.e. releasing one patch for a horribly buggy game, six months after the game comes out, and then never speaking of it again)
So for me, the real question is one of trust: I absolutely will not buy a game unless the DRM is provided by someone I trust to act faithfully. It’s entirely possible I’ll get burned at some point in the future… we’ll see.
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Ah, forgot the other parts of the questionairre:
I own roughly 100 games on Steam, another 30 or so from D2D, maybe a half dozen from Impulse, and another half dozen from GOG. GOG is great about their DRM (or lack thereof) and Impulse is actually really good as well. Steam would probably be next as they only require you to login to your account, and you can go offline if you have the foresight to set up for that before it happens. D2D can be annoying if you use multiple machines or when you have to repair/reinstall windows, but I haven’t had any actual problems with it, just annoyances. Overall I prefer not to mess with any of this stuff, but I’d rather deal with an online activation or login than have to keep track of 50 DVD’s and keep them in the drive while I play. That sucker spins *loud*.
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I haven’t bought off Steam yet, but it’s only a matter of time before I collapse in the face of desire for Audiosurf. I probably would have bought it already except it won’t accept my Australian credit card whilst I’m buying from a UK IP.
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I have to keep backup copies of Bloodbowl, Aquaria and Puzzlegeddon as they don’t allow you to redownload.
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Bought games from GOG and Impulse, because the things I wanted from them had no DRM. I’ve always found Steam cumbersome and really slow to start on my computer, so I do have to admit to pirating some abandonware fluff instead of buying from Steam.
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@Jon_hill987 Way too much hassle to be honest, the legal fees alone would just turn it into a joke — I certainly can’t represent myself.
For instance, I wanted to pick up BioShock when it was priced at $5 but shied away when I remembered that it had that absurd ‘limited number of machines’ limitation.
I hate to break it to you, but Bioshock had SecuROM removed from it long before the $5 sale. The Steam version is now 100% SecuROM free.
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DRM’s never bothered me. Why? Because I apply cracks to all my games as a matter of course. Having paid for these games, I feel no obligation to tolerate the absurd lengths some make you go to, and even the reasonable ones it’s nice to be able to play without a CD in the drive or with Steam sitting in the background and eating up my system resources.
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I voted that yes, I buy from Steam. In reality though, I only do so at their weekend sales, and not often. Their pricing policy in general is just out of control, and 95% of the time, not worth it.
And since Steam itself is also a form of DRM, they become my second choice if the price is tied. If I can get an old-fashioned DRM-free version at retail for the same price, I go for that. If that is DRM-infected, I wait for Steam’s prices to get down to a realistic level, and buy from there.
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Voted yes to everything. I’ve bought things from Steam, which has DRM. I was planning to upgrade my computer last year to something which could play modern games; but all the stuff I was reading about limited activations sounded like too much hassle, so I avoided the games and a new system. Because of ropey wireless internet, I spent a summer with steam locking me out; I couldn’t even start it to uninstall things to free up disk space.
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The only DRM I approve of is Steam, but that is only because it so so much more than DRM. Its a community, server browser and back end to many of the games I purchase on there.
I also use it basically as a folder for all my games so I just load Steam and load them all there.
It is a store and should be viewed as a platform in and of itself, DRM is only one tiny part of Steam.
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aw fark – a DRM discussion! There goes the neighborhood.
Yah, I was wondering about that too.
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I don’t buy dozens of games, but considering I’ve bought more than 3 games in 2 years, of course I’ve bought a game that has DRM. It’s almost impossible to avoid.
I have chosen to avoid certain games specifically because of their DRM, and I have been prevented from playing, or given a terrible gaming experience by DRM more often from games that I bought, than from games I acquired via torrents.
I have been caught by checks/activations before, but only on games I legitimately bought. I’ve had authentication servers die on me, I’ve had a flaky internet connection cause the check to fail, etc. If you want to have a smooth gaming experience, torrented games are the way to go.
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I get the feeling that these questions (and the prior questionnaires, too) are geared towards downplaying the concerns of pirates and benefiting publishers who use DRM.
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+1 “I don’t buy games” post.
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Elaboration:
I would buy from Steam, but only if significantly (>40%) cheaper than available from Amazon, inc. p&p. Otherwise, I’d rather wait for the game to arrive once, and not have to wait longer for it to load every time.
I will not buy game that requires the DVD in drive, until a nocd patch becomes available (officially or otherwise).
I will not buy a game *just* because it has no DRM, but it does influence my decision positively.
Online activation will not prevent me from buying a game I want, but does influence my decision negatively.
The most trouble I’ve had from online checks has been from Steam. If the PC has an internet connection, but the Steam servers are inaccessible, then it won’t start, and won’t allow offline mode, and I can’t play my (single player!) games. That has caught me twice, and is the second biggest reason I avoid Steam. (1: Additional start time, 2: Online checks, 3: High prices)
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I always use NO DVD cracks so I guess that the DRM doesn’t really bother me so long as I can circumvent it (does this make me a criminal?). I still haven’t found a working crack for GTA 4 and it royally pisses me off. I just moved abroad with a new laptop and it was the only disc I had to bring aside from my OS and drivers (which I kept in case of an apocalyptic disaster).
I, for one, welcome the digital age with open arms. I like services like Steam in particular because if my computer does get nuked I can reinstall from an online service.
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Actually, the only bad experience I’ve had with DRM is GTA4. I bought it on Steam(I love steam, I would totally bum it if it had something to stick my… yeah I’ll stop) but the stupid Windows Live stuff which comes with it, which is totally useless by the by, locked out my account when I was about 70% through. Bloody annoying, just randomly stopped taking my Password.
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these questions (and the prior questionnaires, too) are geared towards downplaying the concerns of pirates and benefiting publishers who use DRM.
Or they’re an attempt by us to get a clearer picture of how our readers behave towards DRM’d games?
No, can’t be that, must be a conspiracy in favour of DRM-wielding overlords. Aiiie!
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I only care about 2 forms of drm. Disk checks just make me sad by being a chore. Limited activations must have a refund process or be from gamersgate. Because i’ll give gamersgate kisses.
If the disk isn’t needed, and i can be sure i can always install my game? 10/10 for drm.
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If I encounter games that I’ve legally bought and won’t let me play because of DRM I’ll find a pirate copy which usually has all that crap taken out. Then if I feel the need to play online I’ll install the bought copy.
I pretty much hate DRM though, GTA4 summed up the reasoning, all that games for windows live crap you need and social club, Jeez.
I don’t mind Steam at all, it’s so useful and doesn’t sit on your face while you’re trying to play games like Games for Windows does. Also Steam is the best way I know for joining games, chatting to friends and browsing the web from inside the game with their amazingly handy overlay.
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when I bought Stalker: Clear Sky from steam it had additional activation DRM. The activation servers were down so I could not play the game. However the problem was resolved in a few days.
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My anti-DRM activism only applies to music software — where some brands require you to separately purchase one of two competing $40 dongles in order to use them. In fact, most of those require the dongle just to try a “free” demo.
Otherwise I think DRM certainly has the potential to either suck or not suck, and it reflects poorly on the publisher when it sucks. Simple enough.
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I refuse to believe anyone hasn’t been caught out by Steam at some point saying your game is unavailable, or the offline mode going wonky etc.
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I recently wised up to DRM as it had never been a prob in the past, but Farcry 2 is dead to me at present.
Despite a steam install, i managed to hit the install limit when i wiped my HDD twice to put consecutive versions of Windows 7 on and it tipped me over the limit (unbeknownst to me to be honest). I installed again only to be told that because i hadn’t uninstalled properly that my game is now locked out.
I haven’t got round to bothering Ubisoft about this. Anyone got a quick solution or experience of getting their game back?
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The questions could have a couple of extra options since:
Do you buy games via Steam?
I haven’t bought one yet but just might in the future. This doesn’t have to do with DRM but rather my somewhat limited gaming habits lately.
Also:
Have you ever been caught out by online checks and activations and not been able to play your game? (Be honest!)
Yes, for a very simple reason. A game I purchased several years ago was giving me problems while accessing the DVD drive. A friend of mine recommended me a no-CD crack, which made the experience much better. Unfortunately, several days later I had forgotten I was using a different executable and updating the game resulted in a funky error. Reinstating the original *.exe didn’t solve it and only a reinstallation process solved that.
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Haha Jim, I was expecting this, after the discussion of the DRM in Anno in the comments.
I try to buy via the source that doesn’t contain DRM actively, I mostly buy by Steam – I know it is a form of DRM in itself but I use Steam ALL the time and have never had problems with it.
I just realised actually – DRM itself has never been a problem for me, if i buy a game with it its never really a problem, its just a matter of principle to me, I don’t want something restricting me on MY computer – its mine and when I buy a game I should be able to use it when I want.
However I’m contradicting myself – Steam does just that despite its offline mode. Its a tricky subject, but I’ve never actually seen any benefit of DRM.
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I’m against authentication DRM – CD checks are fine by me…. the only exception to this is for multiplayer-only games where i’m required to connect to the company’s servers anyway.
I have bought DRMed games in the last two years. I bought Crysis Warhead before they came clean and told everyone that it had DRM on it… which i was very annoyed about. I also bought a few games on Steam (though only L4D at full price) and i cracked my stance on not buying games from XBLA because i wanted the PoP epilogue content…. which i was actually pretty disappointed with and i won’t make that mistake again.
Several games have refused to run during the early course of my DRM experiences. These problems ranged from launch day authentication to the only set of servers for Valve being taken down by an earthquake or something and there were also times when my provider’s connection to the ‘big pipe’ that connects the US and Europe went down which meant that i couldn’t play any of the games i’ve paid for.
I definitely try and not buy games with DRM because i shouldn’t be paying for something which essentially i don’t own or have the right to access without permission or at the whim of the publisher/developer, natural disasters or internet issues. I don’t believe in the spiel that games are services (except for MMOs) and that instead they are commodities like most other things in the real world and i hope that this aspect and EULAs are deemd unlawful when government eventually comes around to assessing them in this country (they’re still stuck in the 80′s using law written for that tech level :/).
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@ Duckmeister
You got banned from Steam? Well that’s your problem, not the system. it’s self policing and i approve its slightly draconian big brotherness if it keeps the hackers and cheaters away from my favourite games with severe punishments.
You got burned and you’ve only got yourself to blame
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I can’t say I’ve ever not bought a game because of the DRM (unless you count Atari’s revolutionary – not including game in stores DRM for Riddick). I don’t like it, but I’ve never been put off to that extent, although by the time I started to become aware of it most companies have wound it down.
The only times I’ve not been able to play a game for DRM are:
Medieval2: Total War – Insisted I was using a disc image when I had the actual disc, eventually cracked the single player, never managed to play the multiplayer.
Team Fortress/Left4Dead – Despite Steam being usually given a free pass in the DRM stakes, sometimes it goes down, and those times you can’t play multiplayer only games.
Dawn of War 2: Same as above, but with Games for Windows Live instead of Steam and the inability to play the single player game either.
I’ll have to vote when I get home, my work internet apparently fell out with the software you used.
