A Novel Take on Piracy

@Corwin: Thank you very much!
 
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It's more to the point that EA are trying to take away your right to sell the game more than effect the pirates. People waving their arms in the air at me for having this point of view don't change my mind either.
 
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It's more to the point that EA are trying to take away your right to sell the game more than effect the pirates. People waving their arms in the air at me for having this point of view don't change my mind either.

Do you mean like resell it after you are done? I haven't encountered any DRM that would prevent that (outside of maybe needing to call and do a telephone activation).
 
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Count me in the camp that buys the games to support the developers, regardless of DRM.

I won't bother to explain why, because everyone's mind is already made up one way or the other. Discussing this topic is a waste of time.
 
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It's more to the point that EA are trying to take away your right to sell the game more than effect the pirates. People waving their arms in the air at me for having this point of view don't change my mind either.

We don't have any rights to the software other than those guaranteed to us by law, and those transferred to us through the license. Things are moving more and more towards a subscription-based business model. We don't actually buy a game; we buy the right to play the game. Previously we also had the right to resell that right; now it's being restricted.

Personally, I don't like it much, but I can live with it.
 
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Well, most of the bigs boys are in it for the buck. That much should be obvious to us all.

They're going to do what they can to maximize profit, and with this DRM thing - maybe that's their attempt at doing just that.

All we can do, and I do mean ALL (unless we start a movement against it or whatever) is vote with our money. The problem is interpretation. If I don't buy Mass Effect - for instance - does that mean I didn't like the copy protection or the game? Those are two of many possibilities. It could be that I loved the game, and that I didn't mind the copy protection - but I'm simply a pirate that prefers not to pay for the thing.

It's unlikely that they'll ever find out for certain - but it's VERY clear to me, personally, that implementing this kind of copy protection can ONLY hurt sales overall. Why? Because it will be cracked and in the VAST majority of cases, it will be cracked FAST.

So, what exactly is gained with DRM? I don't see it - because those few "normal" consumers who're prevented from copying it illegally, wouldn't have been able to do it with a regular protection anyway. Few as in those who would actually want to bother with trying - instead of simply waiting for a release on the "scene".

The delay to the "scene"? Minimal.

I'm convinced the number of people NOT buying the game because of DRM is greater, and that those who're on the fence about buying will have just one more excuse to pirate it.

I can't back that up with numbers, and I may be completely wrong. I just can't see anything else as the result of DRM.
 
There is a problem with the whole "voting with your wallet" though, and that is that in many (if not most) cases it is nothing but an illusion that it means power to the consumer. Why? Simple. Unless a large enough number of people actually share your opinions and choose to boycott the exact same products as you do, then your so-called vote counts for as much as a drop in the ocean.

Back in the nineties when Jacques Chirac wanted to demonstrate the French military power by performing unnecessary nuclear test in French Polynesia, there was a large enough reaction by the general Danish population to create a measurable drop in the sales of French wine (among other things) for a few months. And when the largest Scandinavian dairy company tried to pull a "Microsoft" by attempting to force supermarkets to exclude products from other (and smaller) dairy companies in exchange for a discount, the reaction in the Danish population was outrage and the the "Big Bully" comparison was used a lot by the media and again the number of people deliberately choosing products from the smaller diary companies instead of the large one was large enough to be measurable for a little while.

However, I don't get the impression that the CP "problem" is anything more than an excuse to justify piracy for many (if not most) of the people complaining about it. I'm not accusing anyone here of that, of course, and I'm sure that there ARE plenty of people for whom this IS a problem or at the very least a matter of principle ... but I'm not so sure the genuinely outraged group is large enough to be measurable against the "phew, now I don't have to feel guilty about being a thief" group.

Of course, my view could be biased by the fact that the only problem I've ever had with any kind of copy protection is the framerate drop in Morrowind (which was later removed by a patch) and having to occasionally reboot my machine before playing a newly installed StarForce game (particularly from the early generation of the CP software). That's it. No "Oh noes, my computer just imploded, that most be because of SecureROM" incidents. No "I can't install the game, that must be because of SafeDisc" etc etc.
 
