Tuesday, November 8th 2011
Are The Days Of DRM Numbered?
The Techdirt article below will not please the big content industries making today's games, movies and music, or anyone who believes that they need to protect their content from so-called "pirates" and "thieves" (copying isn't stealing, but many haven't seen the memo) to control distribution so that they can squeeze the hapless customer for every penny they can get. Good Old Games www.gog.com have been up and running since 2008 and they're proving that locking up content with anti-consumer DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) is pointless and counterproductive. It's even more pointless when you consider just how quickly every scheme out there is cracked, often within a day or two and a week is a long time in most cases.
I have republished this Techdirt article, because I believe that we are at a turning point in time with content delivery. We will start to see some new triple-A content released that is unencumbered by pathetic DRM schemes which treat their customers like criminals, inconveniencing and annoying them in the process. Over time, this would become the norm, with all new premium content being released without DRM, treating customers like regular human beings instead of criminals. Wouldn't it be nice to buy the latest games such as Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 without any DRM shackles? It would be fantastic and the games houses would sell just as much if not more without DRM, regardless of the many unauthorised copies knocking around the internet.
So, why are DRM's days numbered? Because the sales numbers speak for themselves, as GOG will announce at the London Games Conference on 10th November. For example, since music has gone DRM-free, sales have only increased, despite all the "piracy" going on and pathetic, untrue laments by the RIAA & MPAA that "piracy" is "decimating" the music & movie industries. GOG has gone from strength to strength, with their primary mission statement being not to put DRM in any of their products, as point 3 in their about page says:
Crucially, Techdirt don't put any copyright restrictions on any of their content (they have stated this in some of their blogs and there's no copyright notice anywhere on the site) so anyone is free to republish it. The company behind Techdirt is Floor64 which is run by Mike Masnick, who writes most of the articles on Techdirt. For some info on them, here's Floor 64's about page and here's a useful Wikipedia article on GOG.
The Techdirt article, written by Zachary Knight:
Despite Publisher Apprehension, Good Old Games Proves A Market For Old DRM-Free Games Exists
In preparation for the London Game Conference, Edge Magazine spoke with Guillaume Rambourg about the path Good Old Games has taken on DRM and what other game companies can learn from it. While Rambourg was light on the details of just what he will be speaking on at the conference, he remains confident that other publishers can learn from GOG's experiment with The Witcher 2.
"I will be sharing the sales numbers on GOG compared to the competition. I think the numbers will speak for themselves, what DRM-free sales of even a triple-A title can achieve. Our values are universal and they don't only apply to older content. They apply to triple-A, day-one releases."
I certainly look forward to learning more about what this experience has to show other developers but I am glad he still leaves plenty to glean from this interview. He continues by explaining that publishers have always had the ability to do exactly what GOG is doing, but they refused to do it, citing unreasonable expenses for low returns. In the early days of GOG, they were met with animosity from publishers over the idea of releasing older games. These publishers didn't want to dedicate time and resources to preparing these games to run on modern computers. They figured it was a losing strategy.
This is something that I have observed over the years. Very few PC game companies have released older games for any price. This led to the creation of a number of abandonware and warez websites. These sites have made available a good number of unauthorized games to the public. GOG specifically took notice of this and has actually used those sites to its advantage.
"When we sign content for GOG, we contact abandonware websites and make them our affiliates. So they remove the illegal content, and instead they put a GOG banner and they direct sales and traffic to us. Step by step, we are cleaning up the market and we are making the back catalogue segment a visible, and viable, market for the industry.
This is a winning strategy. I have been to a number of these sites in the past and have observed that most of the well respected sites have policies in place to remove games that are available through legal channels and even link to that legal content when it is available. Not only does this build confidence in the abandonware site, it also builds a positive attitude toward the publisher that makes these games available.
The idea of releasing older games is a proposition that only recently took hold with most publishers. A lot of it had to do with GOG and Nintendo's Virtual Console. Prior to these two platforms, most of the work done in bringing older games to modern machines was done by the fan community through the use of emulators and cracks. Most of those efforts were either ignored or attacked by the industry. Now that the experiment has been proven a success in most avenues, I would hope that game publishers will see value in bringing their older games back. The gamers want it. The publishers just need to provide it. Not only will this move provide more legal content for the fans of the games, it will also bring in more revenue that did not exist before.