Oh, and I really, really don’t care about disc checks, I’m amazed some people object to them so much, spoiled you are. I still remember swapping seven different discs to play BG:2
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The 2nd question could do with some clarification. I voted no, because I don’t specifically purchase games because they have no DRM. It is definitely a factor, though. For instance, I bought X3: Terran Conflict despite the limited activations because I want to support the developer and I believe them when they say a future patch will remove it, as they did with Reunion. Otherwise I’ll avoid games that use limited activations, and be happier about buying games with no DRM, but I won’t buy them simply for the sake of supporting an anti-DRM stance.
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Questions 3 and 4 actually interact for me, so let’s hijack this blog’s platform for my story. I answered ‘No, I don’t buy from Steam’ on 3, but by that I mean I never will again barring fundamental policy reform, because I have to answer Yes on 4. TL;DR:
In September 2008, I finally caved, made an account and bought my first Steam game – Orange Box, natch. I’d previously owned a copy of HL2 that I cracked, and I’d played Portal and watched a lot/played a little TF2 on friends’ machines. I knew I was giving up real ownership of the software, but I chose to do so anyway for the sake of the convenience and other benefits Steam offered.
In those three months, I bought a couple of near-full-price weekend sale games and a mass of stuff in the holiday sale. In total I’m into Steam for USD250-300 in payment (probably the correct measure), or 400-500 in replacement cost if you swing that way.
On December 28th, the part of this story that’s my fault happens. I was in a hurry and needed to buy a piece of equipment for work. I made a credit card purchase on a computer which I’d cleaned of a spyware infection and which was behaving but not yet completely checked. It turned out to not be completely clean, reinfected itself and some bad guys got my credit card info. I knew the risk, I took the risk, I got burned, mea culpa.
A few days later I was advised that my credit card had been shut off by the bank’s anti-theft algorithms, called them up and went through the claims process. It seems like the black hat was some kind of idle prankster because their total purchases were a couple of video rentals, a few iTunes tracks and a bouquet of flowers and a video HTML course that they sent to me. Anyway, I don’t buy a lot and consolidate my purchases so it all went smoothly (or so it seemed) – ‘that’s good, that’s bad, good, good, bad…’ about twenty items in total, five of which were Steam purchases during December. Specifically to avoid any sort of human error with juggling the various purchase numbers, I told the clerk twice, quote, ‘all the transactions with Valve Software are valid’.
Unbeknownst to me the clerk screwed up. One purchase was erroneously marked invalid. Audiosurf. Five dollars. A late-night impulse purchase of a game I (whisper it) don’t actually like or want to play, made purely because I appreciate the graphics and the joy the creator’s brought to so many other people. Did you know that Steam provides no severability of licenses? I didn’t. A reasonable policy would have been for me to get a popup on next login that I was barred from downloading Audiosurf because there was a problem with payment. Instead, in the event of any problem with payment, Valve locks out your account, denying you access to everything you’ve ever purchased from them over the years. Effective, I’m sure. Fair or honourable? Not so much.
I’m guessing that my Steam account was disabled sometime in the first week of January (three months after my first Steam purchase ever), when I called the bank and straightened out the charges. I wouldn’t know, for two reasons: 1. I’m paranoid enough that I kept my Steam offline whenever I was not actually buying or downloading a game. I would have made an exception for TF2 and L4D obviously, but I hadn’t yet gotten the free time to hook up with a multiplayer game. 2. Steam not only does not warn you before disabling your account, which is fair enough, but also does not notify you when they do it! No, they don’t want problems sorted out quickly at Valve. Instead, I didn’t find out until I logged in to buy Defense Grid – my first attempted non-sale Steam purchase – on February 26th, and got all my shit locked out. I imagine they don’t notify you so that you don’t just stay offline and lose motivation to cough up, but I acknowledge that may be overly cynical.
Did you know Steam has no email or phone support? I didn’t. All there is is a ticket system. I created a ticket, waited three days and got a reply that was puzzlingly both a) obvious boilerplate and b) full of typos. Two days later, after calling up my bank to straighten out their mistaken chargeback, I notified Valve on the ticket that I’d fixed it.
I then waited just over TWO MONTHS for the next reply from Valve ‘customer support’, during which time I contacted my bank three times to repeatedly make sure everything was kosher, Valve twice attempted to unilaterally close my trouble ticket without any communication with me, and I made a series of increasingly exasperated posts to the ticket. Finally, I got another reply…
More boilerplate. It was properly spelled this time, though. ‘If you have already contacted your bank, they may be in the process of completing the reversal’ – for two months. Really! Still, armed with the new information that Valve still supposedly hadn’t seen the money, I called up the bank again, kicked some arse and got told that they’d screwed up the chargeback reversal and had to use a different method now. It turns out (after subsequent contact in person at the bank) this was nonsense, just a clerk who didn’t know the terminology trying to pacify me. As far as anyone at the bank can tell, they did the proper procedure on March 5th.
Two months after the second of two boilerplate replies from Valve, four months after I initially created a ticket, probably six months after they locked all my stuff, and nine months after I first bought a game from Steam, I can’t play my games and I fully expect I’ll never be able to again. My last contact was two weeks ago, when I took the time off work to go into my bank in person and take another shot at the situation with a manager. We came to the conclusion that there was just nothing further the bank could do about this five-dollar charge without realtime phone contact with Valve’s billing department. I posted asking Valve for a contact, but I obviously don’t hold out much hope. Who knows what I might do with a phone number? What if I distributed it to those other horrible Internet people who think they have some right to responsive, responsible, late-twentieth-century customer support from the world’s largest online game distributor? In any case, I can’t honestly say I’d blame them for not caring since I’m obviously never going to buy from them again. Should they ever restore my account, I’ll just be a blip in their bandwidth bill as I pull down all the shit I bought but never bothered to download and go offline for as close to forever as I can manage.
It’s sort of funny, actually. People go on about pirates being ‘thieves’, despite the fact that theft involves direct loss by the victim and the marginal cost to the publisher of a pirate copy is exactly zero. In this case, I’ve taken a loss. I’ve paid several hundred dollars and received zippity-shit due to Valve’s unreasonable account policies, apparently incompetent billing infrastructure, and hermetic, worthless customer support. If any digital license transaction can be theft, this is.
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Curious to still see so many people who have never bought a DRM protected game. The only games that don’t have DRM that I can think of are stardocks titles, world of goo and the games on gog.com and minesweeper. All other games have a cd check, cd keys, online activation, a code you have to look up in the manual,… It’s all DRM. So 134 people bought games through steam but only 124 people bought games with DRM? That can’t be true as steam has DRM in the form of online activation.
It’s more a question of which DRM is acceptable. I don’t mind steams activation. I do mind having a limited amount of installs. I do mind having to put my cd in the pc but not nearly as much.
Personally, I will more likely buy a game that has no DRM. I bought world of goo. I bought quite a few games from gog.com. And it’s a pleasure to just click “install” and have no other problems at all. Of course, besides not having DRM, these are great games too.
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Point 1) DRM that irritates normal consumers is genuinely idiotic. I will never buy anything digitally from EA again after the Spore debacle (and not just because Spore was shit!).
Point 2) All DRM is pointless on single-player games, because it WILL be cracked and on torrents within hours. Why not just offer an easily accessible, downloadable, cheap alternative yourself for people who don’t wish to bother with dodgy torrents and slow downloads, but don’t have loads of time and money to
wastespend on games?Point 3) Companies need to pay attention to Valve’s sales statistics and the long-tail effect on Steam when they have price cuts and release free new content for cheap old games.
In summary, I buy the games I consider to be good value for money. I pirate some games that I would never buy, out of idle curiosity, so my piracy is never a lost sale (take that, Daily Mail!) and, frankly, I wouldn’t care much if I couldn’t pirate them. I also pirate games I’m curious about, and then go on to buy them if I like what I find (most recently Men of War), largely because I have a limited budget for games and a limited amount of time to play them. If I like something I will purchase it, because I prefer a game that’s stable and supported and one in which I can dabble in multiplayer should I so desire.
I also buy digitally whenever I possibly can. I have broadband, hate clutter around my house and live in the 21st century. You just have to make it easy for me and reasonably priced.
TLDR: DRM is pointless for all the same reasons you’ve heard before.
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Since you insisted I be honest on the last question I feel compelled to specify that the last time this happened was when Hammer & Sickle’s StarForce refused to run on my Windows 7 install, preventing me from reinstalling the game after upgrading from XP.
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@ Carra – if you read the DRM link on wikipedia you’ll see that CD checks are classified as copy protection and not DRM.
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Phil: I, my brother, and our friends have used NoCDs and equivalent cracks for over a decade. Hundreds and hundreds of them, from all sorts of sources. Never once, never once, Never. Once. Have I or anyone I know ever caught anything from a game crack. I’ve caught spyware twice from cracks, both times from cracks for Microsoft products – an Office authenticator (after an installation of Office went wrong after working for a year) and a WGA crack (after a friend’s legit installation of Windows did the same). The idea that NoCDs are seething with worms is a facile, laughable lie.
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@ Hypocee
Ow. That is painful.
I get the feeling that given the immense player base, Valve would prob have to hire out all the call centres in Mumbai to deal with any issues by phone. The problem is that they are a small independent company without the nous or more likely the money to fund a massive call service.
We are all drops in the ocean to them and i’m sure that they get immense numbers of emails through their rather crap ticketing system, most probably about account phising and “Duuh, i left my steam logged in at the library and someone stole my account” type stuff.
Depressing i know, but i can’t see things changing much.
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Just occurred to me that I answered no to the last question but should probably have answered yes as whenever I can’t connect to Live I can’t load my Fallout 3 saves, and as mentioned elsewhere on this site DoW 2 has shafted me a bunch of times but that’s not strictly due to DRM.
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Oh, and Carra – if you like hex-war games or CCGs and can deal with an idiosyncratic interface, Armageddon Empires is another truly great game with no DRM whatsoever. Kieron’s raved about it here, and every word was richly deserved.
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A DRM _and_ a piracy article this close to eachother? Are you trying to break the comment system? :O
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I’ve bought from Steam but I have to say it should definitely be with the other intrusive DRMs but valve seems to have been able to brain wash people into thinking there DRM method is better. It is not, its actually worse since you don’t own your game at all. If a Game is tied to the Steam engine and you can’t get out of it(Empire Total War, Dawn of War 2) you should pirate it/not buy it as well.(Though i did pay for Dawn of War 2 myself, which is something i’m not going to do again).
And anyway whats the problem with people pirating DRM games, if the person is not going to buy it anyway thats always going to be a loss sale no matter how you look at it.
Anyway it seems clear now that some companies are changing(Maybe EA is not out of the water yet) and some companies are still in there(Ubisoft and Atari I’m looking at you) But I think sooner or later DRM will die out and it will be remembered in history as the black smudge it really is.
Now we just got to get people out of the brainwashing stuff Valve seems to have given everyone.
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@Talorc: Because Steam is by an indescribable margin the largest platform.
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@ Xercies
Interesting. Your idea makes me think of downloading ROMs for old Nintendo games where it was a gentlemans agreement that you could do it legally should you be able to prove you own a copy of the game. Something similar for Steam purchases would be very handy as you already have a ‘proof of license’ in your settings where all your purchases are tracked.
