DRM, the discussion continues...

[lexluthermiester]

Just watched the following Youtube video from MVG where he talks about SecuROM.

Near the end of the video he talked about how it was just easier to download the "patched" version and play then to deal with the legit process. I have to agree with this as it was often far easier to wait for a "patch" to be made then to jump through the hoops of the requirements implemented by publishers. In today's digital software distribution model environment, DRM still plays a heavy hand in the frustrations of playing games you own.

Personally, if a game is not available DRM-free(on GOG or otherwise), I will either not buy it, or will wait till a "patched" version is made, then buy it and play the patched version.

What are your thoughts? Is it frustrating for you? Do you care enough to be worried about the future of gaming?

 

[sam_86314]

I absolutely despise DRM. I've had many unpleasant run-ins with it (mainly involve being locked out of a game that I legally purchased and is physically on my computer just because the DRM couldn't phone home). I've been rebuying some games on GOG purely because they are DRM free. Hell, I've even been unable to play physical versions of games because their DRM activation service no longer exists.

There's a problem when legitimately purchasing a piece of software gives you a worse experience than acquiring it by other means.

DRM does not prevent piracy. I'd argue (and the video touches on it) that it only further encourages it. The best way to prevent piracy is to compete with it. Give people a reason to buy your product, don't use heavy-handed tactics to try and force them.

I wish circumvention of DRM was legal...

 

[rtwjunkie]

I care...mostly. What do I mean by that?

I will always buy a game on GOG for no DRM and ownership if the game is available elsewhere. However, if it is not available on GOG, then I will get it at where it is sold, whether that be Steam, Epic, Uplay or Origin.

My reasoning is although I care about DRM free, I won’t let DRM if it is the only option, prevent me from enjoying something I want to play.

If one of those games later becomes DRM free, I will happily buy it again in that form, and uninstall from whatever other game launcher it is on. Not all of thoseDRM-free forms are on GOG. I have a small number of games that I have bought on Amazon that are direct downloads without DRM and play from a desktop shortcut, just how I play my GOG games.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I wish circumvention of DRM was legal...

Under the terms of fair use, it actually is.

 

[Grog6]

Agreed.

I hate the fact that I can't rip my DVD's and blu-rays with MKV to my hard drive, to prevent wear on the original media, and I can't use Handbrake to convert them to other forms to make them easier to use in my daily life.

I totally hate that can't capture Youtube videos to my hard drive, and save them against future deletion, using various plugins.

The fact that it's illegal has totally stopped innovation in the field, ever since dvd ripping was made illegal, and Pirate Bay was closed.

It is sad times when what you can listen to/see/watch is based on your wallet.

 

[robot zombie]

Worried for the future of gaming because of DRM? Not really... I see it as a symptom of bigger problems.

This whole turning commodities into services crap is hot right right now, but something tells me there is a natural cap to it. How many subscriptions can a person afford before they have to stop paying subscriptions? It's appealing... to lock-in a steady chunk of someone's steady income. Personally, I think it's a really greasy way of pulling money out of nothing... but like most of those tactics, it will fail one way or another. Or I like to hope it will. Turning a commodity into a service has some appeal, but also kills a big part of the time-honored appeal of spending money, which is OWNING commodities. Like, shit man, could you imagine if everything you bought was like that? You buy a new TV and you can't even set it up yourself... can't touch it or move it.... nothing. It's like a museum piece. They keep it all under lock-and-key in super-thick plexi with sensors and all of this shit. One trips and the TV stops working.

And you always have to keep paying for it or they take it away - doesn't matter that it's been there for 5 years and they've gotten enough to buy 3 more TV's outta you just for letting it sit in your house.

Kinda reminds me of those seedy electronics rental places. Nobody really wants that.

Some of them are good. I like music as a service in that it lets me explore a whole lot more music easily, without having to carry an mp3 player with a limited library. But then, for the albums I really like, I generally still can buy a physical copy that I can do whatever I want with... even get fresh vinyl! They haven't figured out how to put DRM on vinyl yet...

DRM is annoying as hell, but fortunately due to the nature of IT, probably will never be effective.

I wonder how many people pirate games that have DRM just because they have DRM and they know somebody already broke it on day f'in zero. There's a nice nuance to that idea, I think. That in trying to lock down their commodity, basically pull away everything that makes it one, and limit how people access it, they're actually enticing people to go out of thier way to get full access without paying a dime. Which to me... I wouldn't do it, but it's like stoop low enough and you find demons prodding at your ass. As long as they wanna stick to these bullshit DRM tactics, there are always gonna be people willing to stoop lower to undermine it. It's all relative.

To me, it's a band-aid. Or at least, that is one way I can think of where it could actually be useful for someone. When sales are off target, they can tell their shareholders it's because of piracy and roll-out the DRM.

 

[sam_86314]

Under the terms of fair use, it actually is.

Agreed.

