Major Copyright Judgement

[Gate2501]

Oh noes, DRM!!! I will have to spend 5 extra minutes configuring my virtual drive cloak or downloading a crack. THE HORROR.

This is the problem with DRM. It does absolutely nothing to pirates, except possibly giving us the lulz when we see legit customers having issues with it. I have one friend who refuses to even download cracked .exe files for his games which aren't on Steam. It is hilarious to see him looking around for his discs every time he would like to play Crysis.

DRM, yeah... Epic Fail.

In related news, I did have some extra money at the end of the month, so I purchased ME2 and BFBC(preorder) on Steam. I'm not all bad, right?

 

[Cynic]

Like, um... where? Piracy in China/India/developing nations is so rampant that no one cares about them as a market.

Australia has a higher broadband usage rate than the US. Europe is similar, depending on the country.

My only point is that as a security measure, it's potentially annoying to a lot of customers. I'm not usually one to worry about what people do and don't respond to (though I certain pay attention to it), but are you going to acknowledge the increasing prevalence of laptops and the fact that not everywhere one takes it will have a free connection available? Would you in fact buy a music CD if in fact the studio required you to be connected to their website to listen to it?

 

[Almo]

It's like they decided to use multiplayer as their new content instead of developing a really good game.

This is just wrong. Developing a good multiplayer game is very difficult.

 

[Damien Evans]

Wow, touchy are we? I'll come back later when you're in a better mood.

Seriously, if you're just going to throw around crazy crap, you can't expect anyone to take you seriously.

P.S. About 80% of Americans 18-34 have a high speed internet connection on their PC. I'll leave it up to you to guess the horsepower of the remaining 20%, and how often they play $50 games.

We know, that's why we're not taking you seriously.

 

[GreyICE]

Yes, crazy, like suggesting an internet connection is something that most of the world has. Or that piracy is doing what developers say it is. Or that when a critically acclaimed game where 95% of the active copies are pirated is doing poorly, there might be a connection. Or maybe that copyright holders have legitimate reasons to wish to profit from their creative work.

Right. Crazy

I think I've been introduced to your 'sanity.' Tell me, Sylvia, what should I think?

 

[The Fallen Serpent]

Or that when a critically acclaimed game where 95% of the active copies are pirated is doing poorly, there might be a connection.

A game with that set of numbers was likely doomed to failure even without piracy. Seriously. Critical acclaim and marketability are two goals that can often conflict. I am not denying a connection, but doubting piracy is the main issue for such a failure.

 

[Lolly]

I am not a consumer who rushes out to buy the latest-and-greatest games, but I am a consumer who pays for PC games (although I've got so many and some I've never even played yet, I probably don't need to buy any more). I wouldn't have a clue how to access pirated games, and wouldn't do it even if I knew how. I didn't know about new games requiring internet access, but it's a deal-breaker for me buying such a game. The computers I've got games on (and other stuff I don't want to lose) don't connect to the internet at all . My internet computer has nothing on it and is completely separate. Speaking as a "garden-variety" consumer, I think requiring constant internet access is likely to discourage at least some purchasers.

 

[Gate2501]

Yes, crazy, like suggesting an internet connection is something that most of the world has. Or that piracy is doing what developers say it is. Or that when a critically acclaimed game where 95% of the active copies are pirated is doing poorly, there might be a connection. Or maybe that copyright holders have legitimate reasons to wish to profit from their creative work.

Right. Crazy

I think I've been introduced to your 'sanity.' Tell me, Sylvia, what should I think?

Well, you are crazy because you seem to think that this sort of DRM is fine. Why?

It only hurts legit consumers, pirates think that this sort of thing is hilarious. It is cracked within days of the release, and the crack normally is put into the torrent package which is downloaded with the game itself.

DRM is a failure. It only stops the kind of piracy in which someone would literally share the physical copy that he bought with his buddies who don't know anything about how to find a crack on the internetz. People don't do this anymore.

Being anti-piracy is one thing, but being pro-DRM is just stupid.

 

[gumboot]

In NZ they were looking at forcing ISPs to do just this, and then block anyone that was downloading copyright material.

This isn't strictly true. All the proposed law actually required was that ISPs had a policy for addressing pirates. The obvious solution, from an ISPs perspective, was to instigate a policy whereby they would suspend the account of any customer who was convicted of piracy.

Nothing in the law required ISPs to actually decide who was and wasn't a pirate.

The bottom line is, without checking every single individual file a customer downloads. there's no way to know whether someone is breaching copyright or not. The amount of work required to actively pursue copyright breaches simply makes it not affordable. Which is why copyright enforcement has always been based around copyright holders protecting their work.

