If UBI's DRM scheme is unacceptable...

[Avimimus]

Guys,

I lost a computer to a very invasive Sony DRM scheme (the computer was a labtop without an internet connection and with a legit operating system - Sony was trying to install a rootkit when the system rebooted and corrupted a number of OS files).

The problem is that these people don't tell us what they're doing and they can actually use these schemes to bypass copyright (at least the part where copyrighted items enter the public domain after a sufficient amount of time).

I just meant that there is the choice of DRM schemes (assuming the GUI is open enough for a language patch), thanks to the fact that there will be at least two distributors.

[Trumper]

Will DRM stop pirates - -yes or no

Originally Posted by Trumper

Will DRM stop pirates - -yes or no

No, but it prevents customers from buying the games.

--> less income for publisher and developer

[Chivas]

Originally Posted by TUSA/TX-Gunslinger

I'll just be extremely thankful to have the content.

I could care less about the DRM scheme. Hopefully it's robust and completely protects the content.

These DRM posts are so old and archaic. No one of any significance listens to them.

We all need the content protected as much as possible. From my perpective as a user - it's in my own best interest to keep the development dollars going to the creator and to keep the simulation intact from tampering.

S!

Gunny

+1

[The Kraken]

Originally Posted by TUSA/TX-Gunslinger

These DRM posts are so old and archaic. No one of any significance listens to them.

Doug: What are your current thoughts on CP and DRM?

Oleg: I dislike any copy protection, but that’s up to the publisher to decide. In general, it’s a very complex question, and to properly address all the issues I’d probably need at least as much space as the rest of this interview.

Doug: What do you think about having players connect to the Internet 100% of the time as they are playing?

Oleg: I am not a big fan of these things. Many players, especially in less developed parts of the world, still to this day play only single-player and barely use the Internet even if they have Internet access at all.

http://www.simhq.com/_air11/air_341d.html

[Blackdog_kt]

I think that ANY kind of copy protection is only delaying the inevitable: if a game is popular enough, it will get cracked sooner or later. Even if not all features are working, most of the functionality will be there.

So, why bother with copy protection?

The smart answer: To delay the pirates. They can't be stopped if they set their sights on a title, what matters is not having the game pirated and circulating on torrents an entire week before its released, so the developers can recoup their investment during the initial release and subsequent marketing campaigns/buying spree.

As time goes by and sales slow down (after a few months, a year or whatever, they know how much they sell after all), copy protection is of almost no benefit: the impulse buyers have already bought it, those who wanted it for free but cared enough about playing it have bought it as well and those who only want stuff for free will still not buy it and totally skip playing it. At this point in time, it makes sense for a company to come up and say "thanks for your response our loyal fans, we will now strip this title of DRM and let you enjoy it in a hassle free manner". This is what bohemia interactive does with the ArmA series and it works well for them.

The stupid answer: To control how you play the game you paid for while the pirate plays it for free and without any such restrictions. Also, to prevent you from reselling it to someone else or giving it away as a gift. This is generally considered a bad move and history has shown it, since

a) It pisses off a fair portion of the legitimate would-be buyers who will wait until it drops in price, never buy it or it gets cracked before they buy it, meaning a lot less money for the developers. Waiting for a crack to play a game you actually bought because it works better than the original, anyone get the irony in this? It's like pirates actually help sales in this way lol.

b) It also presents a challenge to the pirates, they will do their best to crack it and with so many rival pirate groups competing for bragging rights, it's easy to know what the end result will be.

The only constants in this situation are that:
1) Every high profile title gets cracked sooner or later. Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed 2 and Silent Hunter 5 and EA's Spore before that are prime examples. Why you may ask? Well, because they spent a load of money developing the DRM for these titles and they were cracked before the games even hit the shelves, leading both companies to abandon their so called foolproof DRM implementations. Neither EA nor Ubi use a system similar to Spore or SH5 anymore in their new titles because of this.

2) Not every pirated copy equals a lost sale and not every prevented pirated copy equals a gained sale. There are people of a certain entitlement mentality that WILL NEVER BUY anything. Instead of trying to win over the unwinables, why not focus on not alienating the ones who are loyal and willing to spend?

