Serious DRM in Spore.

Going a bit too far here, surely? They really love to try to combat piracy.

Two more games for me to not get. Oh wait, I haven't gotten almost anything new in what - 3 years?

I don't understand it at all. Punishing legitimate consumers for piracy. If there's anything guaranteed to annoy people into pirating a game, it's things like this.

What punishing of legitimate consumers?

I do think that they may soon find out that ANY protection can be broken. I hope they didn't waste too much money on it...

In the end, this only contributes into releasing a patch that changes the check frequency so it is only performed the first time after installation which simply add up to extra costs added to the loss of sales from the piracy they try (and eventually fail) to prevent.

Starforce, MSN Music, Bioshock, Sony CDs, et al. The limiting of legit users' rights in the vain hopes of dissuading pirates.

How else can they "prove" that piracy is costing them "millions"?

Where is the punishment? It's merely a form of protection.

To be honest, the only "punishment" I've observed is that this information is not listed on the box. When I bought Battlefield 2051, I had no idea that it was primarily an online game until I opened the box. I think that is even worse than requiring an occasional check.

Here's a good question... Does anyone have any numbers on how many people are genuinely dissuaded from purchasing DRM games? Or primarily online games in general? I don't mean how many of 'you' are dissuaded. I mean actual sales losses compared to games without such a protective feature.

Keep in mind, more than the average PC gamer tends to have a stable internet connection, making this DRM option not even remotely a problem for the majority. So why do people truly have such a problem?

Matri, you're forgetting the fact that the companies know exactly how many times their games have been pirated, and are able to calculate their losses from said activities to the nearest penny.


Hang on...

Mass Effect & Spore surely should have enough PR that they don't need to stoop to this "any publicity is good publicity" level...

Perhaps that is what this is for?

All things considered, I would say that it doesn't take much to to at least estimate a minimum loss. An employee at a game design company just needs to see how many seeders there are for a torrent of his own game (Which can sometimes be a very large number...) to get some approximation.

I know photoshop literally could not be used until you recieved a password you paid for. This could be cracked with a false password, of course. But in the end, tons and tons of people registered their product online and continue to use it. But do you know how much Adobe actually made? I don't, but I can be sure that it wasn't as much as they expected.



Did you read the post? It's about copy protection, not publicity. They made this decision to rake in the money, not to broadcast an ad.

I think I will ask again.

1- Where is the punishment to legit buyers of this merchandise? All you need is the internet, and if you don't have it, there are lots of games you cannot play... None of which even have anything to do with copy protection.

2- Does anyone have any numbers of sales lost due to intense copy protection measures? I'm genuinely curious, because even Bioshock's stupid form of protection yielded decent sales.

Copy protection is very much pointless, I am still not sure about what the publishers are trying to achieve, because it sure as heck is not going to reduce piracy

I would like to know, however, how effective was Stardock's (I think it was Stardock) policy on not using a copy protection for Galactic Civilizations II, did their sales perform below expectations?

1 - Every year I go on a vacation for a month or two. Which means the game won't be able to check on the internet. Think about that a little.

2 - Yes, but Bioshock was hyped to no end. Also, you should have been around the 2K forums for the first month or so after its release and seen all the negative feedback on Securom. The forums were swarming with people angry at 2K. Unfortunately these copy protection schemes do not always work properly so yes, the legit user gets hurt. Securom was used by 2K Games (publisher) for Serious Sam 2 and I remember well that some people threatened to sue Croteam (developer) over it. I had to ask them what the issue was and I was told that Securom had problems with newer hard drives. The solution was to send the log and .exe of the game to the Securom people (which by the way is somehow connected to Sony, I forget how exactly). Then they would inspect it and send back a fixed .exe back to the customer who bought the game legitimately. Granted this was a small number of people at the time, but from what I can tell, that was not the case with Bioshock.

Edit: Stardock's games sell well, because Stardock understands the market, i.e. they are not making yet another game in a genre that is already crowded with the same type of games.

Again, taking Mass Effect as the example: It is a singleplayer-only game. No multiplayer components. All content is stored locally on your harddisk, which it can easily access. But it won't. Because you don't have an internet connection.

Real life example of this? Getting a car. Fully certified, everything in working order, full tank of gas, keys in your hand...

... And not being able to drive it on the road because you don't have FAA clearance.

And in case this isn't still fresh in everyone's minds: MSN Music DRM authentication server to be shut off.

Then I will repeat myself. Starforce, MSN Music, Bioshock, Sony CDs, et al. The limiting of legit users' rights in the vain hopes of dissuading pirates.



Because some of them are online-only games. Spore, Mass Effect, etc, are not, yet you won't be able to play them if they don't have the internet.