 

[gumboot]

Your average PC game has a much smaller market base than the average movie. How many people saw the last really big movie, and how many people bought the last really big video game? If the costs are equivalent but the consumer base is 1/10 the size, then each consumer would have to pay 10x the price to equalize it.

Let's look at that shall we?

The largest selling computer games can expect to sell about 15 million copies, and make in excess of $1 billion dollars. An expensive computer game costs about $40 million to develop.

Feature films will often sell to more people, but can rarely expect to make that much money - only five films in cinema history have exceeded $1 billion. A typical big grossing action film might make ~$500 million. The computer game Modern Combat 2 made that much money in five days.

Of course movies cost more. A modest film costs double the most expensive computer games, while the more expensive films can cost as much as six times as much, or even more.

 

[The Fallen Serpent]

... only five films in cinema history have exceeded $1 billion. A typical big grossing action film might make ~$500 million.

Keep in mind that is only box office numbers. When rental and personal sales are taken into account the numbers rise.

As for video games, the industry has been doing excellent with the pricing in my opinion. When I began purchasing video games twenty years ago a new game could be $60. Then the prices began to drop, especially with CD implementation. Now the costs of development have sky rocketed and the price has returned to $60. If inflation is taken into account video games are cheaper now than twenty years ago.

Also keep in mind that there is advertising costs on top of development, and development costs do not always take into account licensing of a game engine since that is usually represented as a cut of the profits. One reason that PC games are cheaper than console games is the lack of royalties to the system producer. That is where that extra $10 usually goes to, Sony Microsoft or Nintendo.

 

[Ryokan]

It's not so much price as horrid DRM. Rumour has it that the PC version of Assassin's Creed II will have one that requires a constant internet connection for a single player game.

Well, I'm sure not going to buy it to put on my laptop next vacation.

The funny thing is, some cracker out there will break the protection, so if you pirate the game you're free to play it on your laptop on your vacation.

 

[Ryokan]

My biggest complaint about the games is they're all FPS or MMOs. It's irritating. No real games of strategy or resource management like their used to be. It's like they decided to use multiplayer as their new content instead of developing a really good game.

http://www.totalwar.com/

http://civilizationiv.com/

 

[GreyICE]

Well, you are crazy because you seem to think that this sort of DRM is fine. Why?

It only hurts legit consumers, pirates think that this sort of thing is hilarious. It is cracked within days of the release, and the crack normally is put into the torrent package which is downloaded with the game itself.

DRM is a failure. It only stops the kind of piracy in which someone would literally share the physical copy that he bought with his buddies who don't know anything about how to find a crack on the internetz. People don't do this anymore.

Being anti-piracy is one thing, but being pro-DRM is just stupid.

Actually plenty of it lasts up to 3 months after the game's release. The first 3 months are the most important sales period for a game, so there's quite a few that are reasonably hard to break.

Also, you have mischaracterized my position. I am pro-company's rights to add DRM to their software. I think that they're in the best position to judge if it hurts their bottom line or helps it. I believe the evidence on whether DRM 'works' or not is something that we don't have. And I definitely don't think you have the powers Sylvia Brown claims to.

You see, I actually researched DRM a while back when people made these claims that it 'does nothing.' And sure, quite a bit of it 'does nothing.' Some of it is reasonably effective. And there's no evidence at all that it 'does nothing but hurt sales.' In fact, if the download kiddies get frustrated enough and want to play the game, they may very well buy it. The populations of 'pirate' and 'game buyer' are not distinct, separate, entities that never intermingle.

 

[Gate2501]

Actually plenty of it lasts up to 3 months after the game's release. The first 3 months are the most important sales period for a game, so there's quite a few that are reasonably hard to break.

Are you kidding me? I haven't seen a single PC game in the last few years that wasn't completely cracked within days of it's being released. I have pirated a_lot of games over the years.

What kind of DRM could possibly take 3 months to crack? There are legions of crackers competing to be the first group to upload the "fixed" torrent to the net, it is like a game to them, a competition. Even the DRM on games that can only be downloaded/played with a console mod or a flash cart is cracked in the first week every time I have run into a problem(like that hilarious infinite boat ride DRM on the DS dragon warrior game).

The best DRM I have seen lately was on Arkham Asylum. It was creative, and really quite funny, but it was cracked one or two days after it was noticed.

Also, you have mischaracterized my position. I am pro-company's rights to add DRM to their software. I think that they're in the best position to judge if it hurts their bottom line or helps it. I believe the evidence on whether DRM 'works' or not is something that we don't have. And I definitely don't think you have the powers Sylvia Brown claims to.