I hate the fact that I can't rip my DVD's and blu-rays with MKV to my hard drive, to prevent wear on the original media, and I can't use Handbrake to convert them to other forms to make them easier to use in my daily life.

I totally hate that can't capture Youtube videos to my hard drive, and save them against future deletion, using various plugins.

The fact that it's illegal has totally stopped innovation in the field, ever since dvd ripping was made illegal, and Pirate Bay was closed.

It is sad times when what you can listen to/see/watch is based on your wallet.

Court: breaking DRM for a "fair use" is legal

In another victory for fair use, a federal court says that simply bypassing …

arstechnica.com

A federal appeals court has just ruled that breaking through a digital security system to access software doesn't trigger the "anti-circumvention" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Any other interpretation of the DMCA, declared the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, would permit infringement liability for tapping into a work simply to "view it or to use it within the purview of 'fair use' permitted under the Copyright Act."

In other words, just circumventing the technology isn't enough to get into trouble with the DMCA. The circumvention must lead to some violation of copyright.

So the bottom line here appears to be that if a consumer breaks through the DRM on some software, what they do after that is the crucial determinant of whether they've run afoul of the DMCA.

This echos what I originally thought. If you rip a DVD or Blu-ray for private personal use, you should be fine. If you commit copyright infringement by freely redistributing it, then you're in trouble.

In general, I just think the DMCA desperately needs to be rewritten.

 

[Grog6]

Records/cassettes/vhs recordings were cool to the companies because they would eventually get damaged, and you'd need a new copy.

30 years ago, they could have implemented a policy to replace damaged media, but they didn't do that, and made it clear that it was the "physical implementation" that was yours.

Then, they wanted to sell you a copy of each type of media.

TPB was the answer for that.

I have no problem paying artists for their music, the entire $0.15 they get per album.

Sherly Crowe wrote a famous diatribe about how she gets 0.15 per album; the music company gets the rest.
It's apparently disappeared from the web, but I remember.

Every "online music" offering that went down ripped off their subscribers, so far.

 

[Vayra86]

I don't have problems with DRM on its own. I do have problems with not being able to access my content whenever I want. DRM with always-on requirements for example, creates additional dependancies upon other services, and its often more than you may think. For a simple login... your ISP; the datacenter, releases on any related software in the chain/landscape (easily 10+ applications, different OS'es, etc.), authentication server, and then the actual token exchange.

That's quite a lot of shit just to play some game or access some bit of entertainment. And not something I want to worry about in my spare time.

To me, DRM stands or falls with reliability of services. The track record so far is OK, but every second of downtime reduces the score dramatically. Its a very thin line. Its also a very thin line to class action because continuity of service is not respected.

Bottom line, if I can get no DRM with no hassle, I'll take it. I'm allergic to hassle for things that can and should be simple.

Records/cassettes/vhs recordings were cool to the companies because they would eventually get damaged, and you'd need a new copy.

30 years ago, they could have implemented a policy to replace damaged media, but they didn't do that, and made it clear that it was the "physical implementation" that was yours.

Then, they wanted to sell you a copy of each type of media.

TPB was the answer for that.

I have no problem paying artists for their music, the entire $0.15 they get per album.

Sherly Crowe wrote a famous diatribe about how she gets 0.15 per album; the music company gets the rest.
It's apparently disappeared from the web, but I remember.

Every "online music" offering that went down ripped off their subscribers, so far.

Hehe amen to this.

The next best thing they are trying is to get us subbed to 9065713581 on demand outlets at the same time, getting snippets of what we want to see and hear from all sorts of places. Sounds like a great, future proof idea right. I think we'll be seeing those torrents grow very soon again.

 

[sam_86314]

TRON: Evolution unplayable 8 years after launch due to DRM

After being pulled from Steam earlier in the year, it seems that DRM is preventing owners of TRON: Evolution from playing the game they've purchased.

www.gamerevolution.com

Spoiler: Related Reddit Thread

https://www.reddit.com/r/tron/comments/e5d4fw

Apparently this happened because the publisher let their DRM license expire. I don't play this game, but this is a good example of what can happen with DRM on games. I wouldn't be surprised if this happens to other games in the future.

It seems that the only way to play this game now is to "patch" it regardless of whether you legally bought it or not.

 

[lexluthermiester]

It seems that the only way to play this game now is to "patch" it regardless of whether you legally bought it or not.

This is exactly why fair-use exists and why DRM is foul and predatory.

 

[INSTG8R]

I mean I can’t think of any major issues I’ve had with DRM since Starforce but I do make sure I fire up my GTA 4 and DLC once in awhile just to make sure it’s still working. But then I think of the incident with FC5 and EAC where it was treating lighting programs as malicious while the game had special keyboard lighting effects requiring the software Also as a beta GPU driver tester EAC won’t let me use any non public driver which I suppose is a minor annoyance as well but a bit heavy handed to treat an essential driver/software as malicious...I know there have been a few tests in the past where DRM was effecting game performance, this I could also take issue with when someone who pirated the same game is getting better performance so basically punishing legit buyers with a compromised experience.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Sherly Crowe wrote a famous diatribe about how she gets 0.15 per album; the music company gets the rest.
It's apparently disappeared from the web, but I remember.