I have republished this Techdirt article, because I believe that we are at a turning point in time with content delivery. We will start to see some new triple-A content released that is unencumbered by pathetic DRM schemes which treat their customers like criminals, inconveniencing and annoying them in the process. Over time, this would become the norm, with all new premium content being released without DRM, treating customers like regular human beings instead of criminals. Wouldn't it be nice to buy the latest games such as Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 without any DRM shackles? It would be fantastic and the games houses would sell just as much if not more without DRM, regardless of the many unauthorised copies knocking around the internet.
So, why are DRM's days numbered? Because the sales numbers speak for themselves, as GOG will announce at the London Games Conference on 10th November. For example, since music has gone DRM-free, sales have only increased, despite all the "piracy" going on and pathetic, untrue laments by the RIAA & MPAA that "piracy" is "decimating" the music & movie industries. GOG has gone from strength to strength, with their primary mission statement being not to put DRM in any of their products, as point 3 in their about page says:
You buy it, you keep it.Not only this, but all their products are available worldwide at one price and without irritating DRM-enforced "release windows" for various regions - Steam, are you listening?
Don't let your DRMs turn into nightmares (clever, no?). You won't find any intrusive copy protection in our games; we hate draconian DRM schemes just as much as you do, so at GOG.com you don't just buy the game, you actually own it. Once you download a game, you can install it on any PC and re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need, and you can play it without an internet connection.
Crucially, Techdirt don't put any copyright restrictions on any of their content (they have stated this in some of their blogs and there's no copyright notice anywhere on the site) so anyone is free to republish it. The company behind Techdirt is Floor64 which is run by Mike Masnick, who writes most of the articles on Techdirt. For some info on them, here's Floor 64's about page and here's a useful Wikipedia article on GOG.
The Techdirt article, written by Zachary Knight:
Despite Publisher Apprehension, Good Old Games Proves A Market For Old DRM-Free Games Exists
In preparation for the London Game Conference, Edge Magazine spoke with Guillaume Rambourg about the path Good Old Games has taken on DRM and what other game companies can learn from it. While Rambourg was light on the details of just what he will be speaking on at the conference, he remains confident that other publishers can learn from GOG's experiment with The Witcher 2.
"I will be sharing the sales numbers on GOG compared to the competition. I think the numbers will speak for themselves, what DRM-free sales of even a triple-A title can achieve. Our values are universal and they don't only apply to older content. They apply to triple-A, day-one releases."
I certainly look forward to learning more about what this experience has to show other developers but I am glad he still leaves plenty to glean from this interview. He continues by explaining that publishers have always had the ability to do exactly what GOG is doing, but they refused to do it, citing unreasonable expenses for low returns. In the early days of GOG, they were met with animosity from publishers over the idea of releasing older games. These publishers didn't want to dedicate time and resources to preparing these games to run on modern computers. They figured it was a losing strategy.
This is something that I have observed over the years. Very few PC game companies have released older games for any price. This led to the creation of a number of abandonware and warez websites. These sites have made available a good number of unauthorized games to the public. GOG specifically took notice of this and has actually used those sites to its advantage.
"When we sign content for GOG, we contact abandonware websites and make them our affiliates. So they remove the illegal content, and instead they put a GOG banner and they direct sales and traffic to us. Step by step, we are cleaning up the market and we are making the back catalogue segment a visible, and viable, market for the industry.
This is a winning strategy. I have been to a number of these sites in the past and have observed that most of the well respected sites have policies in place to remove games that are available through legal channels and even link to that legal content when it is available. Not only does this build confidence in the abandonware site, it also builds a positive attitude toward the publisher that makes these games available.
The idea of releasing older games is a proposition that only recently took hold with most publishers. A lot of it had to do with GOG and Nintendo's Virtual Console. Prior to these two platforms, most of the work done in bringing older games to modern machines was done by the fan community through the use of emulators and cracks. Most of those efforts were either ignored or attacked by the industry. Now that the experiment has been proven a success in most avenues, I would hope that game publishers will see value in bringing their older games back. The gamers want it. The publishers just need to provide it. Not only will this move provide more legal content for the fans of the games, it will also bring in more revenue that did not exist before.
34 Comments on Are The Days Of DRM Numbered?
I don't mind needing to log into an account for a game which has multi-player as a large part of it's game play but for a single player games I am not inclined to do so unfortunately.
Still, I have to agree on some points with this guy. Games are so easily available in illegal form it's embarassing. And the illegal copies often take less effort than the legals with DRM.
Pride might not be the right word, but I do feel a sense of accomplishment when I find a way to circumvent the ridiculous DRM publishers put on their products. Does that make me evil?