Sure it is within their rights, but you seem to think that it isn't a bad decision to put DRM on a single player game that requires a constant connection to the internet. This is horrendously stupid; it will be cracked, and this will only be a hassle to legit consumers.

Your posts strongly suggest that you don't think this is a bad idea.

You see, I actually researched DRM a while back when people made these claims that it 'does nothing.' And sure, quite a bit of it 'does nothing.' Some of it is reasonably effective. And there's no evidence at all that it 'does nothing but hurt sales.'

I don't know if it hurts sales.

I do know that it doesn't hurt me, or any of my friends who pirate games.

I do know that much of it hurts(or at least seriously annoys) legit consumers. Disc changing, limited installs, constant net connection required? Seems like a PITA to me, glad I don't have to deal with it.

In fact, if the download kiddies get frustrated enough and want to play the game, they may very well buy it. The populations of 'pirate' and 'game buyer' are not distinct, separate, entities that never intermingle.

Download kiddies? Really? Is this like the World of Warcraft forums where we characterize those who disagree with us as "kids"? I am 30 years old myself, though I have been known to play a great deal of Pokemon on my DS flash cart.

I never said that they do not intermingle, I buy games when I have leftover monies at the end of each month after my bills are paid. I myself am both a pirate and a game buyer.

 

[GreyICE]

It's a reference to script kiddies and the various groups that think they're 'hardcore' because they can download and execute programs. Morons, basically.

As for DRM, Amazon's held up for, oh, several months (at least if you didn't have a Kindle key (newsflash - you can decrypt encrypted files with the file key). The PS3 held up for over a year. Starforce 3 kept Splinter Cell uncracked for over a year.

The concept of having online server stored games available anywhere and automatic updating is a good example of Valve's idea of 'value-added' DRM rather than value-removing DRM, so to call it 'nightmare DRM' and suggest I'm crazy for saying that it's not anything of the sort seems a tad off course.

As for you pirates, well, my personal opinion of you is that I wouldn't shed a tear if they do go through with the idea of cutting off your internet, but that's just me.

Gods that would be amusing.

 

[CatInTheBag]

Fine, evidence?

period

Definition: (1) A punctuation mark ( . ) indicating a full stop, placed at the end of declarative sentences and other statements thought to be complete, and after many abbreviations.
(2) A sentence of several carefully balanced clauses in formal writing. See periodic sentence.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "circuit, way round"

http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/periodterm.htm


This is why I place it at the end of my sentences.

I don't need to quote your entire post in order to respond to it - If you're in doubt as to which post is being responded to, you can follow the bbcode html link.

 

[CatInTheBag]

Your attitude in this thread seems to indicate this definition, instead:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Period_(feminine).

Have an InternetApproved ROFL™

 

[Gate2501]

It's a reference to script kiddies and the various groups that think they're 'hardcore' because they can download and execute programs. Morons, basically.

What? Who thinks they are hardcore for being able to download and execute a program??? This just seems like a bunk analogy between these 2 groups(those who lack real hacking cred and think themselves uber hackers for using premade scripts, and pirates) made to cast insult. I certainly don't fancy myself to be hardcore for being able to download a torrent and apply the proper fixes to the DRM, and neither does anyone I have ever met who pirates games/movies/music.

As for DRM, Amazon's held up for, oh, several months (at least if you didn't have a Kindle key (newsflash - you can decrypt encrypted files with the file key). The PS3 held up for over a year. Starforce 3 kept Splinter Cell uncracked for over a year.

Good point on Starforce, but your other examples are a bit out of the context of our discussion.

The concept of having online server stored games available anywhere and automatic updating is a good example of Valve's idea of 'value-added' DRM rather than value-removing DRM, so to call it 'nightmare DRM' and suggest I'm crazy for saying that it's not anything of the sort seems a tad off course.

Valve did it right. Was anyone here calling valve's DRM "nightmare DRM"? Are you trying to cast an analogy between the way Steam does things and DRM which requires you be online 100% of the time you play a single player game which may or may not come with all the benefits of the system Steam uses? If this is indeed what you are doing, this is just another false analogy.

I actually like the way Steam works, the DRM doesn't make me do extra work, and in fact saves me time when I format and would like to reinstall some games right away. I have no gripe with their system.

 

[Belz...]

ISPs can tell more about what a client is doing than Xerox could, they can monitor and see the datastream.

I don't think the ISP should play police. I'm on the copyrights side, of course, but you can't expect the providers to be responsible for protecting other people's property.