I remember that, i had heard she had to take it down to make more albums.

I'm allergic to hassle

I want a TShirt with that on it.

 

[sam_86314]

I mean I can’t think of any major issues I’ve had with DRM since Starforce but I do make sure I fire up my GTA 4 and DLC once in awhile just to make sure it’s still working. But then I think of the incident with FC5 and EAC where it was treating lighting programs as malicious while the game had special keyboard lighting effects requiring the software Also as a beta GPU driver tester EAC won’t let me use any non public driver which I suppose is a minor annoyance as well but a bit heavy handed to treat an essential driver/software as malicious...I know there have been a few tests in the past where DRM was effecting game performance, this I could also take issue with when someone who pirated the same game is getting better performance so basically punishing legit buyers with a compromised experience.

That's one reason why I avoid Ubisoft games like the plague. They use DRM to protect their DRM. Do they really have that little confidence that people will buy their product?

 

[INSTG8R]

That's one reason why I avoid Ubisoft games like the plague. They use DRM to protect their DRM. Do they really have that little confidence that people will buy their product?

And what’s worse is they keep switching DRMs. GR Wildlands, FC5 used EAC so did Div2 but now GR Breakpoint is using Battleeye...

 

[Grog6]

That's why I always download the crack, even if I don't need it now.

That way, I can still play a game, long after the company quit caring about it.

 

[lexluthermiester]

That's why I always download the crack, even if I don't need it now.

That way, I can still play a game, long after the company quit caring about it.

I prefer to call them "Patches", but we agree here.

 

[rtwjunkie]

I prefer to call them "Patches", but we agree here.

Some of the better studios will issue their own official patch (removing the DRM) after the publisher’s mandatory DRM period has passed. I like those. Alpha Protocol and The Witcher 2 are two games which immediately come to mind.

So yeah, sometimes they really are patches!

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Hitman, the game would stutter every time it phones home and if you were dragging a body, the body would get dropped. If their servers are down or you lose internet access, you can't play the game. It's a single player game: there's no reason for DRM at all.

Act of War: High Treason, bought it on Steam, asked for disc when it ran. Contacted Steam about it. They told me to contact Atari. Atari never responded. Steam refunded me the value of the game and I bought it on GOG where it works.

In general, DRM is a nuisance. It's fine when it works as it is supposed to but those few instances it doesn't...well let's just say I don't buy Atari games any more.

 

[INSTG8R]

Some of the better studios will issue their own official patch after the publisher’s mandatory DRM period has passed. I like those. Alpha Protocol and The Witcher 2 are two games which immediately cone to mind.



So yeah, so etimes they really are patches!

Exactly how publishers should handle DRM. The whole point is to protect initial sales so after a certain period of time the game sales have peaked and has most likely been cracked as well so no reason to burden the users with something that has pretty much become obsolescent and has served it's purpose.

 

[lexluthermiester]

The Witcher 2

On GOG the Witcher series never had DRM. It was only on other platforms that the DRM was present...

 

[kapone32]

Even though I am not a huge fan of DRM I totally understand why it exists. I will use GOG as an example. If you get a game from GOG you can save the game to a USB stick and use it anywhere. What does that mean. We live in a world that is getting sharper in terms of economics. I will theorize on what would have happened without DRM in a download world.

1. There would be illegitimate sites selling fake keys to Games.
2. The PC Gaming industry would be left to the whales in the industry (EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft)
3. We would not get as many console ports as it is very easy to "pirate" anything on PC.
4. Steam would be no bigger than GOG
5. Epic would never have existed.

In my opinion if CDproject Red was based in the West there would already have been lawsuits to shut GOG down. Don't get me wrong I am not supporting DRM at all just giving an objective opinion on what it actually does.

 

[rtwjunkie]

On GOG the Witcher series never had DRM. It was only on other platforms that the DRM was present...

Correct. When it released I want on GOG yet, so my initial version was the disc version published by Atari. Within 30 days CDPR issued a removal patch.

It wasn’t too much longer after that I got on GOG and made up for lost time. All my other game store inventories don’t equal GOG numbers.

 

[Solaris17]

What are your thoughts? Is it frustrating for you? Do you care enough to be worried about the future of gaming?

nah don’t really care about DRM. Used too when I was younger, but I’ve never run into issues and never use services like GoG. As far as the future of gaming who knows? I’ll be too old to care by the time it might matter.

 

[AsRock]

Been a hell long time since a secuROM tried to stop me from playing some thing, These days i am much more concerned about Steam Coop ( LAN ) games requiring steam to be online.