Wow, someone woke up in a bad mood... Seems like you're
reading this exactly how you want to read it, and in no way like it was intended.
Nope. You said:
"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.
Very good to initiate a disagreement with a denigrating comment like this. Do you actually want a discussion?
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.
That doesn't make one a douche, that merely makes him short-sighted.
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.
Lost it already? Have you tried reading twice? See? Nobody likes attacks.
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.
I take it you assume I know German? Why?
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.
That's not what normal customers do. Normal customers get frustrated because their games will not run when they install them clean out of the box.
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.
I said DRM-free, not free. Also, keep in mind there is a distinct difference between preference and action.
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.
There's nothing funny about it. Also, congratulations on misplaced sarcasm.
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.
You don't want a discussion, do you?
With you? Perhaps. With a douche like him? nope.
Publishers have their place in the industry, bringing games to my (virtual) doorstep. Too bad they try to do much more than that.
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.
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?
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
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?
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.
DRM exists because of today's bad average product quality. Nothing else.
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.
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.
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.
The problem exists because you think there is no solution.
Also illustrated by the comments below:
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?
No. I mean, literally, Pay to Play. Like renting a game. Stop adding your doom scenarios to your interpretation of my posts.
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.
It is possible. Rent a game.
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.
Is "FUCK. NO." your way of marking a list? We have [*] for that.
Nope. Just me expressing how terrible I think those ideas are. Ever read any Maddox? You get the idea.
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.
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)
Maybe you have some good ideas to make it easier to implement a hands-on experience? Because we need that.
Old fashioned demos. Shareware. It worked for a lotta years. I don't claim to be an innovator.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Hardware DRM? Like USB dongles? Do you have any idea how easy that is to spoof?
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.
