Publishers "scared" to scrap DRM Comments by Robert Purchese

First... =P

At least someone in the gaming industry understands that DRM is more punishing than benificial

Give this man a medal and send him to EA so he can kill their management staff.

I stopped buying anything with DRM on as far as i could, around 6 years ago.

Thats means CDs that had one of the several forms of DRM were not an option, DVDs were purchased and ripped so that the content could be used on many devices, and some games just never got bought.

Sure I like entertainment as much as the next guy, but companies meed to learn that their customers are not criminals and treating them as such from the beginning of the relationship is dumb.

Been saying the same thing for years, let's face it the money spent on these DRM companies could be put to better use anyway

Amen...

Why dson't EA just give Valve a few quid and allow their catalogue to go on Steam. EA gets money, without the headache of, you know, actually trying to figure out how to do it right when someone already has.

Never understood the point of DRM really... all it does is annoy the people who buy genuine products as everyone else can download a DRM-free version! It may prevent a few thousands copies of a game being obtained illegally but ultimately it'll be tens of thousands of people who download the pirated version so why bother?

Personally, I hate DRM as it restricts how I use that content. For example, if I buy music downloads I always opt for DRM-free MP3s from Play.com as opposed to the protected WMA stuff of 7digital or the AACs that iTunes uses. Obviously I cannot do that for games but if I became annoyed by DRM in games then I'd certainly consider downloading illegally, not because I want to but because it's less hassle!

P.S. Off-topic but does anyone get annoyed by those anti-piracy videos on DVDs and BDs that remind you to not download movies illegally? I mean I bought the damn disc I'm watching... it's not me they should be telling that too. The pirated versions of these things will no doubt not include this video so, again, what's the point of them except to annoy the genuine buyers? :?

The revolution is happening.

@Darren: You can buy unprotected AAC (which are better than mp3s btw) songs from the iTunes Store too. Look out for the albums and songs with a + (plus) sign.

Zaelsius:

I was about to make myself look a fool and correct you that the iTunesPlus stuff is just high-bitrate mp3s.

Of course, I thought I'd double-check. And no, the stuff I've bought is indeed ma4 format. Dammit! I specifically bought them because I thought "if iPods get beaten by a far superior portable music player at least the stuff I bought from iTunes is nice mp3 files."

Thanks for pointing that out!

I bought Warhammer Online last week. My choices were...£26.99 at GAME online, waiting for delivery , £27.99 for walking into a GAME store and picking up a copy or £34.99 for downloading it from EA.com.

£34.99????? What the fuck?

I get no box, no manual, and EA's fantastic you can only reinstall for 3 months then you have to pay some more. I mean, they don't have to make the discs or packaging, or pay a cut to the retailers. Frankly, EA are truly evil evil b'stards.

So I bought a copy in GAME even though i hate GAME too and i'd rather have downloaded it for £20 or so as it is the future....

Good to see this guy has the right idea, hopefully we'll see more publishers adopting a similar attitude over the next few years.

Oh and play.com sell quite decent DRM-Free MP3s

I downloaded Howard Jones' The 12" Album from iTunes last week (you cannot buy it on CD) thinking it would be 320 Kbps MP3 like Play.com but instead found out it was protected AAC (or M4A, whatever) and only 128 Kbps quality at that. Disappointing. Of course, you can copy the music to a CD as I did (if only for backup purposes) which meant it could be played (and ripped) to my PS3 and 360. So there is a way round the DRM on those files anyway which again rendered any protection pretty useless really, just an annoyance for the paying customer.

I remember when I tried to stream music from my PS3 only to discover that while it could play WMA files fine, it couldn't play those with DRM protection. Since I discovered that, I've removed all the DRM protection from my purchased songs and converted them to MP3. I had a painful experience when I upgraded my computer's motherboard, CPU and memory only to discover that the WMA songs I'd bought from Woolworths would no longer work and I had to tediously ask them to redo all the licenses so I could play them. I've vowed since never to knowngly purchase DRM protected songs! Shame I don't have that choice with games...