You say exactly what the publishers want you to think about people who prefer a pirated, DRM free game over a legal DRM'd copy. We're all work-shy douches with shitty attitudes.
DRM is a hindrance. When I buy a game, I expect to be able to simply install it and play. On a machine not necessarily connected to Internet.
I've had one particular (legal) game (Sudeki IIRC) that would not even play because I had Deamon Tools installed. That's ridiculous! I don't want those SecuROM drivers polluting my system, or DRM programs scanning my PC for what they consider to be illegal programs.
Then there's the ongoing issue of price point and demos. If any game I'm interested in has a demo available, I'll check that. Unfortunately, that is awfully often not the case, particularly with bigger franchises.
So, do I pay for a game I haven't tried? No. I don't like to gamble, especially not for the bigger franchises' price point.
In those very frequent cases, the only way to actually get some hands-on time with a game is by pirating it.
For example: reviews of Dead Space were amazing. I loved the setting, and the suspense was very good. I played it for 5 minutes and could simply not get used to the awful control problems. So I uninstalled it. Saves me €14.99 (current Steam price point).
I've tried to play Fallout 3 twice, but it's simply not what the original 2 games were. Saved €29.99 + additional DLC costs.
So what do I think the solution is? There's more than one answer to this problem, but I have an ideal scenario of how I would like the gaming world to become.
1. A giant cutback in the amount of games released.
There's tons of crap on the market. Cut the crap, then you can save costs on bad games, opening up developers to create demos and possibly even cutting the price on the games that are still released. Also, you're more likely to buy a game for the same €30 if there aren't 50 games on your wishlist but 5.
2. Pay-per-play.
Instead of buying a game, buy playtime. Not an ideal option in it's crude form, but a model based on this idea could get you "demo" playtime for cheap (30 mins should be enough to see if you like a game imho). Also, no DRM needed since you can copy the base data as much as you'd like.
3. Demo's, demo's and demo's. Demo keys? Activate your game online using a key, download the necessary data and play offline until your key expires.
4. Want to protect your game files? Try something clever for a change, like, I dunno, using an encrypted VM or something? There has to be tech around that does not involve leaving your game files on a harddisk for all to see. Encrypt using an account created when you register the game.
What was your argument again?The word you're looking for is Schadenfreude.
No. If you paid for the game, crack the shit out of it. Break the DRM in as many ways as possible. I sure as hell do. I pay for my games, and where draconian DRM exists (I.E.Software DRM in any fashion), I crack it. I still paid for the thing, and have a right to use it. Fuck them. I don't care if it's technically illegal to circumvent DRM under any circumstances. Fair use.Yup. You are. The FREE part is exactly why you are. Either pay for the game, and if neccessary crack it to make it work, or don't buy the game and don't play it. You can't have the moral high ground while digging in the dirt.Welcome to reality. That's what everyone wants (except the publishers). You're here on one side justifying infringement, and the publishers are on the other side using your infringement to justify the draconian measures you're using to justify infringement. Life's funny ain't it?Yeah. Sucks doesn't it. I've run into that in the past. DRM is bullshit. The developers still deserve to be paid. Honestly the publishers can all go out of business tomorrow for how much value they add to the industry. I'm pretty sure the devs would be happier too.That's nice, but in no way are you entitled to that under any possible interpretation of fair use. If a movie doesn't have a trailer, it doesn't give you the right to pirate it. Rent the movie. Play the game at a friend's house. If grocers aren't offering free samples of a product, doesn't give you the right to steal some and return the rest if it tastes like shit.Again, good for you. You're exactly why DRM exists. Way to go :rockout:There's no solution. The problem exists because of greed. The greed you have and the greed the content producers have. "That guy isn't playing fair so I"m just going to take what feels fair to me"FUCK. NO. Times Infinity. This is exactly what publishers want. Pay to play. Pay for DLC. Pay for the next level. Pay for fucking ammo in the gun. Pay for the wonderful service of being blessed with the opportunity to pay.
What you are describing is impossible to implement without DRM. The stronger and more intrusive DRM, the more likely Pay-to-play in the way you've described it is to succeed. The logical answer is an old-fashioned demo, which they definitely need to do much more often. Otherwise, without DRM it's impossible to restrict access in any way.FUCK. NO. Demo is a demo, for fuck's sake don't give them any more ideas about activating shit. This is pay to play, not a demo. The only difference here is you get the privilege of paying for online play seperately.FUCK. NO.
