The case for and against DRM

[Hypernetic]

Hyper: Mostly because a lot of those industry big-wigs are lying through their teeth :p

I was not aware Bill Gates came out against it, but Gabe Newell of Valve is a pretty good example of the PR side of things: Steam is the most prevalent and popular DRM model out there. So yes, it combats piracy by creating greater value through services, but it is still an activation model DRM that ties it to a user.

Apple is also a REALLY bad example to use: They only got rid of DRM on music after people basically got fed up with it, and they still make it hard to really use anything but itunes with an ipod. And, last I checked, ibooks is a DRM model that means you can't really use any e-readers (one of the reasons the US DoJ is on them for the collusion and e-book price fixing). But either way, Apple is going for something different that is basically the same problem: They want to tie you to a product line. In fact, their approach is similar to Steam in that regard (just a lot more excessive). That being said, we might get lucky and they'll decide to patent DRM and then sue every company that ever tries to use it again because Steve Jobs brought it down from the mountain top all those years ago (and they just happened to remember to file a patent last week...).

Stardock might also be a bad example. They are great at making the games they make, but they target niche genres. So, as mentioned, DRM decreases the value of a game in a consumer's eye (to a degree), and a drm-free copy of GalCiv2 might make someone want to try it more. Whereas a more popular genre/game might go the other way (if they see an easily pirated version, they'll get it). Stardock mostly has older people with jobs as their target demographic, whereas the big publishers target teens and college kids. Also, Stardock never actually DID DRM-Free (you had to register for patches and the like), but that is another aspect of Wardell's PR :p. Stardock were (and still are) fans of the "You can get the game DRM free. But if you want any support whatsoever, you have to opt in to our totally optional DRM model" angle.

CD Projekt are the real question marks here. And even they are a bit disengenuous. GoG has DRM (a very light form, but still DRM). And most of what they did that started them on the path was actually to combat piracy in the form of bootleg copies, NOT cracks online. Basically, people were buying bootleg copies for cheaper, and CD Projekt offered a better product for a bit more money. The difference being: The default state of the consumer was still "I want to buy this" not "I want to steal this". As for these days: I love CD Projekt, they are my favorite publisher/dev/whatever they count as. But the "No DRM" thing is pure PR with them, and is really just a way to build up hype. This is most evident in when they tried to sue the pants off the pirates and then backed down when they got bad PR.

I don't think anyone (except the crazy bastards at Ubi) will disagree that "intrusive" DRM is detrimental to sales. The question is: How much DRM can we use before enough people care? Because they still want to stop the casual pirates (your aunt playing The Sims, not your teenage son playing Quake).

Good job completely failing to address any of my points.

snip

Thanks for further proving the ineffectiveness of DRM?

[gundato]

Hyper: apologies. Here is what I thought your points were. Please correct me where I was mistaken

How many industry big-wigs will it take saying intrusive DRM is bad for people to give this tired old argument a rest? As if people like Bill Gates and Gabe Newell don't know what they are talking about. Why did Apple completely remove the DRM from iTunes?

Point: Why are people not listening to the industry big-wigs?
Response: Because many of them are quite disingenuous and are spinning things for PR purposes

What about developers like CD Projekt who have shown that DRM did nothing against piracy when they released a DRM copy of the game and a DRM free copy of the game on GOG? The SecuROM copy was the one that was pirated more.

Point: What about CD Projekt?
Response: In their early days, when they "proved" DRM was pointless, it was a very different market and a very different situation than most of the world is faced with. And these days, the "DRM-free" angle is more marketing than anything else.
As for the piracy thing: I think one of the CD Projekt devs even acknowledge that the Securom might have been targeted out of a pride thing on the part of the warez groups.

What about Stardock who released a game without any DRM and saw an increase in profits over the previous version with DRM?

Point: What about Stardock? They made more profits with less DRM
Response: They are a different market demographic, and they actually had DRM


Keep in mind: I am not saying that DRM is the answer. I'm merely pointing out why a few talking heads who own companies aren't necessarily the most trustworthy or indicative sources.