@MrChuckles - And that is what an all-digital future would be like, i.e. puiblishers could charge anything they like for their products because you wouldn't be able to buy them from anywhere else. For me, that's the very thing that kills any enthusiam I have for downloaded content. I mean even on the PS3 you have situations where the downloaded game on the PSN costs the same as the game on a disc with a manual, e.g. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. If the game costs the same then why even bother downloading it; you may as well buy the disc-based version and at least you have a legitimate backup!!!

I've been trying to "Pop over to GOG.com (Good Old Games) to see what's on offer." since it was first mentioned on here but it's neither launched yet nor seems to be accepting (or at least replying to) 'early access' email requests.

As an option, therefore, that places it fourth in a list of three.

Oh I remember the day POP Warrior Within screwed my PC very nicely .... it was the day I stopped buying games for the PC.

love DRM.

give me reason to pirate games without feel guilty.

you EA bastard cheat on me? I cheat on you, too!

@SunoffaBeach - Interesting way of putting it... and an interesting/clever user name too!

I bought the game Witcher, and it did not work.
WHY? Well the bloody cd-check do not work, so the game could not recognize the ORIGINAL DVD for some reason. Alot of people with the same problem on the internet. Really sad with a game that only allows the game to be installed and played ZERO times.
That was 20 Euro down the drain. Bastards

Gog.com is on closed beta.

Rob should have made that clear.

It's got some good games on there so far, Fallout, Freespace, Giants: CITIZEN KABUTO!!!

Fact is in every major publisher you can bet someone has spent a ton on DRM and is busy doing lots of nice powerpoints justifying the decusion

If u still got the witcher, download the extended edition, u don't need a cd for it. Need to register the game though.

Yeah, CD Projekt is a really good publisher here in Poland, if a game gets PL release than in 70% situations DRM is removed. For example Polish version of Mass Effect had that stupid DRM put by EA removed. Still sadly Mass Effect was the last bioware game CDP released since EA Poland does that now :/

I can accept only 1 DRM, and its the check if I have DVD inside my drive, thats all....no installation limits, no online scanning and shait like that.....and since EA sees me as a thief even tho I bought few of their games so far, than I say fek you, I won't buy your games anymore, even for PS3.....there is a bunch of better developers and publishers out there that can use my money.

It's hard to fathom why publishers are worrying about DRM on ten year old games, many of which can be downloaded in a few minutes from abandonware sites. I guess it's because they are narrow minded idiots.

Don't think DRM has much to do with piracy, they have to know it doesn't work, they know games are all over torrent sites days before they're released. It's about control. It makes it harder to sell games second hand, which is what they really hate. It won't be long before this stuff appears on consoles. If a game is locked to your PS4 hard drive you won't be able to sell it to Gamestation and anybody wanting a copy will have no choice but to pay full retail price.

"I bought Warhammer Online last week. My choices were...£26.99 at GAME online, waiting for delivery , £27.99 for walking into a GAME store and picking up a copy or £34.99 for downloading it from EA.com.

£34.99????? What the fuck?"

EA love digital distribution, they just don't like Steam. Steam has no download limits, Steam doesn't let them rent games.

"I've been trying to "Pop over to GOG.com (Good Old Games) to see what's on offer." since it was first mentioned on here but it's neither launched yet nor seems to be accepting (or at least replying to) 'early access' email requests.

As an option, therefore, that places it fourth in a list of three."

That'll be because it's still in closed beta.

DRM helps nobody. It'll just be a suit trying to get a payrise somewhere who decided to put it in Spore....

Suits... Big men in Big Siuts, making Big Decisions..... without actually knowing anything about the subject they're 'managing'.

Suitism.... It must be stamped out!

It does make me wonder. Are the guys making the decisions to add these new, even more restrictive forms of DRM, really that clueless? Or is there some other motive?

I know at least for EA, you have to phone a premium rate phone number to get your game unlocked if you install it more than three times. Or change your PC in any way - which sounds like a pretty good money spinner to me.