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@Xercies: The key difference I see is that Steam doesn’t arbitrarily limit activations or installations. it is still DRM, and it is tied to their account which they can close at any time, which is a good reason to prefer plain old retail games.
But at least Steam lets me play my games freely, as long as my Steam account is open. I can install the games I own on any computer, and I can reinstall them as often as I like. That, to me, is the important point. Any DRM which prevents this pretty much means a no-buy from me. DRM which allows this is acceptable, even if I’ll still take the DRM-free version if one is available.
But I agree, it is amazing what Valve can get away with, and still have almost everyone consider them “the good guys”.
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I think the issue is not with DRM per-se, but with intrusive DRM. DRM which is obvious, impacts your game experience, breaks your computer, and generally gets on your tits is the bane of the industry, and gives unobtrusive, effective and yet almost invisble DRM a bad name. Its a shame that most develoeprs seem to favour the brute force and ugly way of handling DRM as opposed to a more subtle approach.
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I buy games with DRM. I don’t buy games with limited installations/activations, but if a game has SecuROM without the limitations I don’t particularly care. I avoid Starforce like the plague.
I buy games through Steam, but among my least favorite digital distributors. The only games I buy through Steam at normal prices are Valve games and other games that require Steamworks, any game not so-saddled has to be priced to move for me to buy it on Steam ($10 or less).
I’ve only ever bought a game with a limited install scheme once (though I’ve bought several that HAD such a scheme after it was removed) so I’ve yet to be caught out by a limited installation problem. The game in question was a Popcap game for my wife (I had no idea it only allowed five installs when I bought it). With a spate of hard drive failures lately I find that I’m down to 1 install left with a game I bought a year ago, and that pretty much summarizes why I never buy games with these limitations knowingly. By the end of the year, the answer to your third question will almost certainly be “yes.”
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I don’t care about DRM. I know how to apply cracks or download pirated versions, should the DRM ever lock me out. Because in that case I would do piracy: I paid for the game, but I can’t play it. Then piracy is totally OK.
I voted no for the last one, but I was caught surprised by how many people voted yes. Then I remembered, that I actually was locked out once, when Steam was down for an afternoon. I guess you could count that as being locked out because of DRM…
But had this gone on longer, I would have known where to get pirated copies of all my favorite games from, so I wouldn’t care.
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I dont mind DRM, unless it means i have to keep the DVD in the drive to play, i mean this is the 21st century with Terrabytes flying all around, please let me make my images.
But if it gets too tedious or if it slows down the game then im willing to download it and leave the DVD happily in its case.
The limited activation is a big no no for me. I avoid those at all cost.
What i baught through steam are the games that were off by a whole lot. If its the normal shop pricing then im willing to pick a hardcase copy. But the 2/5 euro deals on steam are about as cheap as it can get. Caught a few games that way.
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I think this is more of a matter of understanding what DRM is. Most users that buy from Steam probably don’t even consider it as DRM, since it has a pretty decent implementation. The term DRM is usually linked to most people with third-party software that is installed in our computer for the sole purpose of authentication (Starforce, Securom).
I didn’t have many problems with Steam myself. Sure, it shits all over itself if something happens to the authentication servers, but that’s pretty damn rare. Something most of us will have to get used to.
There’s always GOG though.
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Oops, I incorrectly answered the third, somehow I skipped over “online checks.” I’ve been locked out of Steam for DAYS at times, totally unable to download any of my games. They really need heftier servers, and those experiences have contributed very strongly to my support of other distributors, and my preference for physical copies when possible.
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“I wonder if everyone who said “No” to question number one has really fully thought it through. Serial numbers and disc checks are (fairly innocuous) forms of DRM, and pretty much every retail game has at least one of them.”
+1
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Not third, fourth. You know, this whole lack of edit thing is becoming a real irritation.
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Once you lose your steam account your screwed as keys cant be transferred between accounts stopped me playing my disk version of E:TW for a couple of days while that got sorted.
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Fix for the edit is in the pipeline, but don’t hold your breath.
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Complaining in the comments here about the missing edit function isn’t going to get it back quicker as its a bug with what ever there using for the site not them being mean.
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@psyk
It was less a directed complaint and more a passing thought, since I’d just made 3 posts where one would have done the job.
@Jim
Thanks for the update.
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“Do you deliberately try to purchase games that do not use DRM?” would be better worded as “Do you ever deliberately avoid purchasing games becasue of the particular DRM system they use?”.
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I can honestly say I’ve never had a bad DRM experience. I’m not a very “oh my rights!” kind of a person, so that could also play into that, I don’t hate it on principal. I’ve never had a situation arise where I was so fed up with DRM that I wouldn’t play a game, nor am I very concerned with how Steam works and all that. I only hate one form of DRM, and that’s 48 character CD keys that don’t automatically fill in the “-” between subsets. Other than that, I’m good to go :)
Overall, I think that developers, publishers, etc. have a right to protect their investment, and that’s exactly what a game is to these companies. We have this idealistic notion that if they would just get rid of DRM, everyone would buy the game and stop trying to pirate, but let’s be honest, at least with ourselves. Or we have the opinion that it is “our” right as consumers to dictate the company’s method of investment protection. The only thing that I disagree with in this regard is limiting our installs, we also have a right to actually own our games.
All that being said, the purest way to protect your investment is to release a demo pre-release (what idiot started the 2 months late trend?) Nobody will pirate a game they don’t want to play (maybe), and people would be more willing to purchase a game they know that they’ll enjoy (maybe).
It’s the nature of business I guess, you protect what you spend 4 years and 25 million dollars on, that’s not so unreasonable. I agree that there should be better methods, but I refuse to be irrational about it.
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I am quite worried about the future of Steam. Whilst it’s unlikely to have problems I do expect my games to be accessible there for at least that long. It’s very possible for Valve to be sold or come under a different management style in that period and you have no guarantee the dozens of games you have available there will continue to be available.
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I don’t have a problem with DRM as long as it doesn’t affect my gaming. I am willing to accept some inconveniences (such as Steam’s not quite perfect offline mode) because I understand the need for some form of DRM.
To my memory I have never pirated a game, even for trial purposes. The closest thing to naughty I get is using NOCD cracks, but this has only been recently to play games on my netbook (which has no optical drive).
I’m very anti-piracy and have had many loudly worded ‘discussions’ with friends in the pub over the topic. What’s interesting is that many work in the games industry, yet some happily pirate movies and songs and don’t see how the same thing is hurting the industry they work in.
I think a combination of non-invasive DRM, legal action against the torrent sites (in my book they’re very responsible for piracy) and publishers not making stupid decisions like selling digital versions of their games for the same price (or higher!) than retail copies, will help combat the problem.
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@Flappybat
I agree, though to be honest my “solution” is to archive all my Steam games and trust that, if they shut down or go rogue on us, someone will provide a crack that will let me run them. I don’t like being put in that position, though, which is precisely why I never pay much for Steam games.
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I’ve been unable to install DRM protected games even while being online. Once is enough to make me hate DRM forever. I shouldn’t have to wait a week or however long it took for them to fix the issue and I shouldn’t have to risk getting a virus by downloading cracks
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@Vinraith meh just seem to keep seeing people commenting on it complaining probably wasn’t the best word to use but its stupidly hot and im tired so thats what got chosen.
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When I hear “DRM” I immediately think of the type of DRM that ruins games, not CD-checks. Steam is rather intusive, but it actually adds a lot so I don’t care.
My policy on DRM is that I will spend less money on a game with annoying DRM. They sometimes remove the awful DRM with the first patch. Rockstar is still missing the $40 I would have spent on GTAIV if not for it’s DRM craziness (and PC conversion too).
If I buy a game I will do anything I want with it. I actually bought Spore at full price. The authentication server was down the day I installed. I downloaded a cracked executable and had it running in like 10 minutes. I can’t imagine they would have the temerity to sue someone for this.
On a similar vein, I don’t worry about activation limits or DRM as far as enjoying games in the future. If I bought it, I WILL play it if I want to.
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@JamesOf83: Legal action on torrent sites? Are you going to shut down google too? Sorry, but the internet is a gigantic copying machine. If legal measures somehow shut down filesharing then the internet will have been broken.
The torrent sites don’t even host the files. Do you want to prosecute linking to these sites, too? How exactly would the internet work then?
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EULA is a license that legally control how you use software.
DRM is software attached to other software, that control how you use such software.
A software, like a FPS game, could be banned to play in IRAK. So the programmers of the game can add a obligatory patch to the game, so If it detect you are in IRAK, it stop working.
Most DRM don’t automatically disable after a period of time. So all software with DRM will enter “Public Domain” with all the original restrictions of use.
Fortunally enough, we don’t have to use software with DRM, because there a alternative. The Open Source software. Such software don’t include EULA’s, and most of it never restrict the user. Since these software is modifiable ( source code is provided, and often theres support to build from that source code the program again) if theres some rules on the software that collide with your desired useage, you can remove that code, or disable it. Or get your copy from a different distribuitor that has disabled that “feature”.
It make sense for commercial software to restrict the freedom of the buyer. Limiting the time the product is used, can garantie that the user will the product again once the old version don’t work anymore. Limiting the ability of the user to move the product from a container (like a OS) to a different one, mean when the user want to upgrade (move to a better OS) the product will stop working. Limiting the ability to a product with the presence a phisical item ( usb-key, centronics-key, CD-ROM disc, etc..) mean once that item is lost, broken, stop working, .. the user has to buy again the product with a new item (new CD, etc..).
Every time a user buy a product that has already paid for, the industry gains a profit in a very efficient way.
Look at movies. You can sell a movie as VHS to a user, and sell that movie again to that user as DVD, and sell that movie again to this user as HD-DVD.
By restricing where a user can use Music, you can force it to buy a version for a iPod, other for the car, and another one for a “uncompatible” device, etc.
DRM also able to restrict a product for people where the cost of publicity is higher than the gain. DRM in a website can block from viewing the content to a country of a continent, where you don’t expect to have a gain. This could be selectivelly bloqued/allowed. Say… have a service USA only (like HULU) or have a service that is only viewable in france.
Such a system has a extra feature: You can make a paid service to “un-block” the service. If you live in france, and want to see XYZ video service, you can pay for it, where it could be free in USA.
DRM is more or less troyanized code that enforce EULA rules and other no-official rules, by the creator of the software, over the rights of desires of he user.
And DRM is probably the most boring topic ever to talk in a forum :-P
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Do you think that Steam would just randomly go out of business and the company overtaking it would say “F you, we’re keeping your games!” That’s about a 1 in 1 billion chance. No company is going to alienate its base in that way, and in spite of all the conspiracy theories out there, business doesn’t exist to screw mankind.
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I may buy games from Steam but more and more I’ve been using Impulse because of their DRM scheme. If a game is the same cost on both platforms and I don’t care about it’s online portion I will inevitably purchase the game from Impulse.
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@Jeremy
Do you really think Steam’s going to be around in the same form it is now in, say, 20 years? I don’t know WHAT will come of it, but I don’t want access to my games to be dependent on what happens to Valve in the future.