The fact that RoF isn't cracked has nothing to do with its DRM being effective. It's just that pirates don't know or don't care about it enough to do it. Ubi on the other hand used a similar system in an equally niche title (a simulator and on top of that, submarines? who would want to crack that?) that probably wouldn't attract their attention. But you see, then they went and made a whole fuss about how their system was perfect and fool-proof, issuing a more or less direct challenge to the pirate groups. Result? Ubi's new DRM was cracked within a week and their authentication servers collapsed under DDOS attacks during the weekends when people wanted to play the most, leaving Ubi with a bunch of unsatisfied customers.

I'm not saying copy protection is unecessary. However, most of what we've been seeing the last few years is not geared to combating piracy as much as it is geared to killing the second hand market, which actually makes it pretty ineffective at preventing piracy in the end. If the focus is different, the results will be as well, that's all there is to it.

If you want people to buy a game you need a compromise between security and ease of use, accompanied by a fair attitude towards your loyal buyers, it's as simple as that. Put the cards on the table and say "i'll try to make this game a bitch to pirate and you as loyal customers will unfortunately have to suffer a bit from possible glitches and bugs, but after 8 months i'm going to disable these features to reward you for supporting me", accompany this with some competent tech support to work out the issues that will crop up and you'll do way better than sticking your nose up to the people that actually fund your business.

Sometimes it's like the publishers spite the buyers because they can't harm the pirates and they have to vent this frustration somewhere. We all do similar stuff in real life and in our relationships with other people from time to time, but this is no way to run a business and ensure its longevity. After all, we all know from real life that we'll swallow our pride much more often when it's about work issues than other ones. This is elementary market behavior and i can't believe how all the people in the financial/accounting departments of the big publishing companies with their university degrees failed to see that.

The thing is however, that the compromise is silently happening and the funny thing is that it took them massive financial losses to realize what they need to do. Companies still use copy protection but they are gradually moving towards methods that don't inconvenience the legitimate buyer as much as previous systems. Just like DRM started in the music industry and spread to gaming, it also started dying first in the music industry and now gaming benefits from it too.

As a final note, a one-time online activation is a perfectly fine method of copy protection for SoW and it's actually the only kind of DRM/online protection that i condone. Just like i said before about Starcraft 2, as long as i can play whenever i want, however i want, i don't mind at all.

[FlyingShark]

The question is also: how many times per user will we be able to activate the sim? Like some other sims and games where you get only a limited number of activations. If activations are limited, they can stick it for me.

~S~

With a one-time-online activation I would be more than happy.

[GHarris]

I strongly disagree with Gunslinger's view.

I have been looking forward to this new sim a LOT. For years. In spite of that, if there is much DRM to speak of when the sim gets released I will not buy it. I won't pirate it either - I'm not one of those "have your cake and eat it" types. I would boycott a sim that I have been anticipating more than any PC game released for years. Because DRM is wrong, that's my view, as simply as that. It doesn't work, it inherently cannot work. Give up on trying to stop the people who never pay for games from never paying for games (a radical concept, to be sure), and quit alienating the people who, for the moment, still respect you and will pay you for your work. "You" being publisher and developer combined - I don't care if the DRM was implemented by the publisher against the developer's wishes because I have no way of making that clear in a way that counts... I can't pay the developer without paying the publisher (I would often very much like to, though! ). I think that if a publisher says they are going to put DRM on a game the developer should look for another publisher. Publisher-imposed DRM is detrimental to their interests, in both the short and long term. DRM doesn't improve sales, leads to boycotts (among angry internet-folk at least ) and it turns hearts and minds against you so that a person who was enthusiatic about your work before is less so in the future.

I think I must be tired, the above paragraph is pretty "foaming at the mouth". Ah well, I stand by it.

[Abbeville-Boy]

i hope for the game to be protected for a long time
i will buy no matter the protection type
they need to be rewarded with sales
for to give reason to go on in the future