An encrypted VM? Are you high? That's just DRM all over again, with the built-in bonus of the virtualisation overhead on top of the DRM's encryption.
No accounts, no activation. The only DRM that ever had a chance was Hardware based. I.E. either you need to plug something in to play (FUCK NO) or gameplay that by design requires a physical object (such as the manual) and ideally multiple physical items, with no software DRM whatsoever.
damned DRM. raeg face.
legit users treated like criminals :(
You don't want a discussion, do you?Publishers have their place in the industry, bringing games to my (virtual) doorstep. Too bad they try to do much more than that.Did I say that was legal? No. I say that is a countermeasure I have to take, because publishers are lacking in presenting a hands-on experience.
If your supermarket was full of 1001 crappy peanut butters and maybe 5 good ones, would you buy all of them to make sure you have the 5 good ones?
We are constantly promised great games, with great reviews, hypes, everybody being hyperactive about the next best game, and somehow, at the same time, games are getting worse and worse. With a market that's simply not fulfilling its promises, and reviewers being enthousiastic about everything, what tool is left to actually determine whether I would like a game or not?
DRM exists because of today's bad average product quality. Nothing else.How is improving quality and decreasing quantity not a solution? Or is it? You don't actually respond to what you quote here, so I'm not sure.
Also, way to be open-minded. Try reading my post without thinking I'm your enemy, and you might be able to interpret some stuff I say as attempts to create solutions.
The problem exists because you think there is no solution.
Also illustrated by the comments below:No. I mean, literally, Pay to Play. Like renting a game. Stop adding your doom scenarios to your interpretation of my posts.It is possible. Rent a game.Is "FUCK. NO." your way of marking a list? We have [*] for that.
And again, I'm not talking about paying for online play, I mean paying for play period. And while that might not be an ideal method for full-game distribution, I can see limited-time play as a good alternative for demos.
Maybe you have some good ideas to make it easier to implement a hands-on experience? Because we need that.[*]How is a VM DRM? I don't care about DRM's encryption, I care about DRM's intrusion. There's nothing wrong with protecting your product in a non-intrusive way.No accounts, no activation, no DRM, I get that. I also get that publishers and devs don't want you going around copying the shit out of their games. So how do we protect the games without DRM? Accounts and activations are the easiest way to fix that at the moment, but I was trying to throw some ideas on the table.
Hardware DRM? Like USB dongles? Do you have any idea how easy that is to spoof?
"I've had the same steady job for 4 years now (since I graduated), have never had to rely on Social Security, do not get paid under the table anywhere, and pay my taxes.
Still, I have to agree on some points with this guy."
He said:
"if there is no DRM i wouldn't buy games. Right now you can basically get a pirate copy, but its hard to work and install and actually work. But if that was made easier then i wouldn't buy BFBC2 or MOH id download it for free. That is the truth for most people.
i do buy my games BTW, just b/c i don't want the hassle. "
What exactly are you agreeing with, because it seems to me like you spent your entire post disagreeing with him. I read your post in-context, that is, as if you had agreed with him, as you said.That's not a denigrating comment. Working for the money you have, as opposed to abusing the system, paying for things you use, paying your taxes and declaring your income is not an accomplishment. It's an obligation. It's part of being an adult. For the record, I never lumped you in with him with the "you and people like you" comment, you did by "agreeing" with him, and then feel the need to bring up that you don't behave like him. What does that have to do with anything? I never said that circumventing copy protection makes you a lazy cunt. I said taking things without paying for them, or paying for things solely because it's too much effort for him to go to a torrent site and type the name of the game into the search box makes him a lazy cunt. Not you, or anyone else. You're the one who assumed I was attacking you. I was attacking HIM, and he deserved it. The "denigrating" comment made above was a simple, if snarky, statement of fact.We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. Paying for content (regardless of quality) that has had thousands if not millions of man hours or effort not to mention millions of dollars put into it soley out of laziness, and preferring to take that without paying regardless of what happens to people's livelihoods makes him a douche in my book. He's the one making the publisher's case for DRM. Not me.Several times. I still