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This again? Didn’t I settle this discussion years ago???
Okay for those who obviously missed it, here comes my pearl of wisdom again:
Pirates get a better quality product.
There!
Now stop talking about this please!!
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@Vinraith
It sure won’t be around in the same form, that wasn’t the point, I thought my post seemed clear. Whatever happens, I’m certain that Valve, or Company X will take the measures necessary to maintain our games. No person in the world is that dumb. At the very least, they’ll give us a fair warning to get our games downloaded. However, chances are in 20 years I won’t be playing any games at all.
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I don’t have a problem with DRM per se. I have a problem with changing the implied contract when I buy something to something that more favours the vendor.
My only problem with Securom is that is crashes my laptop. Simple. This is a technical issue. I’m only speaking about the CD check version, of course.
I buy from Steam because they said: here’s our bargain: You can download unlimited copies on various computers as long as you use one at a time, and we won’t restrict the number of downloads. We will also manage your updates. I accepted this bargain as fair, and thus I use steam.
I bought one game from the EA store (Mass effect) and I’m kicking myself for that purchace. Limited downloads, limited installs… the only bargain being that I didn’t have to leave my house to get it.
Game publishers dearly want to limit the doctrine of first sale — that I could sell the game when I’m finished with it. That is the reason for most DRM. Steam does this successfully for me by giving me things in return. Others want to take away this right without giving anything in return. That is unfair and potentially unlawful.
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RPS Rulers Take Note – Consensus developing around fact that Steam Offline mode sucks, tends to lock you out from your games, and really needs to be fixed. Unlike a lot of supposed DRM horrors, it’s a real and ongoing problem for a large number of people.
Btw, I use steam all the time. It is a good and useful software application. Steam’s DRM isn’t nearly as bad as some, and it provides benefits (like downloading the games to any machine whenever you want) that help make up for its annoyances.
That being said, it completely sucks when you can’t play any games because either steam is down or something is wonky with your internet connection (which always seems to happen at LANs, since everybody is trying to configure their systems and routers). The seamless drop to offline mode some people claim exists does not exist for me or any of my friends – it is all too easy to get steam into a position where you cannot start offline or online mode.
And, since almost all of my games are on steam, a failure in the DRM, even if rare, is HUGELY more annoying than when any one game’s system fails, because I can’t play ANY of my games. Steam’s messed up offline mode is probably, in absolute terms, the number one cause of DRM misery in the world.
My one fervent wish for Steam (and all DRM) is for a working offline mode that gives you the benefit of the doubt instead of locking you out. Hey, that rhymes.
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@Jim: “Fix for the edit is in the pipeline, but don’t hold your breath.”
So, in a way, you could say that you have already built the pipeline but are hoping for a regular pipeline of fixes, in the pipeline? I see.
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@Jeremy
“However, chances are in 20 years I won’t be playing any games at all.”
Why’s that?
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“the benefit of the doubt instead of locking you out”
Is the slogan for a middle-ground DRM campaign t-shirt.
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I’ve been locked out by Mass Effect, which I didn’t even know had a limited number of installs! A laborious call to EA eventually sorted it out, but I resented having to explain why I reinstall operating systems so often.
I also recently I lost the box for Fallout 3 and wanted to reinstall it. How refreshing to find that all it has is a simple CD check!
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I deliberately do not buy mass market games which have DRM.
They make it easy for me: the mainstream bores me to death after decades of playing computer games.
Artistic and technical wasteland. Creative mess.
The games I buy come from small businesses that cannot afford to fuck their customers.
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Re: “caught out”
I’ve been unable to play both legally-bought and illegally-downloaded games. Just clarifying.
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Steam does not have DRM. It *is* DRM. Which is why it works and (almost) everybody loves it.
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I agree with Forscythe – DRM needs to be more lenient and not punish the person that buys things legally.
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You should do a poll question about most off-putting DRM “feature”.
I mainly focus on avoiding DRM because of limited activations. Example: I really wanted to get Anno 1404, but finding out that I only get 3 installs even if I get it on Steam is extremely aggravating. What if I’ve got a desktop AND a laptop? That means I’ve only got one install left.
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@ Rummy: I was pretty reluctant to get Dead Space for that reason, otherwise I would’ve bought it straight away. My experience with Crysis Warhead tells me that the identification process for “used” machines is nebulous at best, and it even sometimes (though not always) recognises driver changes as marking a new machine, and thus a new install. It’s ridiculous and pointless.
Anyway, yeah, I got DS when I saw it was going ridiculously cheap somewhere and then immediately got myself a crack so I didn’t have to deal with that again.
As for games locking me out, I’ve already had that happen with Prince of Persia: TTT. Long story short, before they “tweaked” it, Vista identified Starforce copy protection as malware and would not allow it to run. No UAC prompt, no question, it literally just put up a dialogue box saying that a program identifying itself as “Starforce” (I didn’t even know TTT came with Starforce at the time) was trying to gain ring 0 access to my drivers and that because of this activity, it was identified as being harmful to the computer and would not be allowed to run.
Which is just as well, because on my last machine (Windows XP) it got installed with a game and then caused an utterly ridiculous amount of crashing and stability issues, even after I uninstalled the game AND used the official Starforce uninstaller. I finally had to format the whole thing.
If we’re talking about online verification systems, then I’ll side with everyone else saying that Steam’s offline mode simply does not work as it should do, and I’ve been locked out of my games numerous times as a result. That’s the fundamental problem with having your games tied to a service architecture.
As it currently stands, I try to support GOG whenever I can.
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I imagine this poll will go like the last RPS poll about digital distribution: A bunch of hardcore PC gamers will get results that are the complete opposite of what real-life statistics are from normal demographics, then plaster it around the internet to try and downplay slumping PC sales.
Do you people really think you are the majority of PC gamers now? Newsflash, the people making up 90% of PC sales are buying The Sims and Nancy Drew games, and don’t care or don’t know about DRM. It doesn’t even factor into their purchasing decisions, and in the eyes of the publisher does it’s job in stopping casual piracy amongst the 12 year old girls buying PC games.
It’s plainly obvious the objective of this ‘poll’ is to get the results the writers want, which is ‘DRM BAD, DRM NO BUY’, then try and use this as an excuse for slumping PC sales and downplay the effect piracy has had on developers and publishers. Completely ignoring of course the entire reason DRM came about was to counter-act the growing, widespread piracy problem.
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I prefer my games without DRM or with minimal DRM (ie: Stardock stuff), but I usualy tolerate more invasive stuff like SecurROM or Steam.
I drew my line in the sand at “limited activations” and will not buy any game with that sort of DRM (ie: Spore, Mass Effect)
I put down “no” in the survey for the question whether DRM has prevented playing any games, but I now realize that is has:
On my Steam account, I have bought a number of kids’ games for my children to play on their PC. I recently discovered that Steam will only allow one “active” user on an account at a time. So if I’m playing, say, Empire: Total War which I bought for Steam, my kids can’t play TrackMania (or anything else). And if they’re playing Trackmania (or anything else), I can’t play Empire Total War (or any other Steam game). It’s preposterous. So change one “no” to a “yes”.
I’ve also been hassled by DRM, like where the game refused to let me play because I had a Roxio utility installed that let me use CD-RW disks like a floppy (ie: drag and drop files in windows explorer, then pop the disk out) without the “bring up a utility to burn it” annoyance. This is just stupid.
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Okay, I’m going to tackle these by the questions asked, but potentially not in the order they were asked.
Have you bought any games that used DRM in the past two years?
Yes, I have. If the game can be cracked and the DRM can be gutted from the game without the game being damaged by the crack then I’m not at all bothered by it.
The thing is, one must ask which is more of a risk: DRM or cracks? Crackers are pretty much just decent people who’re as sick to the gills of the state of PC gaming as much as you probably are. In all my years of using cracks, I’ve only ever had one piece of malware intrude my system, and I remember it vividly because it besmirches my perfect record.
And it came iwth the legal beta of a piece of sofware, obtained from the provider’s own site, not a crack, and that’s why I had my guard down. These days, I’ve come to trust official channels less than underground ones, and thanks to DRM I believe those feelings have been vindicated.
Cracks are more reliable than DRM, in almost every instance I’ve encountered. So if a game can be cracked, I have no problem buying a game with DRM that soon won’t be there any more.
Do you deliberately try to purchase games that do not use DRM?
Ohhh yes.
And I’m also drawn to games which don’t use any DRM or only very loose DRM, I’ll explain.
Does anyone remember StarForce? Also known as The Optical/Hard Drive Killer? Yeah, that thing. It was notoriously hard to crack, and the second StarForce game I bought I actually suffered for. It set both my HDDs to PIO mode, and as anyone with even a basic knowledge of hard drives can imagaine, this was a huge “ffffffffff!!” moment for me, because of the nature of PIO.
The problem with StarForce though is that it was notoriously hard to crack because as a form of DRM it was essentially a rootkit that acted like an open wound on the user’s system, festering and corrupting the inside whilst inviding outside ills to help bring it all down. This was hard to cut away, even for skilled crackers.
(If you don’t believe what I say then read up on the history of StarForce, if there wasn’t truth to what I say then it would still be in widespread use today. The fact that it isn’t, and that it hasn’t been on a single game in yonks, says more than I ever could with mere words.)
So the end result is that I only had two StarForce games, one of which I’ve since sold off. Do I avoid buying games because of DRM? No. Do I feel forced away from the purchase of a game whose DRM absolutely cannot be stripped away and tossed into the void (where it belogns)? Yes.
Can crack, will buy. Can’t crack, piss off.
Now I also mentioned I’m drawn to games that don’t have DRM. Prince of Persia and a few others not having DRM made me feel very happy inside, and gave me hope for the future. But there are some cases which are especially notable, where a huge name, a game guaranteed to be a success, has next to no DRM whatsoever, and what it does have can be sidestepped easily.
Can anyone guess which game I’m talking about yet?
Fallout 3.
It came with Games for Windows, and later Games for Windows Live, and that’s about it. It didn’t need to be cracked. And don’t like Games for Windows Live? A trusted Fallout 3 moddinng community member wrote a disabler utility, it’s not a crack of any sort, it simply hooks into Fallout 3 and disallows GfWL from loading its dlls into the game, it even removes LIVE from the menu.
And what about that DLC eh? Protected by Live, online activations, ooh scary! Well, actually, if you move the files away from the XLive folder (look it up) and into the Fallout 3 Data folder, you don’t have to activate them anymore, and that’s what I did after buying Broken Steel. So I essentially have a game that runs like cracked Oblivion did, but without the cracks!
Now that is what I call supporting your buyers/fanbase, and if Bethesda keeps doing stuff like this then not only will they give me great hope for the future, but I’ll even end up liking them a hell of a lot again (I used to, but I had a huge falling out with them over Oblivion and the shilling that wast he Oblivion DLC). Everything about Fallout 3 was a massive step in the right direction, the only thing I could possibly complain about are a few silly story choices, but it wouldn’t be a Bethesdia game without amusing plot oddities.