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One would hope that "someone" (anyone? anti-DRM advocacy groups perhaps) would have the balls to challenge the DRM based business models that are being foisted on us. I see there has been some liberalization in the online music market which is encouraging, but the biggest culprits are the greedy publishers who pass on a tiny amount of profit to the artists and creative people who actually build the game, write the music etc. That shows how screwed up things are. DRM is their way of protecting their (usually small, in relative terms) investment in talent. As to the "Things are moving more and more towards a subscription-based business mode" comment - ok, I'd buy into that - if I could pay a few $'s to play a game and then be done with it. If I'm paying $50 I expect (as was the case in the past) to have ownership in the usual sense (when I buy a music cd I can play it again and again, in perpetuity, until I can no longer find a device that plays that media - if I was masochistic enough ;-) But somehow I don't see them dropping the price of Bioshock to $5. So, they want to "rent" something to you, for a usurious price - greedy bastards is what I call them. If we buy into that, then that is our fault.
 
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I do buy games with DRMs.... but i also buy games from stardock, much because of the same reason as Shamus wrote - because of their status as a great developer/publisher that know their customers.

Its strange, i have no idea why. And i do like it when developers "get it". I am much more weary for releases from EA, Ubisoft and the like. I don't buy games from them on a whim as i do from Stardock.

Strange, and very un-economical. :)
 
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One would hope that "someone" (anyone? anti-DRM advocacy groups perhaps) would have the balls to challenge the DRM based business models that are being foisted on us. I see there has been some liberalization in the online music market which is encouraging, but the biggest culprits are the greedy publishers who pass on a tiny amount of profit to the artists and creative people who actually build the game, write the music etc. That shows how screwed up things are. DRM is their way of protecting their (usually small, in relative terms) investment in talent. As to the "Things are moving more and more towards a subscription-based business mode" comment - ok, I'd buy into that - if I could pay a few $'s to play a game and then be done with it. If I'm paying $50 I expect (as was the case in the past) to have ownership in the usual sense (when I buy a music cd I can play it again and again, in perpetuity, until I can no longer find a device that plays that media - if I was masochistic enough ;-) But somehow I don't see them dropping the price of Bioshock to $5. So, they want to "rent" something to you, for a usurious price - greedy bastards is what I call them. If we buy into that, then that is our fault.

Someone went to court recently over selling some office software. Then the company that made the software tried to sue the guy because they only 'licensed' the product, they went to court and lost. This was over the right to sell once again. I did a quick search and you can find some details here.
 
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It's unlikely that they'll ever find out for certain - but it's VERY clear to me, personally, that implementing this kind of copy protection can ONLY hurt sales overall. Why? Because it will be cracked and in the VAST majority of cases, it will be cracked FAST.

So, what exactly is gained with DRM? I don't see it - because those few "normal" consumers who're prevented from copying it illegally, wouldn't have been able to do it with a regular protection anyway. Few as in those who would actually want to bother with trying - instead of simply waiting for a release on the "scene".

The delay to the "scene"? Minimal.

I'm convinced the number of people NOT buying the game because of DRM is greater, and that those who're on the fence about buying will have just one more excuse to pirate it.

I can't back that up with numbers, and I may be completely wrong. I just can't see anything else as the result of DRM.

We all have our theories. I think the opposite - that the people boycotting are a vocal few thousand posters on the internet and an insignificant amount in the 250,000 - 1M+ who might pick this up at the their local game store and couldn't care less about the EULA or DRM technicalities. Meanwhile, if the guestimate of 10-100 pirates for every legitimate copy is even vaguely correct, converting 1% into sales can be good dollars.

Publishers sometimes do strange things but it belies credulity for me that basically no publishers see this obvious truth that protection is a waste of money. Sure, EA are idiots. So are Ubisoft, THQ, Activision and everyone else. Don't you think someone might just buck the trend (other than Stardock, a minor publisher who uses this as a marketing device)? Or is it possible that they've done the math and concluded that despite the internet wisdom, DRM does make some sort of financial sense?

As for the scene, I don't know anything about it but I thought I'd wander over to The Pirate Bay for the fun of it. Yes, this is an unscientific as everyone else's unproven assumptions.

It looks like the Mass Effect cracks are failures so far and a couple of them shipped with Trojans. A taste:


alkkfkfkfkkf at 2008-06-02 00:02 CET:
Beause of all this hassle, I've actually ordered the game (isn't released in sweden yet).