[Finicky]

Dude he's not going to respond to logic, all he is here for is to feel proud that his highschool teacher /college freshman year professor taught him the words peer reviewed and to assert his authority on how people should play anno.

It's all good, Gaben gets richer than the sea is deep while ubisoft and ea keep bleeding money.

LOl@ finicky the death of pc gaming, man if only, I wouldn't mind a proper industry crash and reboot back to basics, then I wouldn't feel like supporting the growth over the last 20 years and the shelves full of games I bought went to waste.

Almost ever talented dev I supported was put to work on shitty console games or disbanded to make room for another third person shooter. All these amazing rts/suad based rts/sim and hardcore shooters bought only to get nothing but fables and medal of honors and ridge racer unleashed's in return.

Goodbye f zero , rollcage, commandos, dungeon keeper,rollercoaster tycoon, ut, ET, red alert, stalker, company of heroes, baldur's gate, rainbow six, thief and more, you were all bought and the people who made you were all dispersed or fired and there is no room for games like you anymore because the beancounters think another medal of honor clone might make more money for less effort.

Not much of a legacy has come from supporting gaming for all these years. Almost every deep skillbased genre is dead and buried.

[gundato]

Don't be so gloomy finicky, you just have to know where to look. That's one reason why I don't actually feel bad about buying Elemental: Stardock are at least still making games in a genre I love, and that clearly they love.

Disclaimer: The other reason being a free copy of Fallen Enchantress :p

[Hypernetic]

Hyper: apologies. Here is what I thought your points were. Please correct me where I was mistaken


Point: Why are people not listening to the industry big-wigs?
Response: Because many of them are quite disingenuous and are spinning things for PR purposes


Point: What about CD Projekt?
Response: In their early days, when they "proved" DRM was pointless, it was a very different market and a very different situation than most of the world is faced with. And these days, the "DRM-free" angle is more marketing than anything else.
As for the piracy thing: I think one of the CD Projekt devs even acknowledge that the Securom might have been targeted out of a pride thing on the part of the warez groups.


Point: What about Stardock? They made more profits with less DRM
Response: They are a different market demographic, and they actually had DRM


Keep in mind: I am not saying that DRM is the answer. I'm merely pointing out why a few talking heads who own companies aren't necessarily the most trustworthy or indicative sources.

So your answer is "nuh-uh, they are lying!".

ok.

As for CD Projekt, that statement was made about The Witcher 2 which came out last year... they also stated they would not be using any DRM in any of their future projects.

As for Stardock, I don't see what them being a niche developer has to do with anything.

[Finicky]

Well there is kickstarter, some independant dev games with little budget and the odd f2p attempt at something with a learning curve, but none of those are funded by all the money I've already put into gaming and that has mostly gone to big publishers who keep up buying and disemboweling every niche dev/mod team that shows promise. (trauma team ring a bell for anyone?)

PS this terrible pirate owns tw2 (full price) , not because it is free of obnoxious drm (Hell I even bought the steam version) , but because witcher 1 was good and witcher 2 is good.

Not having drm is akin to not having herpes, you wouldn't touch a woman with it if you knew, but no man or women is going to walk up to someone and go I'm clean waaa why won't they fuck me and draw conclusions based on that.
DRM or lack thereof is so often a justification by devs /publishers for why their shitty games didn't sell. Gota blame someone and ride the pity train through shills like the op.

[rojimboo]

Dude he's not going to respond to logic, all he is here for is to feel proud that his highschool teacher /college freshman year professor taught him the words peer reviewed and to assert his authority on how people should play anno.

It's all good, Gaben gets richer than the sea is deep while ubisoft and ea keep bleeding money.

LOl@ finicky the death of pc gaming, man if only, I wouldn't mind a proper industry crash and reboot back to basics, then I wouldn't feel like supporting the growth over the last 20 years and the shelves full of games I bought went to waste.

Almost ever talented dev I supported was put to work on shitty console games or disbanded to make room for another third person shooter. All these amazing rts/suad based rts/sim and hardcore shooters bought only to get nothing but fables and medal of honors and ridge racer unleashed's in return.