Can all PC gaming be like Bethesda’s chosen path, please? GfWL which I can neuter, and DLC which I can just copy to remove its online activations and protections? And let’s face it, it would take a real idiot to not be able to ‘crack’ Fallout 3, considering that Fallout 3 leaves its door wide open, on purpose.
As an amusing irony, I’m hoping that Fallout 3 is a representation of the future, not the contents of the game but simply the way and form in which the game was delivered to us gamers.
Have you ever been caught out by online checks and activations and not been able to play your game? (Be honest!)
Now what do you mean by ‘caught out’? That could be taken a number of ways, and here’s one for you: I believe that all developers and publishers should be honest and up-front about the presence of DRM in their games, and the limitations and nature of it.
As opposed to simply not telling you or only telling you after you’ve bought the bloody thing (I’m looking at you, Focus and Cyanide!).
If it’s DRM with activations that can be cracked, then I have no problems at all with it, I’ll just crack the game and go on my merry way. However, if it’s DRM with activations that likely won’t be cracked (again, Blood Bowl) then we have a problem on our hands.
I’m still in a trolling rage about Blood Bowl, so let’s examine that. The problem with activations is that it reduces the game to a rental. £40 for a rental. That’s like going into a game store, paying over the odds for something, and then having the clerk tell you that once you’ve installed the game X amount of times, you have to wipe the game, and return the disc and box to the store. That’s legally dubious and ethically challenged to put it nicely.
This is also another reason I’m so interested in piracy, because if a game is released then it means that it can be cracked, and all is well, love, happiness, and all that jazz. But if it can’t, then I can avoid it like the plague. Sometimes I buy in good faith, and I’m finding that more and more I’m getting burned for trusting developers, big and small.
In other words, DRM is making me less inclined to trust a developer, and making it hard for me to believe that they have any good intentions at all. I think that any game review should always consider the price and the type of DRM in a game and take that into account, and with a game like Blood Bowl it deserves to be lambasted.
I trusted you, Cyanide. But I won’t again, once burned and all that.
So have I ever been caught out by activation-based DRM? Yes, yes I have. Very rarely, but I have, and I tend to find it very hard to forgive the developers responsible, and such developers would be off my list of interest for the foreseeable future.
If the download version of Blood Bowl gets cracked though, all is forgiven, but due to having a base understanding of how their DRM (with online acivation) works, I’m finding it more and more unlikely that it will be, unless the crackers can pull off some really clever shit.
As I see it, online activations are the new StarForce, legally dubious, ethically challenged, and whilst they might not harm your computer they’re still no less evil. If they can’t be cracked, avoid ‘em like the plague, and never give the developer that pulls that crap the benefit of the doubt again.
It’s my fault though for being willing to trust them, I suppose the price itself should’ve been warning enough, but I can have my naive moments.
I’ll probably catch flak about this, but being an ethics geek, I can’t help the way I feel. And yes, you can get ethical conduct in capitalistic endeavours, they’re not all corrupt and nor will I ever believe that.
Do you buy games via Steam?
Yes, but I tend to shy away from Steam.
It’s nothing against their DRM, I actually think their DRM (and they do use DRM, please don’t be deluded about this) is benign and not a bad solution: Require a system of activation based on having an account with username and password and don’t at all limit the user with their game.
The reason I shy away from getting games on Steam though is their policy on account-sharing.
Please, hear me out, that’s all I ask.
Now, an ethical way to approach the Steam system would be to allow the master account holder to create… oh, let’s say 5 sub accounts which they can hand out. However, through all accounts, including the master account, only one copy of a game can be run at a time. So if someone on sub account 4 is playing Prototype, those on sub accounts 1, 2, 3, 5, and the master account cannot play Prototype.
To avoid griefing, just give the Master account the ability to shut down their game if they’re screwing around.
Now that would be an ethical approach, I base this on the system of lending DVD movies or games. If you lend a game/DVD to a friend, you can’t use it, but they can until they give it you back or you take it back. That’s the same kind of system I’m proposing here, and Valve could implement such a thing if they desired to.
However, Valve’s approach to account sharing is the ban-hammer, and I’m sorry but I find that quite nasty too, and a HUGE DRM catch 22. That’s why I’d shy away from Steam and any content provider who imposes that on people. That’d be like having a boxed game or movie in your house that was physically unable to leave your house, and who’d want that? Well, certainly not an intelligent punter like myself.
So I consider Steam to be a ‘last resort’ scenario.
Just to segue into a related topic here before I finish up, I’m going to talk about EA’s choice with Spore, it started off pretty bad, but it eventually turned good. Consider: Once you’ve cracked Spore, you actually have the system of a main account and sub-accounts that I proposed for Steam, but in this case all account holders can run the game at the same time!
That’s amazing.
That move alone made me like EA a hell of a lot more and I would genuinely recommend Spore to anyone because EA is earnestly selling a game which they’re encouraging the whole family to play, due to their practices with accounts. And that deserves to be noted, even if only for posterity, because it really is stunning.
I’m not saying that Steam should be like that, but if Steam could switch to that kind of system and keep it to one-launch over all accounts, then I could like Steam just as much, praise them, and recommend their system to everyone.
But as it stands, with their unethical approaches and denial of rights to property, I find it really hard to do that. I’d always recommend someone buy a game on disc before they buy it via D2D, an online site, or Steam.
Footnotes…
I am a bit obsessed with the ethical treatment of consumers in the marketplace and this has always mattered to me. In fact, it should matter to any UK residents over the age of 20 who have even the most basic grasp of our country’s history, especially regarding trade laws.
The UK has a very supportive system for consumers, and unlike other countries, in the UK the buyer is always right, and they’re protected from cons by various trade laws. I look at the gaming industry and I see a stark contrast from the attitude towards trading in the country I was born to.
All I’ve ever wanted from developers and publishers is the ethical treatment of their punters, and all I’ve ever done is support that ethical treatment where they won’t (being a proponent of gutting the DRM out of legally purchased games).
I worry that greed leads companies to do terrible things with DRM, and the more time that passes the more often I find myself given pause for concern. These days it isn’t even just piracy that’s looked down upon, but even the second hand market too. And how is that ethical?
Look at David Braben and his attitude towards games, apparently second hand purchasers shouldn’t even be allowed to have the full game! And that’s a truly terrifying notion.
The concept that a game should be sold in stores, where part of it is on the disc and part of it is offered as a one-time download where legal buyers wouldn’t be able to have access to that content if they’d downloaded it too many times or if they were a second hand purchaser is… well, do I have to spell it out?
Yes, I’m an idealist, and these approaches disgust me: The Plan, 1) price-gouge the consumer, 2) line pockets, 3) make sure the consumer is price-gouged and try to create a scenario in which they may be price-gouged again. The approach of Braben, Blood Bowl, and so many others.
High horse? Maybe… maybe, but I go with what feels right and is functionally ethical.
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@Lintman
You can set the Steam on, say, your kids’ computer to “offline mode” and you won’t have those conflict problems. It’s VERY annoying, but it can be worked around.
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@Vinraith
Probably because I’ll just stop playing them is my guess.
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I long for the days when RPS comments sections were always a bastion of intelligent gaming discussion, rather than having to fear with each and every post that someone decides to start moaning about DRM and thus making the comments thread explode in tepid wankery.
In other words, I’m not really bothered about DRM.
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I pay more attention to what DRM games are using now than I ever did before, probably starting about 3 or 4 years ago. I’ve been playing computer games for close to 20+ years so for a long time it wasn’t really an issue for me but now I have become one of those people that will specifically not buy a game if it uses particularly intrusive DRM (i.e. Starforce) even if it’s a game I was looking forward to and like Lintman the new “limited # of activations” thing really doesn’t sit well with me so I specifically avoid those titles as well. I have hundreds of PC games and I want to be able to install any of them years from now without worrying if I’ve used all the activations.
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@Jeremy
I got that, I just find the idea curious. Gaming’s a hobby much like any other, I can imagine having less time for it down the road but never totally abandoning it.
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@catska: Except, of course, that there’s actually no evidence for your conclusions. (And, admittedly, only slightly more evidence for the argument that the people who buy the most also pirate the most, and just spend a set amount each financial temporal period. But at least there’s something resembling some evidence for that position…)
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Catska,
‘came about’, ‘growing’ haaaaahahahaha.
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Just a note regarding question #2, there’s a really, really thin semantic line between “No” and “I have no policy,” considering the question is asking about a committed position. If you think about it, they pretty much mean the same thing within the framework of the question: I have not actively formed a behavior precluding the purchase of DRM games, thus “no, I do have a policy.”
/shrug. As I said, it’s semantics, but it could effectively skew the statistical results, depending on how the data are tabled.
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Flint, how about when the article’s about DRM? Oh.
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Warduke if you’ve been gaming for 20 years then you must have run into DRM before the last 3 or 4 years. I would much rather have it the way it is now then the way it once was.
What is the 3 letter on the fourth word in the second sentance of the first paragraph on page 42 in the manual apendix D – Part 4 – Subsection 2 – “How to forx a muffle”
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*”no, I do not have a policy.”
$#&%! non-editable comments…
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Btw it’s D
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@Serondal
I hadn’t thought of that. Laptop gaming’s annoying enough having to haul around discs, imagine having to haul around manuals too!
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On the other hand, in order to go back to that they’d have to go back to GIVING us real manuals. Hmm, now I’m conflicted…
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Starcontrol 2 had a really fun DRM. you had to find a star on the map it came with which was HUGE 99% of the time I Was wrong and I HAD the map.
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I remember choosing a game to buy based on the weight of the box (I wanted games with giant manuals)Chuck Yaegars air combat did not disappointment when I bought it based on weight of the box along. I was so excited to open it when I got home and spent 3 days reading the manual before I ever played it. I ended up playing that game constantly for years.
I also remember the first time I opened a box for a game and there was a slip of paper with install instructions on it and no manual. I said to myself “more certainly this must be a mistake” Then I started to notice this happening more and more often.
Happy to say DCS Blackshark and Derek Smarts came still come with good manuals, they’re just in PDF format. Printed out they’re both heavy enough to be used to kill another human being (maybe not as good as the script for Titanic, but close in DPS)
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Manual weight WAS one of the better diagnostics of game depth (and thus, to my strategy-loving mind, quality) available at the time. There are definitely times when I miss the old days.
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Ah the good ‘ol days. I wonder what gaming will be like when we’re as old as Dr Farsworth whom you use for your gravatar :P Will we be wisteful for the golden years of DRM that didn’t require a blood sample every time you play?
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er, Farnsworth
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@Serondal
Quiet man, you’re giving them ideas!
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Well, I know one thing, and that’s that I bought Mass Effect, which I really wanted to play after the prices dropped because of the DRM reviews on Amazon, and I still haven’t installed the damn thing.
I always think, do I really want to install all that shit along with the game? It’s really annoying, actually. Oh well, at least EA (bleargh) actually heard the people. At least these dudes know business, and it was obviously bad business to imbed that crap in their games.
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I love steam for its convenience and its haunting moos – but I have been locked out of all my games a few times when moving house due to offline mode freaking out and in every case it was rage inducing.
I have taken to torrenting pirated copies all my steam games before a planned internet outage as a backup, and I seed for just a little bit longer than I need as form of protest. I’m feeling pretty good about it. Also I just mixed an awesome Tom Collins.