Maybe it aint about piracy - maybe they're just using it the same way governments are using "Terrorism" at the moment, as a big bad enemy that can justify doing basically anything they damn well please.

JayG wrote:
If u still got the witcher, download the extended edition, u don't need a cd for it. Need to register the game though.
-----------------
Thanx will try that, when i get home from work ;). 1gig.patch the biggest patch ever i think.

But anyway looks like CD project still is evil. The game seems to be locked on to the computer and windows installation where you first installed it. Its really no problem now. But one day i will update, buy a now computer etc.
CD project writes in their FAQ:

Q: Do I have to install the patch on the same computer I used to activate the game?

A: Yes, you must install the patch on the same computer you used to activate the game because the verification process must be able to reference the necessary registry entries.

----------
Come on cd-project- Be less evil, thanks. The free enhanced version is a good start. ;)

edited spelling

i blame th emusic industry for all of this shit. Of all the entrainment industries, it alone truly deserves its fate. It has failed, in every regard to adapt, change or grow. And has it has withered under the digital edge, its put the total shits in everyone else about the terrors and horros of piracy.

What has the games industry done? Rather than trya strategy that isnt working, they just follow the lead of the music industry and punish their customers.

great plan. as others have done, if i see copy protection, i tend to move on. Some times it just isnt possible, but some times it is.

It does make me wonder. Are the guys making the decisions to add these new, even more restrictive forms of DRM, really that clueless? Or is there some other motive? "

Stops second hand sales. They must lose far more to that than can be attributed to piracy. With the second hand market there's actually a justifiable argument that every used copy sold is a lost sale, since someone is clearly willing to pay money for a game but the cash goes to the games store and not the publisher. And very often the difference is just a few pounds from the RRP. DRM with limited activations makes this much more difficult.

Perhaps they could come to some agreement where pubs get a share of used sales, and lay off the stupid DRM. And then maybe Satan could fly to work on a pig.

I've had one machine require a total reinstall because of DRM. That wasn't actually that bad though, as it was mostly Vistas early driver state that made it weak - the DRM (mostly Starforce) just dealt the final blow.

I also encountered an anti-piracy thing in Battle for Middle-Earth recently, where it'd run for about 5 minutes then auto-defeat you. Turns out it was a piracy thing, and a suprisingly high number of people on the googled forums would tell you it was impossible for a legal copy and tell others to piss off and buy the game. Moral of that is if you have to have DRM, make it work at least.

P.S. Off-topic but does anyone get annoyed by those anti-piracy videos on DVDs and BDs that remind you to not download movies illegally? I mean I bought the damn disc I'm watching... it's not me they should be telling that too. The pirated versions of these things will no doubt not include this video so, again, what's the point of them except to annoy the genuine buyers? :?


Yes, that's always annoyed me. I'm not sure there is much point to it. The only thing I could think of, would be that these messages may reduce the chance that a legitimate purchaser would turn to the dark side. Some sort of strange negative reinforcement.

I bought Warhammer Online last week. My choices were...£26.99 at GAME online, waiting for delivery , £27.99 for walking into a GAME store and picking up a copy or £34.99 for downloading it from EA.com.

That's ace. It was only £29.95 from Direct2Drive (another download service).

Better solutions are needed. More flexible DRM systems would be fine. They're there to make sure that there is still an industry to make blockbuster games in ten years time. Currently they're waaaay too draconian, but we've got to get used to the idea that in a time of entirely digital media there is no longer any difference between owning a 'real' download and a fake, so the makers have to do their best to make sure they still get paid for their work.

Why do PC owners love Steam so much? It essentially started out as DRM/spyware for Half Life 2. And it would be nice if we could hear some solutions to PC piracy rather than just bitching about publishers trying to protect their property (and price is not a valid argument as nothing will be cheaper than free).

Why do PC owners love Steam so much? It essentially started out as DRM/spyware for Half Life 2.

Don't care what it started as, what it is now is a very user-friendly digital distribution platform with a huge catalogue of indie and mainstream titles and some nice community features. It's not perfect, but it's a good start.