Goodbye f zero , rollcage, commandos, dungeon keeper,rollercoaster tycoon, ut, ET, red alert, stalker, company of heroes, baldur's gate, rainbow six, thief and more, you were all bought and the people who made you were all dispersed or fired and there is no room for games like you anymore because the beancounters think another medal of honor clone might make more money for less effort.

Not much of a legacy has come from supporting gaming for all these years. Almost every deep skillbased genre is dead and buried.

I do not respond to logic? All you have to do is give me logical, rational, robustly argued arguments regarding the complete ineffectiveness of PC gaming DRM, especially nice if it is peer reviewed (but actually, it does not exist, I've looked) so even anecdotal evidence would suffice. By the way, I can't even remember my freshman year professor's names. Still in uni, you see, but actually doing research.

"...how people should play anno"? As in, they should give money to the developers for spending a year or two working on it? Sure. The alternative is stealing it, and then complaining, based on misinformation, on how its DRM made you steal it. Rofl. Indeed, people like you are causing the death of PC gaming.

Thanks for further proving the ineffectiveness of DRM?

Exactly how, amuse me. Or is it that you brushed over all my points?

[Hypernetic]

Exactly how, amuse me. Or is it that you brushed over all my points?

Both of those companies who you used as examples against piracy and for DRM have publicly stated that they will not be using any form of DRM in their future games.

Riddle me that.

[gundato]

So your answer is "nuh-uh, they are lying!".

Actually, my answer was: Valve ARE the source of most of the DRM out there these days (in gaming), and Apple still use lots of DRM (and are pricks who are bad for the industry and will tell any lie if it will make them seem like the underdog who is being persecuted... but I may be biased on that last front). No idea on MS.
But sure, let's go with yours.

As for CD Projekt, that statement was made about The Witcher 2 which came out last year... they also stated they would not be using any DRM in any of their future projects.

Apologies for providing a bit of historical background (which is mostly what they draw on when they give talks about why DRM sucks).
And like I said, it is a PR thing for them. People (myself included) advertise GoG because it provides a minimalistic DRM approach. Considering the point of DRM is to protect the monetary interests of a company (whether its is effective or not is another story), then that works just as well.
A LOT of people pirated TW2. But a lot of people bought it because it was "DRM-free" and what not and they were willing to pay a bit more (new game) because of that. Plus, you know, it was an amazing game so that helped a lot too. And they tried to sue everybody who pirated it, which was funny :p
Also: The retail version DID have DRM, at least before patches because their publishers made them. I'll be interested in seeing how that is handled for their next retail release.

As for Stardock, I don't see what them being a niche developer has to do with anything.

Smaller market means more loyal customers/fanbase. And, more importantly, fewer options for them. So if someone has 50 bucks to spend per year on game, they probably CAN get every game in the genre. Whereas if someone has 50 bucks to spend on FPSes, they will either be a bargain hunter or resort to piracy.

[rojimboo]

Both of those companies who you used as examples against piracy and for DRM have publicly stated that they will not be using any form of DRM in their future games.

Riddle me that.

You might not have read my post. It is explained there.

Furthermore, you failed to address these points:

Regarding all the anti-DRM discussion on the internet: How rationally and robustly is it argued? Is there even circumstantial evidence available? If so, where?

I would believe CEO's statements like Gabes', (an entire DRM platform hugely succesful), or Paradox's CEO (goes on to implement ninja DRM like DEGRADE in ARMA2), or CDR red project (sells most copies on console) if they had some figures to back them up, or weren't blatantly contradictory.

This completely ignores the academic literature, which was a precursor for abandoning music industry DRM, yet points the opposite way for PC gaming DRM.

[Hypernetic]

Actually, my answer was: Valve ARE the source of most of the DRM out there these days, and Apple still use lots of DRM (and are pricks who are bad for the industry and will tell any lie if it will make them seem like the underdog who is being persecuted... but I may be biased on that last front). No idea on MS.
But sure, let's go with yours.