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The first one I had to answer yes to – it was BioShock, but I only bought it after the official DRM-removing patch was released, and because it was such a fantastic game.
Strangely, I don’t consider Steam games to be DRMed. I suppose it’s because DRM to me is an automatically negative and obtrusive thing – but Steam’s system of DRM (Steam required to play, games attached to Steam account permanently) is so transparent and… dare I say it… perfect, that I don’t consciously see it as REAL DRM.
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1- I bought only The Witcher SE, and I haven’t even played it. It was a purchase out of respect for the devs.
3- I don’t trust permanent online stuff, where my purchase value can poof at any time.
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I dont mind Steams DRM, but beyond that I won’t buy anything with DRM on it.
And to clarify, I have bought games with DRM on it (as in limited activations, etc) but I didn’t know that when I bought them.
You might want to check on that too — how many people are angry AFTER having bought a DRM’d game.
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No, I don’t think it’s any conspiracy. I think its just a bit of personal bias coming through in the questions, as so often happens when people unaccustomed to doing scientific surveys produce.
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produce survey questions*.
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I’ve only got 3 limited activation DRM’d games, and all of them were pre-ordered before the DRM was announced. I was so annoyed the publishers failed to disclose the DRM in advance that I swore never to buy any more limited activation games.
I think it’s about time that publishers were required to disclose DRM for a game well in advance, in the advertising, press releases, and packaging so that consumers can make an informed choice.
I have several problems with limited activations in particular:
Firstly, it’s a massive inconvenience to have to contact support just so I can reinstall a game if I run out of activations. It’s not even like most publishers go out of their way to make it easy to reactivate either with slow email responses and expensive premium rate support lines.
Secondly activation credits or deactivation tools don’t help. If I have to re-install Windows I could end up having to uninstall dozens of games and run dozens of different tools just to try to save any activations I might have left, and that may not even be possible if the re-install is due to a hard disk failure.
Thirdly I’m also not keen because it relies on all these different companies to keep their various activation servers going. I’m still playing 10 year old games on my PC. Many of the companies that made and published those games are now out of business – who would I contact to re-activate them if they had activation DRM?
Fifthly, I don’t like being told what I can do with my game. Why should I have to beg to re-install it? I don’t like being dictated to.
And finally DRM has virtually killed the pleasure of pre-ordering games for me. I now have to wait until the DRM is confirmed (often in irate forum posts the day the game’s released!) before I can consider buying a game.
I don’t mind Steam, even though it is DRM, because it gives more back in convenience and community features than it removes. I have 37 games on Steam, and it’s great that I never have to worry about patching them, or if I can re-install them on other PCs. It’s a comfort to know that I can simply install Steam on any other PC and access my games.
Steam has it’s problems though – you can’t resell or transfer your games; many games have 3rd. party DRM, negating steam’s advantage; but the main problems are pricing – it’s often cheaper to buy a retail copy, even if it’s a steam enabled game – and regional lock-outs, where games are not available in the UK or Europe. EA’s games aren’t available in the UK on Steam for example.
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In the last year or so, I’ve bought Orange Box, Mass Effect, Crysis, Left4Dead, Fallout 3 and WotLK. Oh, also premium Hellgate London… heh.
I’ve torrented: Prototype, GTA 4, Dead Space, Zeno Clash, C&C RA3, Far Cry 2, The Witcher, the Fallout 3 DLC, NWN2 (and the expansions), Mirror’s Edge, Empire: Total War… and many more.
I’d feel worse about this except that for the most part I finish the pirated stuff in a few days or a week and then never touch it again, unlike the ones which I’ve paid for which I keep going back to. Apart from Crysis. Wish I’d torrented that instead of paying for it. If it weren’t possible to pirate those games though, I probably wouldn’t have bought them anyway and just gone without, since I mostly play WoW, and as a uni student haven’t got enough money for all of them. DRM mostly gets cracked anyway so hasn’t really deterred me at all, and I’d never buy a game that used DRM to avoid piracy unless it was something I knew I would enjoy hugely and keep playing, like Mass Effect 2 or something.
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F@#@#$ Ludo
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You pirated Zeno Clash! You’re a horrible person! go pay them right now you little naughty boy! ;P
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Why don’t you just play woW on a free server BarkingDog, that is more likely to save you a ton of money in the long run.
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The only time I’ve been stopped playing my game because of checks was Steam, but I will buy a game on Steam before I buy it anywhere else.
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Because I’d rather play with my mates and the people I know on my server, and because free servers sound shit.
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The most notorious DRM I’ve come across is Steam and their effing offline mode. A close second would be Rockstar’s GTA4 and the requirement that you set up multiple accounts before you’re allowed to play.
The only time DRM has actively prevented me purchasing a games was with Spore. The installation limit and the fuss it kicked up on the internets meant I delayed my purchase of the game – and ultimately avoided it altogether given the bad feedback the game play was given. Had EA’s DRM not been such a big deal at the time then I would have picked up a copy around the release date.
DRM is proven not to work anyway so why is it still inflicted on us? I can understand unique CD keys to prevent online play for those with dupes. But what about this online activation business? My old man has his gaming PC in a room without internet access. He’s not interested in playing online but couldn’t get on Half Life 2 without a connection…
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It’s funny how many people’s response to the poll is to criticize the available responses. I think this shows there is a huge range of behaviors people exhibit in response to DRM. For example, question 2 could be rewritten with a few more answers that reflect real behaviors I’ve heard of or observed:
Do you deliberately try to purchase games that do not use DRM?
A) I will never buy or play a game with any DRM.
B) I will never buy a game with any DRM, but I will pirate it as a protest.
C) I only buy a game with DRM if I really want the game.
D) I usually don’t think about it, but I probably won’t buy a game if it has developed a Spore-like reputation for nasty DRM.
E) I’ll buy a game with DRM but only if it is a dirt cheap sale.
F) I will buy a game with DRM, but if the game is available from multiple digital or retail sellers, I will prefer to buy from the one with the least DRM.
G) I dislike DRM, but I don’t let it stop my from buying a game, since I can download a pirate copy later if necessary.
H) etc…
“Benefit of the doubt
instead of locking you out”
-Moderate DRM Rallying Cry
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Everyone leave now please.
ktnx bye
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Do you deliberately try to purchase games that do not use DRM?
Yes/No/I have no policyIs a silly question, because the 3rd option massively overlaps the second and first options. (I don’t have a policy, but this is what I did.)
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. fails
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CITE fails. Yes, spam, but fix your damn tags FTLOG.
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I love n.
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The final question- are you asking about false positives (bought a game legit, yet was flagged as pirated) or true positives (installed a pirated game and was caught)? If the first, then yes, because steam couldn’t connect on a single player game like half life 2, which is an indirect DRM catch. Steam actually has features built in that I use- i can download the game on multiple computers (laptop and desktop) so I don’t have to buy it twice, so long as I don’t play it on both. That’s as it should be- I own the computers- who cares which one I play it on, so long as it’s me playing it. Is DRM effective? No- because people still pirate games. If developers put that extra money into their games, there’d be less clunkers that don’t sell- the ones developers claim pirated versions caused to not sell. The extra sales due to a finished, polished game (a rarity nowadays) would more than make up for the cost of the DRM to implement, as well as the lost sales due to pirating. There is no value for the consumer in DRM- none at all. Does anybody feel they took LAN play off starcraft II because they wanted to give more options to the consumer? Nope- they want to lock the consumer into one portal to play- the one they own.
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I will happily buy DRM’d games *but only* if there’s a working crack available.
The exception is Steam, which *is* a form of DRM, but one I’ve learned to accept (though I won’t buy anything from there that has additional DRM (e.g. StarForce) on it).
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If you’ll accept some quiz critique from a alleged scientist, just to make sure you’re aware:
“Have you bought any games that used DRM in the past two years?”
Note that that doesn’t capture if the purchaser actually approved of it—for example, I bought Bioshock before I realised how DRM-crippled it was.
“Do you deliberately try to purchase games that do not use DRM?”
And this is a different question from “do you avoid purchasing games with DRM”—it’s more “yes, I bought World of Goo partly to support their non-DRM stance”.
I also question how much useful information a “Buy on Steam? [yes/no]” question gives you. It’s not a simple, binary choice, because people make compromises. About all you can tell is what proportion of RPS readers boycott Steam; “Yes” can be anything from “reluctantly, if I have no alternative” to “I prefer autheticating against someone’s remote server more than against a disc I possess via a badly-written hidden Windows driver”.
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Although I haven’t been barred entry by online checks (yet), I did have tremendous difficulty getting Neverwinter Nights 2 to play properly, because the SecuROM disc check refused to recognize my disc. It took me about a week of messing with it before I was able to play it reliably.
Fortunately, that’s the only major issue I’ve personally had with copy protection… though I do remember getting kicked out of my games because I accidentally typed in word 7 on line 12 of page 8, instead of word 6.
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I would like to side with LionsPhil above, that is indeed a strange way to put the questions.
Yes, I too bought Bioshock, not knowing about the drm, which I usually, at least nowadays, try to research. Found out about it soon after purchase, and whaddaya know few months later I’m locked out for using my installs. They might’ve released a fix by now, I don’t know, got a second copy from my usual warez place and, shitty mouse controls aside, had no problems since (plus it was free! Incredible what some people can do in their spare time what real devs can’t do for a living, innit? /derail).
About second question; voted Yes as in “Yes, I try to avoid DRM-ridden games at all costs”, not as in “Yes, I will buy any game that doesn’t employ drm just to support the cause.”
And for steam, even though my list of games definitely says otherwise, I try to avoid it. I mostly only buy Valve games and heavily discounted titles.
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I will buy games that have some forms of DRM. Of course I will – almost no one in all of PC gaming avoids it entirely, as things like CD checks and serials are still DRM. I will very fervently try to avoid games with certain kinds of DRM – Starforce, online activations (especially with install limits), others will very likely go on the list in time. I don’t care if I can crack it and my personal limitations go away. I will not support the use of DRM that is either wantonly obstructive or bears the potential to render the game permanently unplayable in the future for everyone involved, and purchasing a game with that sort of DRM on it does just that.
I have, to my shame, broken this rule a couple of times – Bioshock, Mass Effect, Space Rangers 2. But…..surely you can see why, in those cases? SO GOOD. Anyway. I tried to avoid even those, but, well, my will is sometimes weak.
I -will- purchase games on Steam. Fundamentally, buying a game on an online service means that I can’t rely on it being there forever, so Steam’s variety of DRM is not an extra and unnecessary crippling of the game unless the game itself must be tied to Steam to function, which is a terrible trend that thankfully few games follow. But I’m not excited about that limitation, and so I generally won’t buy on Steam unless there is a major sale on something. Unfortunately, Steam has been really good about giving me major sales to buy from. Sigh. But I won’t buy games from Steam that add non-Steam activation DRM because a) it’s fundamentally gratuitous, and b) while I can cope with the idea that if Steam goes away I will lose my Steam games, I don’t want to have to have *two* separate sets of servers remain active to have access to my game.