Steam is the dog's bollocks.

Now I've never used that idiom before, but Steam deserves it. Yes when it launched it was shit, believe me I know (my steam ID has only 5 figures, what's the users now, 10 million+?). But these days it's almost faultless.

I got the entire X-Com series for about £8 on steam last week, best £8 I ever did spend.

@PearofAnguish:
Stops second hand sales. They must lose far more to that than can be attributed to piracy.

People have mentioned this before, but is there really that big a market for secondhand PC games? GAME doesn't accept them at all any more, nor does gamestation if i recall correctly.

Is Ebay really contributing that many used sales that the industry considers it a threat?

As a quick note, Steam is great until it goes wrong and you suddenly can't play the game you just paid for. Happened to me a couple of times. At this point your attitude changes from "This is working pretty well" to "This is actually almost exactly like bad DRM, also, Valve's customer service sucks."

Why do PC owners love Steam so much?

Because it works, because the games I've bought have been well priced, because it's incredibly easy to use, because I don't have to go to the shop or wait for the post, I can just get the game when I want it, because I don't have to bother with CDs, because it doesn't care which machine I'm using or what I upgrade etc.

If anything, Steam was revitalized my interest in PC games, I would probably never have tried TrackMania, for example, but a reasonably hefty version was just sat there (free), so I downloaded it whilst working on my PC. A few days later I've bought the full version.

In short, because it's good.

PearOfAnguish said: "EA love digital distribution, they just don't like Steam. Steam has no download limits, Steam doesn't let them rent games."

Dude, with Steam you ARE renting games. Everytime you install a game, your Steam client asks permission to Valve. If tomorrow Valve changes the system, or simply shuts down its validation server, you won't be able to install your game anymore. Heck, Steam is DRM.

I bought fallout 1 and freespace 2 for the princely sum of $5.99 from http://www.gog.com the other day. It was easy, a fast download, and (of course) cheap. They have pdfs of manuals, and even associated files like wallpapers and soundtracks for each game.

Highly commended so far. They're doing things exactly how they should be done.

People have mentioned this before, but is there really that big a market for secondhand PC games? GAME doesn't accept them at all any more, nor does gamestation if i recall correctly.

Gamestation does. There's also Amazon marketplace and Ebay.

I don't think the second-hand PC market accounts for too much at the moment, simply because PC games are actually quite reasonably priced, and because many of them have DRM and online accounts where there's a risk of getting a key code that's been banned. But I suspect they are gearing up to introduce this tech into consoles. And when you activate a game they know your IP address, registration means they have your details...with in-game advertising you can see how this would all work together.

Obviously I can't say for sure whether it is about eliminating the second-hand market, but I can say what it's not about: piracy. They know full well it has no effect. Piracy is simply a convenient reason for introducing these schemes that could have all kinds of interesting (read: profitable) applications in the future.

Dude, with Steam you ARE renting games. Everytime you install a game, your Steam client asks permission to Valve. If tomorrow Valve changes the system, or simply shuts down its validation server, you won't be able to install your game anymore. Heck, Steam is DRM.

It's not like EA's system where you're blocked from downloading after three months. With Steam you can download as much as you like, until they shut down the servers. And I'm fairly certain that Valve has said if it ever came to that they would try to figure out a way to give people access to their games.

Gamestation accepts them? Ah, fair enough then.

I suppose it makes sense as a testing ground for future console tech, because they know PC users are used to DRM and an awful lot of them will just put up with it.

Anyway, Steam is the best digital distribution/DRM combo currently out there, but that doesn't make it good. You're still dependent on an online server to play games that don't need to be online. And "offline mode" is only useful when it works. Quite often it doesn't.

Steam is definitely more fair than your average download service, but it's still merely the best of a bad bunch.

/Looks at Spore...
Oh yeah that safety blanket worked out really nicely diden't it??