If any game is worth buying, it's probably this one, atleast if it works properly, which it probably doesn't, but atleast I'll have the right to complain then. :D

evildmt at 2008-06-02 00:04 CET:
Supposedly this is already nuked for containing a trojan.

Noru at 2008-06-02 00:39 CET:
Trojan, do NOT download. Delete.

HavingWithdrawal at 2008-06-02 00:43 CET:
This is not a trojan you morons. It's on GameCopyWorld...but it doesn't even matter anyway. It doesn't fix anything.

Corwin111 at 2008-06-02 00:54 CET:
This is not a trojan. Or at least there is definitely a legit crackfix release with this name.

Question is are you guys 100% certain it doesnt work? Or if this is the file it's supposed to be...

Cuz there's a few really excited people on nforce and other forums sayng that this actually works perfectly... and fixes the map and saves even after you restart the game...

HavingWithdrawal at 2008-06-02 01:27 CET:
Like I said, I applied this crack fix right after I first installed the game. I ran the game for the very first time with this crack fix applied, and it does not correct anything. Once you become a Spectre, you can no longer save or quicksave, and the galaxy map is pitch black and broken when you access it. These people who release cracks need to play the game for more than 20 minutes.

silence951 at 2008-06-02 01:48 CET:
it doesnt fix the game saving issue for me, but i see the galaxy map. did you start a new game like the nfo tells you to?

aegise at 2008-06-02 02:12 CET:
Im looking at my registry, I found these

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTS - MassEffectSave - ShellEx - {BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}
(and a bunch of SecuROM stuff in other folders)
since the cracks dont currently work, anyone know if deleting the "rootkit" stuff in the registry would work?

slimdaddy47 at 2008-06-02 02:42 CET:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v302/slimdaddy47/error.jpg

any ideas?

gryeyes at 2008-06-02 03:00 CET:
Ya you downloaded a corrupt/infected file like a retard.

himar at 2008-06-02 05:26 CET:
Legit and doesn't work as intended

HavingWithdrawal at 2008-06-02 06:26 CET:
I'm sure plenty of people have tried this "crack fix" by now. Has it worked for any of you bastards or are you all still getting the same shit problems like me?

I am disappointed with both of the groups, as it was announced MONTHS before this shit came out that Bioware/EA were planning to put protection up the ass on this game. We're obviously feeling the reprecussions of this right now. In fact, those cocksuckers were orginally planning on forcing people who bought the game to connect to the Internet once every 10 days to authenticate their CD keys with their servers, otherwise the game would completely stop running. That probably would have killed their sales even more than we do.

If a REAL crack doesn't come out soon though, I might actually end up buying this shit after all
, because it's the first game I've played in years that has really impressed the shit out of me both graphically and game play wise.​


Yeah, I know. Two whole people who might buy the game - but how many others wasted 7Gb of download and decided $40 wasn't such a big deal after all? No idea - but my guess is some of them.

I keep reading that pirates are only there for the fun of downloading and probably don't even play the games but if that were universally true, there wouldn't be so much angst that a crack doesn't work. Some of these guys are desperate to play - maybe even desperate enough to pay for it.
 
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Don't get me wrong, I don't think the numbers are significant in either case.

Whether it hurts or benefits developers to implement DRM, I don't think the impact is very big overall.

But even if Mass Effect isn't cracked properly, it's only a matter of time until it is. I suspect the people in question are aware of that in this day and age - so only the most desperate pirates would want to buy it because of a faulty crack.

That's what I'd think anyway, but what do I know.

In the end, I doubt it'll change anything to have this DRM thing - I just personally think it's silly and unnecessary.
 
Yeah, if we can get more of those addicts to play and pay we could make millions. This doesn't exactly go hand-in-hand with my ethos either but to each their own. I'd rather spend my money on taking my lady out to the cinema that really supply a service than support DRM. I've purchased most of Bioware's games over the years so they've had plenty of support from me but on this we part ways. Maybe they will do better business maybe they won't I don't care; I'm not handing over rights so games companies can have some kind of Orwellian control on their 'products'.
 
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Hm. I don't like intrusive copy protection either, but it's more important for me that games I like to play continue to be made. Therefore I continue to buy games I want to play, even if the DRM is nastier than I'd like -- unless we're talking Starforce or rootkit level evil. Am I weird?