fail to see how you're agreeing with him. You seem to be mad because I called him a lazy cunt, and somehow feel that I was saying the same about anyone who dies anything but sing EA's praises, which is a wild assumption.Nah, it's a relatively common word used in english. English steals from other languages a lot. It's really a throw away point, doesn't really have anything to do with the discussion.And that's pretty irrelevant. If the DRM is that terrible, people shouldn't be buying it (or they should demand reimbursement). Fact is, most people get frustrated and give up, sadly. On the other hand, if people like Stevie B there who only buys games because the DRM makes him, and who would rather take it without paying if it weren't so <sarcasm> DAMN HARD</sarcasm> to get a pirate copy to work, didn't exist, neither would DRM, and normal customers wouldn't have to put up with this shit. That's why I call him a douche. He's the problem on the consumer side. He's the profile that the publishers use to generalise and cry pirate about people like you and me who circumvent DRM for fair use reasons. I.E. to get what we paid for.Yes, you did. Point taken. I seem to have misread that. On the other hand, I was reading your post in context of being in agreement with an unashamedly lazy-ass pirate with no desire to pay for anything regardless of quality. He made it pretty clear that his action would be to take it for free if he wasn't so lazy (he said if there wasn't DRM he wouldn't be paying for it and he'd take it for free. There's still a price tag, just no security guard on the store). I mean sure, I'd love a ton of games for free - if they were given to me legally. I'd also love to fuck Scarlett Johansson, but I wouldn't go rape her if it was made easy for me to slip some pills in her drink, I'd prefer the lay, but not without consent regardless of how easy it may or may not be.No sarcasm. That's what's happening. People like you justify pirating a game because the DRM and crappy content these days makes buying a game a minefield. The publishers justify DRM by assuming that every illicit download is a lost sale (bullshit) regardless of if you would have bought it if there was a demo and had the chance to play test it first. Basically, they assume that every pirate copy is being downloaded by Steven B. Cracking a legally liscenced game is in my opinion (and in fact legally is) distinct from downloading a precracked or uncracked game then cracking it if you haven't paid for it. The important part in my opinion is whether or not the game in question is legally owned by the person circumventing the DRM for personal use.With you? Perhaps. With a douche like him? nope.Exactly. They're the RIAA of the games industry. (For the record I was referring to the big name conglomerates like Ubisoft, Activision, EA, etc) If they'd just fund and publish games, and take in their royalties instead of making DRM a contractual obligation for Devs to get any money along with unrealistic production date demands and forced steering of the development then they'd be fine. That's not reality, unfortunately. Most of the game developers who've begun self publishing through third parties end up a lot more successful, and seem to have happier customers.You have to do nothing of the sort. Videogames are not a neccessity. They're a luxury, one I enjoy thouroghly and lament the disease that piracy, DRM, huge quantities/budgets and poor quality have created in the industry.
You saved some money because Fallout 3 wasn't enough like 1 and 2 and you didn't like it. Great. You could have done that without pirating it. You are not entitled to previews of content unless the content creator deems that you should have that privilege, unfortunately, so not having a demo is their right, and you have no recourse but to find a legal avenue to test the full product or skip the product.
For the record, the supermarket is pretty much full of crap designed to appeal to the latest money-making trend (Low-fat foods that have a ton of salt to try to keep some amount of taste, which at least in the past was VERY common comes to mind... so does the "Green" tag being thrown on products all over the place). No I don't go out and buy every peanut butter in the store. If there were literally 1000 crappy products on the market, I'd use some common sense and ask others who's opinions i respect whats good. I don't need to try the new peanut butter on release day. If you find the right to taste peanut butter without buying it somewhere in your country's constitution, please let me know ;)It sucks, I know it does. Still doesn't give you or anyone else the right to pirate it. I really wish the legal system were more strict on false advertising.Oh? Steven B says:
"if there is no DRM i wouldn't buy games. Right now you can basically get a pirate copy, but its hard to work and install and actually work. But if that was made easier then i wouldn't buy BFBC2 or MOH id download it for free. That is the truth for most people.