Apologies for providing a bit of historical background (which is mostly what they draw on when they give talks about why DRM sucks).
And like I said, it is a PR thing for them. People (myself included) advertise GoG because it provides a minimalistic DRM approach. Considering the point of DRM is to protect the monetary interests of a company (whether its is effective or not is another story), then that works just as well.
A LOT of people pirated TW2. But a lot of people bought it because it was "DRM-free" and what not and they were willing to pay a bit more (new game) because of that. Plus, you know, it was an amazing game so that helped a lot too. And they tried to sue everybody who pirated it, which was funny :p
Also: The retail version DID have DRM, at least before patches because their publishers made them. I'll be interested in seeing how that is handled for their next retail release.


Smaller market means more loyal customers/fanbase. And, more importantly, fewer options for them. So if someone has 50 bucks to spend per year on game, they probably CAN get every game in the genre. Whereas if someone has 50 bucks to spend on FPSes, they will either be a bargain hunter or resort to piracy.

Your personal opinions about Apple are irrelevant, I don't like Apple either but that doesn't change anything. As for Valve, what do the have to lie about? To force people to use Steam as DRM? Hell, most of these games with intrusive DRM already are on steam and contain extra DRM on top of that, so I think we can just throw that idea right out the window.

That was the point, the retail version with DRM was pirated more than the DRM version..

As for Stardock, I don't see the correlation. Call of Duty has lots of loyal fans too. Sure MORE people might pirate a popular game than a niche game, but what does that mean? Does that affect sales? There is no proof that it does, which leads us back to the tired old argument about piracy and whether or not a pirated copy = a lost sale or not.

[Hypernetic]

You might not have read my post. It is explained there.

Furthermore, you failed to address these points:

You must be new to the internet. We've been having arguments and debates about piracy since before you were born.

[Finicky]

I do not respond to logic? All you have to do is give me logical, rational, robustly argued arguments regarding the complete ineffectiveness of PC gaming DRM, especially nice if it is peer reviewed (but actually, it does not exist, I've looked) so even anecdotal evidence would suffice. By the way, I can't even remember my freshman year professor's names. Still in uni, you see, but actually doing research.

"...how people should play anno"? As in, they should give money to the developers for spending a year or two working on it? Sure. The alternative is stealing it, and then complaining, based on misinformation, on how its DRM made you steal it. Rofl. Indeed, people like you are causing the death of PC gaming.

You keep forgetting what was posted 2 pages earlier, might want to see a doctor about that.
Noone is even arguing that drm doesn't make it harder to pirate, the whole argument is the detrimental effect on those who pay, the lowered value for the buyer and the annoyance of people about publishers focusing on that instead of making the game a better value to prospective buyers.
If it often makes it even harder to actually play it as paying buyer than as pirate it's backwards (again why steam drm is accepted and ubisoft drm is not, but you keep ignoring that and pretending we put all drm on the same level, living in your own little world).

Holy mother of lack of reading comprehension.

And yes you told people that they shouldn't play anno in offline mode.

I feel sorry for whatever poor soul has to review your paper, if you can't even reason and respond to logic when anonymous on the internet (pride still in the way, like a child).

PS: if you actually are researching THIS of all subjects then wow are you a waste of human productivity. There is no merit in your job and posterity will not remember you, people will rightfully remember a friendly waiter or good dry cleaning over pseudo market research.

I'ma let it go before I get banned for belitteling you any more.
I should have the first time I stated you are unable to reason or respond to logic.

[rojimboo]

You must be new to the internet. We've been having arguments and debates about piracy since before you were born.

Have you seriously, now three times, completely blown over any of my points specifically adressed to you?

I guess this is what you have to do, if you have no argumentation left.

And still no rationally, robustly argued case for the anti-DRM cause. Go figure.

[Hypernetic]

Have you seriously, now three times, completely blown over any of my points specifically adressed to you?

I guess this is what you have to do, if you have no argumentation left.

And still no rationally, robustly argued case for the anti-DRM cause. Go figure.

There are plenty of great arguments against DRM in this very thread, you just choose to ignore them because they aren't "peer reviewed". I see no need to repeat myself or reiterate someone else's statements.

P.S. How much is Ubisoft paying you?