The simple fact is, they haven't got a clue how much they lose through piracy. Nobody does. They don't know how much it's costing them. They don't know if the cost is more or less than that of the DRM they're using. They can estimate all they like, they have no way of knowing whether that estimate is accurate or not. How many people then don't buy the game because of the DRM? Again, they don't know. How many people who pirate the game would have bought it if it wasn't available to pirate? Again, they don't know.

There is no way to empirically quantify the problem. They can't tell how a game might have sold with or without DRM/piracy/name-an-unlikely-factor-of-your-choice, they can only record how a game actually sells.

Yes, I did. And this is just so boneheaded that it will go away. Quickly. Quietly. Soon after release, since they don't have time to change it now. Illegitimately at first, then legitimately.

Self-disabling software that do not need the internet for any legitimate reason? Probably lawsuit fodder as well in the us.

DRM toned down.

10-day reauthentication gone, 3-install limit still there.

What the heck?

You mean to tell me that one of those soulless money-grubbers grew a heart?

I'm quite cynical enough to believe that this was done on purpose, to give the impression that "Okay, we're listening to our consumers." so that those who protested will feel that they have won and will shut up about DRM altogether.

Or there could be an actual human being working at EA.

I don't know which is more likely.

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1 - Every year I go on a vacation for a month or two. Which means the game won't be able to check on the internet. Think about that a little.


So you're playing video games offline for a month or two in that time? Makes sense I suppose. But the game can be restored easily with just a moment of internet connection, aye? That is what was mentioned before... And that is how Bioware's Neverwinter Nights modules work.

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Because some of them are online-only games. Spore, Mass Effect, etc, are not, yet you won't be able to play them if they don't have the internet.


But so long as you're informed of the internet connection requirement beforehand, I do not see the problem here.

Now... I happen to know that there is a policy for software, that it cannot be returned once it is opened, at least not at full price. This means after opening the box, your product is severely devalued. But if you're properly informed from a note somewhere on the box, you're agreeing beforehand to regular DRM checks. This is not hindering anyone's rights because it was agreed to beforehand.

I will back up anyone that buys the product and there is virtually no information on the box, or anywhere clearly enough indicating the necessity for internet connection. Because THEN you're stooping down to subterfuge, which I feel is not right.

Granted, it's a pain in the ass. And it certainly will not yield money from an individual without internet. But it's not a punishment if you bought the product with full knowledge of it.

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Also, you should have been around the 2K forums for the first month or so after its release and seen all the negative feedback on Securom. The forums were swarming with people angry at 2K.


You mean just like the thousands of users that got pissed off at the developers for Dawn of War for changing one of their races too much? I don't tend to trust the numbers I see on a forum. It's difficult to tell whether it's a mature individual with a genuine problem, a frustrated 12-year old that wants to blow off some steam, or just some schmoe that really wasn't involved but feels nice getting behind the picket line.

But I see where you are coming from. People were pissed because they felt they weren't getting what they paid for. But that example you made seems more like a design flaw rather than an intentional feature. They put forth the effort to fix it, now, didn't they?

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Real life example of this? Getting a car. Fully certified, everything in working order, full tank of gas, keys in your hand...


Um... In reality you need to have a license to drive your car. This license needs to be renewed periodically to make sure you are fit to drive. The DRM system does this very same thing, to make sure you are a legit buyer. Very few, if any, protests the licensing of drivers. I believe your example is quite flawed...

However I do see the point you're trying to make. You feel that because you have everything otherwise, you should be able to play the game. Because that's how it has been for many many years prior and you don't like the idea of needing a whole new line in the list of system requirements that seems redundant to honest buyers.

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The simple fact is, they haven't got a clue how much they lose through piracy. Nobody does. They don't know how much it's costing them. They don't know if the cost is more or less than that of the DRM they're using.


I will admit freely that exact numbers are uncertain. You simply cannot track every download every on the internet pertaining to one single piece of software, which can be renamed and zipped/rarred/torrented in so many ways that it would be nigh impossible to know what the hell is even being downloaded.

But the real fact of the matter is that PC gaming sales have dropped dramatically lately. Curiously enough, around the time piracy had become more prominent. And like I said already, it's easy to get a decent idea how much you're losing at a minimum... Some downloading can be tracked by very light effort. (For example, I am personally aware that the Transformers movie score has been downloaded at least 500 separate times. With a CD that costs 10 - 15 USD apiece, that is 5000 - 7500 USD lost in sales. And that is just from my own, very small, window of awareness.) How much did this DRM cost anyways? Does it really cost so many thousands to install a DRM feature on a game of any kind?

So then if not this, what recommendation would you have to dissuade piracy? Increase penalties for the violation? Resort to older, and substantially less effective, tactics like taking phrases from the game's manual? Or a different path entirely that is not thought of?

Here's an interesting tidbit that this has got me thinking about... Everyone remember Ultima Online? One of the