To be perfectly clear – I object to any form of DRM intrinsic to a game as released that bears the potential of denying that game to future players above and beyond natural technological progression’s introduction of new quirks and incompatibilities. An online activation check that’s in every released copy of the game does that, be it Steam or otherwise. If, on the other hand, I have the -choice- of buying a copy of the game without activation but choose to buy the kind with activation (on Steam, for example) for my own reasons, that’s okay.
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DRM that has caught me out:
I don’t pirate games or even apply no-disc patches to stuff I own. I don’t avoid DRM, because I know I don’t own more than one healthy machine that will run my games anyway. Nonetheless, SecuRom oh so loves to tell me that the game-disk isn’t in the drive when it quite clearly is, since I’m going via the autorun on the god-damned disc because I’m tired of its shenanigans. Then a few clicks later, and then I find that it just plain forgets to check if I go via the executable in the directory, or it relents and realises the disc is there anyway.
SecuRom is the donut eating lardass security guy at the front gate of the PC Gaming corporation. The guy who sees you over 300 days a year, yet forces you to go home and get your security pass because it makes him feel important. The guy who, when faced with something genuinely suspicious would trip over either his incompetence or his magnificently flabby ankles in the pursuit. It’s a mild annoyance and is overdue an involuntary redundancy.
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I try to avoid DRM where possible, and there are occasions where I have paid for a game because I want to see more games like it (such as most recently with Dead Space) but I *play* the pirated version because it’s a better product.
I do buy games over Steam (or did, before the exchange rate shift shafted poor little NZers) and consider it a form of DRM that (mostly) adds value or at least *neutrality* to the game experience. BUT.
I consider Steam warily because of stories like Hypocee’s make me Deeply Concerned. Also, it’s all down to context. Up until just the last few years, Broadband was for wealthy people and/or those in Very Specific Regions within NZ.
On Dialup, Steam is Surly Gerald, Satan’s Left Testicle.
I was on dialup (because basically everyone was) when Halflife2 came out, and OH MAN the complaining and the horror.
(We’re not talking “LOL MOVE SOMEWHERE GOOD LOL” either, as there are big cities in which there is no sensible broadband access.)
Also, ALL broadband in NZ has bandwidth caps. The updates on Steam, or buying a new game, can be a seriously big deal about this. We’ve had to divise systems of using the Steam Backups thing to pass game content around among people who have bought their own copies, but can’t afford to download gigs worth of data for them.
Steam has my wary support because I haven’t had problems yet, but I’m not certain that’ll hold true forever.
- The Unshaven
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I honestly don’t know why people have a problem with using NoCD/NoDVD/NoWhateverDRM cracks on games they’ve bought. I’d like to echo what someone said earlier: I’ve never got a virus or had my PC messed up by a crack and I’ve used them on nearly every game I’ve bought in the last few years. There’s nothing dirty or illegal about ‘cracking’ a game you’ve already purchased. It just saves you the hassles of online activation, limited installs, disc checks and all that other crap.
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i pirates all my shit, no need for silly old DRM for me.
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I did not buy Spore at all partly because of DRM. I put off buying Far Cry 2 until it was going very cheap because I disagreed with the DRM.
Generally I’m not a martyr, if it’s cheap I’ll buy a badly DRM’d game because it’s little loss to me if I can’t play it later if I hardly paid anything for it. I’m not doing that with a $50 game.
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Oh, yeah, Spore. I really wanted to play that but the DRM (with the large online component that couldn’t be cracked-around) made it a total no-no for me.
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Actually come to think of it, CD-ROM checks are pretty annoying at times. My machine wakes up from sleep mode much slower if there’s a disc in the drive, but I don’t want to take it out and put it back in all the time if I’m playing something, either.
My wife just reinstalled Sid Meier’s Pirates, and for whatever reason, the CD key was lost in some bit of packaging that was long since thrown away, rather than sensibly being on the case for the CD. She had to scrounge one up online. :P
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“There’s nothing dirty or illegal about ‘cracking’ a game you’ve already purchased.”
Actually, it is illegal. Refer to the DMCA.
It’s bloody stupid if you ask me, though.
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I buy about half of my games through Steam. I don’t play that often, and have enjoyed the utility of their offline mode when I was without internet for a while.
Steam has never prevented me from playing games, but then I know that (for some people) steam has gone down and locked them out. I guess I’ve been lucky enough to not be in a gaming mood when Steam’s down. The only thing Steam has done that has gotten in my way is prevented me from *buying* games.
I live in Australia, but I speak my English the proper (British) way, which means that the standard English (Australian) spelling languages really get on my tits as they insist on spelling everything in American. So, I have my locale set to English (UK), which is fine for everything *except* certain region locked software suites. This has bitten me once and, thankfully, Valve seems to have fixed it. I browsed through the Steam storefront website on my main (non gaming, linux) computer, found Prince Of Persia Two Thrones on sale, went to buy it, and got a “we can’t do this” error when I attempted to pay for it with the credit card I bought the Orange Box (through Steam) with. By the time support had gotten back to me, the sale was over and I was the happy owner of Beyond Good and Evil. (arguably a much better way to spend $5 USD) Now, when I search for Prince of Persia, on any of my computers, I can only find the newer (crap) one. Sigh. Yay for region locking – I’ve purchased and enjoyed (to different extents) TSOT and WW and would really like to get TT, however it’s completely unavailable to me in Australia and I don’t particularly want to ship it from the US. Sigh.
The only other time I couldn’t purchase things through Steam was when I attempted to get the Unreal pack whilst it was on sale with UT3. However given that Valve had stuffed something up majorly for everyone that weekend, I wasn’t surprised.
Overall, my experience with Steam has been that it hasn’t gotten in my way, hasn’t stopped me from playing my games, and is efficient, fast and generally a “good thing” (being able to copy the entire installation folder over from my old gaming computer to my new one with *no* issues was also a bonus)
That said, I’m quite against restrictive DRM in all it’s forms, and whilst I’ve enjoyed GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas, I’m not getting IV simply because of it’s DRM nightmare. As for Steam’s DRM, there’s enough value added with the Steam application (updates, friends, achievements, the overlay, etc.) that I don’t mind it running in the background.
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“Refer to the DMCA.”
Those of you living outside the United States need not bother.
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I have bought games from Steam. Now I do my best to avoid even that. I absolutely will not buy retail games that include DRM.
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Then you must not buy retail games. Like I say, I can count on the fingers of one hand, both at the most, the number of games that I can recall encountering with no DRM whatsoever. The first Gothic is the one I can think of offhand.
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DRM’s a necessary evil, at least until a real anti-piracy solution comes up since developers close or start making “dumbed down console crap” when their games don’t sell as much as they had hoped. DRM might not be very effective at stopping piracy today, but any anti-piracy solution must involve some form of DRM.
just wish people would direct their outrage towards the forms of DRM that actually hurt legitimate consumers instead of whining about the entire thing. my favorite developers not going bankrupt is way more important than your inability to install a game on your 3 different computers that you happen to upgrade every 2 months.
I like how the recent EA model ended up. Have a few activations for the first few months a game is out, and then release the revoke tool. In theory, this stops people from pirating the game near launch date (period of most sales, highest price), but removing much of the DRM some time down the line keeps the buyers able to play the game as much as they want.
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A few years ago i was making good money and would spend a 100$ or more a month on games. Quickly i had a stack of ones i never played after the first hour or so or others that were so buggy id bailed out a few hours into it. Tired of getting burned and access to high speed internet a few years later now i only buy 1-2 games a year bethesda, blizzard, or bioware usually collectors editions. (although id buy freelancer 2 in a heartbeat) Since those really are the only games i know ill enjoy. Regarding games i pirate, some i never play others only play for a few minutes and then delete. I just like to see whats unique about the game. Rarely ill stumble on a game like this that i really enjoy and play the heck out of it. 2 were “Freelancer” and “Ascension to the Throne” real gems imo. I tried to buy them after i found out i loved them but no store around me had them.
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For the most part, I don’t care about DRM. And this policy has rewarded me by never having any DRM or Steam-related problems. Despite often running Daemon Tools (for good purposes only, mind) simultaneously with my games, and using the occassional crack when my discs go beyond repair.
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Also, as far as my opinion of developers using DRM:
If it stops Day 0 and Week 1 piracy, it’s done its job. Beyond that, it’s totally superfluous. Numbers support this, as that is the period of highest sales, and also the period most hurt by Day 0 leaks.
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you should add an extra question “have you ever deliberately modified a game so that it doesn’t do a DRM check (cd in drive, etc … )” (yes) — for me, when i install games on my laptop, i don’t want to carry around a large wedge of cd’s on the off chance i want to play something which is already installed, especially when there is no content on the cd which hasn’t already been copied to my hdd.
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Darnit I voted no instead of yes on question 2. Only read the question halfway…
Anyway, I experience the expected 3rd world problems with online activations and Steam. And to make matters worse, telecoms in South Africa is dominated by the most evil monopoly. So internet usage really is a luxury.
I bought a game requiring online activation once. It sucked, was a lot of trouble what with shoddy GPRS, PC upgrades, etc and it fucked up my PC, so I’m not doing it again. Not unless I play a demo that really really really rocks. And then I’ll crack the game.
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Yes
No Policy
Yes
Yes
Only had DRM problems with 2 games:
1 – Half Life 2. I got it when it first came out, when the early Steam servers had a panic attack when hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people all tried to validate the game at once. Cue nerd anguish as the expected end to the wait to one of the most anticipated games of all time is suddenly extended.
2 – Football Manager 2009. SI added another verification check on top of Steam. Unfortunately the servers for their own verification check were a pile of s***. After a couple of days of fans failing to get the game working because of this they apologised and removed the custom DRM, just leaving Steam.
Apart from those 2 occsions I’ve never had any problems with DRM and only on one other occasion (G4WL and RSC for GTA4) have I noticed DRM actually being installed.
Does the UK market get less DRM in thier games? As given all the moaning i’ve seen about programs like Securom and Starforce, I expected them to be more conspicuos.
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Have you bought any games that used DRM in the past two years?
Yes – Mainly from Steam, not sure whatdisk based games that have DRM I have bought in the past two years. Because other then limited activations, DRM doesn’t bother me a huge amount if it doesn’t get in the way.
Do you deliberately try to purchase games that do not use DRM?
Yes – I suppose so. DRM free games, such as offered by GOG, will more likely to buy a game on a whim.
Do you buy games via Steam?
Yes – Yep, pretty much alway weekend deals or sales. Newer games are far too pricey. Which is a shame.
Have you ever been caught out by online checks and activations and not been able to play your game? (Be honest!)
Yep – Usually from Steam. Sometimes games don’t verify, or it comes up “your game is not available” or somesuch.
Also, Assassins Creed, if I wanted to play that I had to disable the internet before playing it. Apparently the game talks to a server everytime you kill anyone, pick up a flag, assassinate a templar etc. Stopping the game for a number of seconds, and making it unplayable.
I’ve also had various problems with various games generally refusing to work for whatever reason unless I cracked (my legally bought game) with a no cd patch.