i do buy my games BTW, just b/c i don't want the hassle. "
If it was easy to get it for free, I wouldn't buy it. I only buy it because I don't want the hassle. <- That's what he's saying, and that's why DRM exists. It's to stop the casual or lazy pirate. DRM was never intended to stop the motivated crackers. Crackers gonna Crack. I still fail to see what points of his you agree with. You seem to be pretty against his stance of "DRM is the only reason I pay for stuff". Your stance seems to be "I don't pay for stuff until I'm sure the DRM doesn't ruin it" which is about as far from his stance as you can get.Ok, sorry. I should have said: Realistically, it'll never happen because the head honchos at EA and the like just care about whats in your wallet, and the sad truth is every pirate on the planet would have to stop pirating before anybody could convince a lot of those guys that taking a risk on new IP instead of milking the cash cow and not pumping it with DRM is worth their investment. Again, Steven B seems to be making the case for the publishers here. I'd love what you're suggesting to actually happen. I just don't think it ever will.HUH? The shitty state of the industry exists because I fail to see a realistic solution to the deadlock between lazy cunts like Steven B and the greedy suits in charge of the Old Guard of the publishing industry?Again, do you really expect a corporation like EA to develop a completely new sales method at great cost to themselves and not milk the crap out of it? Yeah, it's possible, but not bloody likely from the old guard. It took an industry outsider (Apple) to convince the music industry that any form of digital download was anything but spawn of satan, and it's taking other industry outsiders to prove that digital distribution can make a crapton of money without building a walled garden. The music industry hates those guys. Sure, you can make a crapton of money without DRM, but there's a theoretical crapton more to be made with perfect (impossible) DRM, so they fight it tooth and nail. Why would you expect the games industry to be any different. Last I checked, EA wasn't a charity.That's only possible because consoles are designed around being as closed off as possible, with hardware DRM built-in from the beginning. You pay to have the physical disc in your possesion and can't play without it. How many rental stores do you figure would exist if you didn't need a modchip to play a burnt copy of a game? How many less if the modchip wasn't needed and the discs didn't have features designed to foul up burnt copies? How do digital download rentals work? By restricting playtime, and enforcing that with DRM. How can you stop somebody from playing longer if the whole content is there? (IE. It's a full-game rental, not an episodic purchase or old fasioned demo) By having DRM there to enforce a time limit. Check with the server to see if guy paid enough for him to be playing right now -> if yes allow to play, if no, do not allow to play. That's DRM. I didn't say it's impossible to do. I said it's impossible without some form of DRM.Nope. Just me expressing how terrible I think those ideas are. Ever read any Maddox? You get the idea.Why? You still need the DRM to limit playtime. How does that add anything to a demo? Why should I pay anything for a demo? If there's enough content to be worth paying for, it's not really any longer a demo, it's getting into the territory of Episodic games. Paying to purchase a portion of the full experience. How does adding a time limit improve that model (which never really worked for the majority of games anyway)Old fashioned demos. Shareware. It worked for a lotta years. I don't claim to be an innovator.If it restricts what you can do with the product, and how you use it, it is by definition DRM. Digital Rights Management.
I don't think a VM is a good idea. They can't get disc checks to work right, you really want them to start virtualising things? I'm curious though, how do you imagine a VM would work to protect software without classic DRM style restrictions?Accounts and activation is a form of DRM. It requires the classic DRM restrictions, and when it isn't working properly it's just as bad as any other form of DRM. See Mussels's post above. The whole point is if you make a game without software DRM, but with the need to have something physical in your possession to play the game (which has gotten a lot harder to implement given the rise of the internet, admittedly), and designed in such a way that using that physical object to be able to play the game adds fun to the experience, then it's a win-win scenario. The physical object needs to be very difficult to copy, which is why manual-based code input worked in the past but not anymore. The idea is to make it as much work as possible to play the game without paying for it, and as little work as possible if you did.
I don't think that profile would work for online games, some form of classic Key-based or modern account-based system is needed for that, but I don't see why I or anyone else should have to sign in to an online "service" and authenticate myself, hopefully successfully, in order to play a singleplayer campaign.No. That was my "Plug in something to play (FUCK NO)" comment. That sort of thing is just as easy to break as software DRM. I mean either old fashioned physical, non-connective object based DRM or Disc-check style DRM (which works well in the console world because the entire device is built to make it hard or impossible to play without a valid pressed disc containing signed code, where PCs are designed to run any code compatible with the processor instruction set and conforming to certain profiles).
DRM of any form is difficult, time consuming, and expensive to implement. I wish they would just make quality games for a fair price, and release them without DRM. Unfortunately that won't happen because EA and their ilk won't go 99% of the way and allow you to come that last 1% and buy the game. People like GOG are starting to, successfully. Again change needs to come from those who are not a part of the Old guard of the industry. They're too set in their ways and concern themselves more with the fact that People like Steven B would still download a pirate copy regardless of how high quality the game is, how cheap it may be, or how much effort the devs put into it unless they make it a pain in the ass to do so; and with people like you who pirate in order to evaluate (high-quality is a subjective thing. Many many people loved fallout 3. You didn't. From EA's point of view, why spend money on a demo when they could be spending that money stopping the Steven Bs of the world, even if they piss you off. The new guys at the table like GOG.com can see that there's money to be made and goodwill to be had by treating their customers like they are customers rather than theives, even if the theives still exist.