[rojimboo]

You keep forgetting what was posted 2 pages earlier, might want to see a doctor about that.
Noone is even arguing that drm doesn't make it harder to pirate, the whole argument is the detrimental effect on those who pay, the lowered value for the buyer and the annoyance of people about publishers focusing on that instead of making the game a better value to prospective buyers.
If it often makes it even harder to actually play it as paying buyer than as pirate it's backwards (again why steam drm is accepted and ubisoft drm is not, but you keep ignoring that and pretending we put all drm on the same level, living in your own little world).

Holy mother of lack of reading comprehension.

And yes you told people that they shouldn't play anno in offline mode.

I feel sorry for whatever poor soul has to review your paper, if you can't even reason and respond to logic when anonymous on the internet (pride still in the way, like a child).

PS: if you actually are researching THIS of all subjects then wow are you a waste of human productivity. There is no merit in your job and posterity will not remember you, people will rightfully remember a friendly waiter or good dry cleaning over pseudo market research.

I'ma let it go before I get banned for belitteling you any more.
I should have the first time I stated you are unable to reason or respond to logic.

The tremendous number of personal attacks aside...

If for some reason you must know, I am personally doing research in a completely different field, yet I am an avid PC gamer, with a custom watercooled rig and over 300 games on Steam alone. None of this has any bearing on any argumentation regarding DRM.

Second, the level of intrusiveness of DRM has been researched, which you seem to fail to realise. In all cases, there is a level of DRM that benefits not only the producer, but also the consumer. If you have access to academic literature I strongly recommend the papers I linked to.

[rojimboo]

There are plenty of great arguments against DRM in this very thread, you just choose to ignore them because they aren't "peer reviewed". I see no need to repeat myself or reiterate someone else's statements.

P.S. How much is Ubisoft paying you?

Fourth time you ignore my specific points to you.

No arguments need to be peer-reviewed, they just need to be rationally and robustly argued (and preferably not already debunked by years of research, but this last point is irrelevant in this forum thread).

I will thus give up on you, and assume even the most ardent anti-DRM user does not have rational reasons to be anti-DRM.

Unless of course, there is a person that can argue its case? Hypernetic did not even have the courage to reassert his beliefs, sad, but it happens.

[deano2099]

I do not respond to logic? All you have to do is give me logical, rational, robustly argued arguments regarding the complete ineffectiveness of PC gaming DRM, especially nice if it is peer reviewed (but actually, it does not exist, I've looked) so even anecdotal evidence would suffice.

Okay.

Go to Google. Search for "pirate bay". Visit the top link.

In the search box, put in the name of any PC game with DRM released in the past decade. If they have a copy, you know the DRM has been cracked, and so is completely ineffective.

Try and find me ten games not on there.

I can give you all sorts of interesting links and stats about how piracy is over-stated and how in some cases it can help sell copies, etc. But you're asking about DRM. And the simple argument against DRM is that it doesn't work.

We don't need to figure out piracy rates for software with DRM and those without DRM and see if there's a difference, as they all appear in the same place regardless. You don't needs stats to prove this as the evidence is right there in the cracked games themselves.

It's like we're stood in front of a vast chasm, and there's a rickety rope bridge over it. And we're having an argument over if it's safe to cross. And you're saying that statistically the wind speed and gravity will apply forces in such a way that it looks like it should be safe, and you can't possibly see any way I can argue with that, since you've tried all the physics in some complex simulator and they all work, so the bridge must be fine. #

You're right that I can offer no mathematical or mechanical model to dispute your claims. But instead I point downwards, into the chasm, at the thousands of dead bodies piled up in there.

You're refusing to look down.

[Nalano]

Hokay, I have read this godawful thread and, in my opinion, the OP has got to be a troll.

Every single reply of his is this sardonic "great reply! But you're wrong for reasons you're too stupid to understand." Jesus fucking Christ, man: This isn't a debate. This is just you insulting all comers in a fit of snide superciliousness that makes even Kadayi look modest.

[deano2099]

If you have access to academic literature I strongly recommend the papers I linked to.

I don't. Could you send me the PDF?