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Only game I’ve bought with DRM was Bioshock. I had been aware but never taken any notice of the software before then. I reached the 2 limited installation so downloaded another copy. I couldn’t get it to work and complained just like everyone else. I’ve never bought and will never buy anything with DRM in it ever again. I do however enjoy using Steam, although I am awaiting the day Steam closes; I am not looking forward to it. Hopefully that’s a few years away though.
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Throw me in the pile with the people who just don’t care. I’ve been playing games (primarily PC) since the early 90s, and I never cared, nor have I ever had any problems. Tons of games using Starforce, Tages and Securom and never a single problem, even the ones that supposedly conflict with Daemon Tools. For me, the “draconian DRM” in my copies of Spore and Mass Effect were flawless: I installed them on both my home computer and my laptop and then I didn’t need the disc in either one. Nor has anyone I known ever run into any issue with DRM. I only hear circumstantial evidence from any internet men, so while it’s likely that they can cause issues for people, it’s been exaggerated way out of proportion.
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“Yes” to the Steam question, but qualified: I have bought numerous games from Steam, but only during stupidly-cheap sales. If the price is sufficiently low (most of the sales have been $5 or less) then I am willing to put up with Steam’s DRM.
I refuse to use Steam for ‘regular’ priced games, though, and will seek out a more relaxed or DRM-free retailer.
New games which require Steam no matter where you buy them can pretty much go screw themselves.
The only game I have paid anything approaching full-price for on Steam is Left 4 Dead, which I specifically wanted to play with friends online, which made the DRM less of an issue.
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While I will buy games with DRM (CD codes / CD checks), I usually think extra carefully before buying anything requiring online activation (it’s always a con when weighing up pros/cons of a purchase). If I know the game also has a limited number of activations it’s off the purchase list completely.
So far Steam is the only digital download service I’ve been comfortable using. I’m fairly confident they’ll stick around, I don’t encounter activation limits with most games (unlike other DD services) and the whole community aspect / overlay provides appeal. Sure, it has it’s glitches from time to time, but overall I’m a convert.
I’ve looked at GOG, but haven’t been inspired to buy anything from their catalogue yet.
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re. question 2:
Only if I can’t buy them otherwise. Like the Orange Box and Empire:Total War.
re. question four:
Only by original games. Steam games and Neverwinter Nights 1+2 comes to my mind. Maybe some more. But I usually employ cracks to circumvent online-activation, for example for Spore or Far Cry 2.
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Dishonest false dichotomyyyyyyy. Devs who don’t apply DRM to their titles don’t appear to go bankrupt at a higher rate than those who do. Shock!
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+1 for cite fail, sorry about that.
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My dvd drive has just packed up which makes most of my games a waste of hd space until I can afford to replace it. I don’t mind putting up with DRM (if it works), but really if publishers are going to go the whole hog with online activations and/or limited installs etc do we really need to have the disc in the drive to play?
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The final question is a bit bothersome to me, I have been momentarily stopped by DRM many times, but one way or another (I’ll leave it at that) I’ve gotten to play my game within a few minutes of the initial block.
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Starcontrol 2 had a really good DRM, A star is found on the map.
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The Steam question is interesting. The poll is showing that people avoid DRM if they can but will happily use Steam. I would be interested to know why people give Steam a free pass even though it is fairly restrictive.
I would guess that trust has a big role to play. A small (relatively) company that has a good record with customer satisfaction and support Vs. big publishers using shady technology from external, not well known, companies. Personally I don’t like that the DRM companies are not directly accountable to me as a consumer and I don’t feel as though large publishers are trustworthy or care as much about customer satisfaction (they’re all about the bottom line).
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@Mark M: actually, I believe a lot of the world has ended up signing onto similar bollocks as the DMCA, though not necessarily under that name. In Australia, for example, I believe we signed onto similar non-circumvention stuff as part of our Free Trade Agreement with the states… Anyone else get the feeling that IP law is getting more and more teeth as we in the wealthy west produce less and less that isn’t in the realm of IP?
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@mister_d: As I suggested further up the thread, it’s probably because Steam also gives tangible benefits and, as you say, people tend to trust Valve. The tangible benefits are a significant aspect for me, however.
(Compare EA’s download system to Steam, and then consider why people who like Steam like it so much, despite it being DRMy.)
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Bit of a quick reply regarding refusing to buy DRM games but still using Steam: for me and for several of my friends, it comes down to a few things. Steam has features and functionality that I’d use even if I didn’t need to, like friends lists and the overlay, server browsers for some games, autopatching, etc. I know what Steam does, and I know when a game does and does not require it, as opposed to some other DRM solutions that install on my machine without my knowledge and do god knows what. If I choose to remove Steam from my machine, it’s gone, it isn’t still lurking in the depths of my system waiting to cause unforseen problems. And it just doesn’t really do anything to hurt my experience in any significant way; my gaming machine is online at all times anyway, and on the one or two occasions I’ve used the offline mode it’s worked fine even when it wasn’t set up ahead of time.
Bottom line, I did answer that I avoid buying games with DRM, and that I buy games with Steam. Maybe that’s a bit of a contradiction within the terms of this poll, but it conveys the message that I want to send to developers and retailers. Be transparent and honest, don’t screw up my gaming experience in any significant way, provide documentation about what your product and it’s DRM do, and give me added value for my dollar, and I’ll happily consider your game even with DRM. Try to be sneaky about it, screw up my gaming experience, make me waste my time searching for information on your DRM solution, and give me absolutely nothing in terms of extra value, and you can go fly a kite. I won’t pirate your game, but I won’t buy it either. I don’t care how good it is, and I’m not interested in sob stories about how the industry is failing and PC gaming will end if I won’t be suckered into installing some fucked up rootkit or whatever on my machine. I work hard for my spare cash, and if you want some of it then you can give me what I want. If not, there are other publishers who will.
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The survey is too limited to express a proper opinion on Steam. I use it regularly but am under no illusion that I am doing anything other than paying for a long term rental which I can neither sell/trade/lend or even use full stop when my wife has decided to play Peggle on the laptop.
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while the limited activations of anno 1404 tages system is admittedly straight from the devil’s asshole, has anyone else noticed that the tages drm seems to be *so far* working?
when a big pc game i’m interested in is released, i usually check to see how long before it’s cracked and leaking like a perforated slug all over the internet. (a morbid curiosity, i actually pay for my games).
i’m sure you can google this intrigue yourselves, but it’s been a week and a number of the big cracking superstars have already admitted defeat. the comment sections of certain sites make for particularly delicious reading.
too soon to call a victory for sure. but for a game like this to put up a fight for this long against such a concentrated effort (and due to it’s “10′s of thousands of small checks throughout the game” is uncrackable by conventional methods) is surely worth something noting.
the 3 activation limit is surely to prevent local piracy, i doubt ubi even in their wildest dreams thought tages would be this affective.
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I’m one of the hardcore anti-DRM people. If a game has DRM I pirate it. If it has no DRM then I buy it, even if I’m only remotely interested. Of course, this means I pretty much only buy Indie Games anymore. :(
For the Steam lovers… launching TF2 on a Quad-Core machine running off a 4-drive striped RAID array takes 45 seconds from when I double click TF2 shortcut on my desktop until TF2 actually shows up as a process in task manager. That time is spent launching Steam (which I don’t leave running since it hordes 100MB+ of RAM) and then validating my copy of TF2. This doesn’t even count the time taken for TF2 to actually do it’s own loading process. If that isn’t intrusive DRM I don’t know what is. It’s worse than 45 seconds of unskippable intro videos.
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You’re running a machine of that caliber and you’re sweating 100mb of ram?
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If I let every program I ever installed to launch on startup and sit around eating 100MB of RAM whether I was using it or not I would have no RAM left to even run a web browser.
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I think the best question would be, “How many people bought a game because they were unable to pirate it.”
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one person every five posts judging by the mininova comment section.
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Very recent example for me happened yesterday: I was going to buy Emerald City Confidential but then, after some help reading, realized it had online authentification and limited reinstalls. Great thing since I’m about to go on vacation at my parents’ and the one computer that can run the game (XP required) is not connected to the Internet. That’s not encouraging :|. I’m holding my purchase until they release a boxed DRM-less version.
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As long as pimply virgins keep stealing the cash from these corporations, I think they have every right to initiate attempts to protect profit. How many people have actually run into problems with limited activations anyway? I bet people who whine are the same sort of lose who calls them self an anarchist yet pays their taxes like the rest of us. Little b*stards!
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@John: Whooooah, who’s stealing cash?
Yes, the corporations obviously have the right to protect their profits. But we also have the right to not buy their product.
And if the way they “protect profit” is by lowering the value of the product (while keeping the same prices), then that does not encourage people to buy the game. And a game that can be activated 3 times is less valuable than one you can play forever.
In most industries, it is accepted that the way to encourage people to buy your product is to give you more for your money. Apparently, in the games industry, it is commonly thought that giving you *less* is a better approach.
Ultimately, the best way to avoid being robbed is to close your shop entirely. That is pretty much the way DRM is trying to go. Rather than encourage people to pay for the game, they try to discourage people from getting it for free. Which is fine, if you’re willing to end up with zero customers. If you want a nonzero income, you need to work on the other half, actually making your product worth buying.
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I’ve purchased several games simply and only because they came without copy protection. Sins of a Solar Empire, while I’m sure is a great game, is something I’ll probably never play just because I don’t have time. But I bought it because it comes from a great publisher who ships without copy protection. My copy is still sealed – I bought it to support a company which does good for the customer.
I’ve lost 2 DVD burners to Starforce, so no longer install (or even buy) games with Starforce. I don’t care what the company says, I lost one drive 2 days after installing a Starforce “protected” game, then after a complete system reformat and reload, lost another DVD burner 2 days after I installed the same game again. No longer will I install that game. :(
I bought Bioshock before I knew it had copy protection. Still have a sealed collector’s edition for the PC that I set aside once I found out about that. Now when possible, I buy via Impulse, Steam, Reflexive, Big Fish, etc., or I buy independent games direct from the creators.
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I was fine with CD checks–until Civ 4. I couldn’t get the game to start consistently on two different laptops. I finally broke down and used the cracks to get it started.
I think it’s a heat issue. If I’d just booted up, I could usually get it to work without any hassle. If the laptop had been running for a while, it usually wouldn’t work. Wouldn’t be such a problem on my desktop, but then again I don’t play the game on my desktop.
I’m ambivalent about Steam. I’ve had far fewer problems with them, but I am leery of what happens when they stop supporting old games, get bought or sold or go out of business.
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As this is the public place where I poured out my tale of woe, it’s only fair to note that as of yesterday my Steam account is working. Two weeks ago I threatened to damn the torpedoes and execute chargebacks on all of my previous purchases, but I suspect that’s coincidental. Yesterday they gave me a phone number, I arranged a conference call with the bank, and the mistake was (at least provisionally) cleared up in a half hour. The person in Valve’s dispute department, who I didn’t realise at the time was almost certainly the same one who had left me twisting in the wind for five months, was kind enough in person to give me the benefit of the doubt and unlock my account without me asking. Assuming GlobalCollect, Valve’s credit card payment processor, acknowledges their mistake I appear to have access to all my stuff again.
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