Steam is OK I guess. I bought Half-Life 2 through it as well as Dark Messiah M&M but IMO a lot of the games on there are overpriced compared with what I'd pay for the same from GAME. Plus you cannot play the games until the day of release whereas I was playing something like SPORE the day before, thanks to receiving it through the post early. OK so it's not a big deal but the high prices certainly are. Older games tend to be cheaper granted but then they are at Play.com too. I've yet to be fully convinced by the merits of downloading games to tell the truth... even if I did I'd still have to do the sensible thing and back them up to DVD so my argument is that I might as well buy the disc version anyway, complete with nice-looking box and manual.

The trouble with downloading stuff left, right and centre is you forget what it is you own and where you got it from, not to mention having to remember loads of usernames and passwords in case you should need to redownload stuff. To me it's all rather messy and having to backup everything as I said above makes buying the disc version a more attractive proposition anyway.

Hey I thought EA were supposed to be changing their ways?

;)

I am pretty sure the can take down torrents or at least make them a lot less reliable.

A, upload your own games with virus bombs inside to truely kill the PC.

B, hook onto existing torrents and start uploading corrupted data, it may only send a few kbs here and there but thats enough to screw up achieves.

If they kept doing that eventually it would push it deeper underground, it won't stop but it will be enough to put off the average Joe off and mean you can't just type what you want plus the word torrent in google and find it.

Hmmm that just echos what I said.....sometimes I think my fellow devs have me bugged!

A, upload your own games with virus bombs inside to truely kill the PC.

They already do this. It's called SecuROM.

Ba-dum tish!

Comedy gold, folks.

I used to be directly hands on with DRM as a software developer and operations lead for one of the main international players in the music & movie DRM space, and personally I think the solution is somewhere in the middle. 'The Console/iPod Generation' always want everything for free and immediately (e.g. Xbox Live Silver people who whinge they get things mere days later than Gold members despite not paying for it), and subsequently companies and individuals who still support protected content are mocked as living in the past.

However everyone needs to be realistic that if something has no restrictions then it's whored across the world for every dirty skank that doesn't want a job to just thieve. The fact that ye olde Napster was so popular, and BitTorrent currently is so popular, is testament to that fact. People will nick what they can from their own bedrooms, so it's unfair to expect other people's bread-and-butter to be freely accessible without protection.

Having said that, DRM in its current format is a joke. You can't sell a product yet tell the customers they can only do 'A' and not 'B, C, D, or E' with their investment. Some of the labels I worked with allowed a mere 3 different devices per licence, that wouldn't even cover my home entertainment devices for one installation. They were clueless and couldn't understand why people weren't snapping up their music as they did with CDs. I don't think that Joe Bloggs would mind some form passive protection on his purchases (ID authentication, for example), as long as it understandably didn't impact their usage. DRM clearly does.

So all in all I think it's naive for publishers to be called weak for not abandoning DRM for a protection-free attitude - digital purchasing hasn't exactly sky-rocketed for companies offering DRM-free solutions either; however they really need to take more interest in a better protected solution as there are a number out there ripe for the taking.

The companies clutching at DRM now are the ones that were last to accept DRM in the first place.

@IneptPercy: There isn't really anything that can truly kill a PC. At worst, you'd have to reinstall windows. You have to do that a lot anyway. It's windows.

Also, people would notice, tell everyone in the torrents' comments, then noone would download it. There's plenty of fake torrents around, but they never get more popular than the real ones, for that reason.

You can upload corrupted data if you want, but the bittorrent protocol is designed to check the incoming data for corruption on the fly, and as a consequence, nobody would actually get corrupted downloads. In fact most bittorrent applications ban an IP if too much corrupted data is sent, so it wouldn't even significantly effect speeds.

The virus method is also illegal, but that wouldn't actually stop the industry's shadier companies from doing it, of course.

It's also worth noting that there was plenty of piracy before bittorrent, and even if bittorrent were eliminated, there would not suddenly be a massive increase in sales, basically because a lot of people who do download games then wouldn't buy them anyway.

Publishers "scared" to scrap DRM deserve to sell shit.