I agree, pretty much. I find SecuROM/DRM to be a part of the "service pack" consideration. I use Steam and Gamer's Gate for most of my purchases these days (haven't been to a store to buy a game in some time now), Steam obviously uses its own system, but I believe GG uses SecuRom. But my experience with their service in case I have had any trouble (which is rare) has been excellent, they really use it only as a tool to limit simultaneous installs and are supportive otherwise - that's enough for me.

Still, in the case of borderline purchase decisions like Mass Effect, which I really don't feel any pressing need to play...yeah, invasive DRM schemes can tip the balance and in the case of ME they did. I'm not buying this game because of the DRM.

But I do agree general boycott is not always sensible - after all, you're purchasing a product, service is kind of a secondary consideration. I pre-ordered BioShock CE despite the DRM because this was balanced by their general high-quality community management. The game was not what I'd hoped it to be, but apropos...

Anywho, firstly I'll point out that most indy games DO have pretty hefty DRM schemes.

Really? Examples?

We all have our theories. I think the opposite - that the people boycotting are a vocal few thousand posters on the internet and an insignificant amount in the 250,000 - 1M+ who might pick this up at the their local game store and couldn't care less about the EULA or DRM technicalities.

You know just as well as I do that this is a gross simplification, Dhruin.

Sure, the boycotters are a vocal minority, but we're talking about a PC gaming industry that in popular parlance is already giving ground; retreating from shelves, seen as the retard cousin of console gaming, etc. etc.

If I'm Average Joe Consumer, then the choice between console and PC is determined by a lot of factors. One of those is DRM, and DRM can be enough to tip the balance. If I look at Mass Effect, I not only see that it was available on Xbox360 long before it was available on PC, but I hear indirectly that on top of that a number of people who bought it couldn't even play it on PC because of the DRM.

Do I bother to research it or read manifesto and counter-manifesto? No, but "there's a chance DRM will prevent me from playing the game" goes in the file of "reasons to abandon PC for console". Not to mention if I just hear "you only get 3 installs" and don't bother to research that further: only 3 installs? Hell no, I'm going SexBox for Mass Effect.

Seriously, PC has enough problems without this nonsense. It's a fact invasive DRM does not hurt pirates at all - except those who can't wait for a week until a working crack is released (and honestly, I can't imagine that one week being a significant offset against people turned away from the PC, but publishers usually declare victory if it takes a few days to crack), but can significantly bother paying costumers. I hate piracy as much as the next guy, and I see no reason to contest publisher's right to release their product however they want with whatever kind of DRM they want - it's their product, after all - but is it smart? Hell no, it's stupid.

At the very least on the long-term...I can see it making short-term sense. In that way Shamus' analogy makes sense: in the direct term, you will get more revenue as a theatre, but eventually people are going to give up and look for alternatives as they get tired of the abuse.

Heck, to be honest I don't even think it's the publisher's job to fight piracy, and would rather see police forces do more to catch and imprison pirates. But as long as it's mostly in the hands of publishers, I'd like to see solutions that work, and yes that includes StarDock in a small scale, but in a large scale Valve has managed to force back piracy even in emerging countries like Russia and China. I realise publishers have too much at stake here to experiment (it's kind of ironic how film and music industries have experimented more with digital alternatives than games, but film/music do have back-up ways of making money), but at some point they're going to have to admit that trying to hang on to physical media and treating your consumers as the enemy is not the way to go.

Publishers sometimes do strange things but it belies credulity for me that basically no publishers see this obvious truth that protection is a waste of money. Sure, EA are idiots. So are Ubisoft, THQ, Activision and everyone else. Don't you think someone might just buck the trend (other than Stardock, a minor publisher who uses this as a marketing device)? Or is it possible that they've done the math and concluded that despite the internet wisdom, DRM does make some sort of financial sense?

Appeal to authority doesn't really work when the authority are idiots who believe PC gaming is dead anyway.

Remember Sierra and Arcanum? Remember how pirated copies of Arcanum were floating about 6 months prior to release because of Sierra's decision to delay it after review copies had gone out? Don't tell me publishers know what they're doing.

Valve. Valve knows knows what it's doing. But these other guys? Hell no.
 
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Do I bother to research it or read manifesto and counter-manifesto? No, but "there's a chance DRM will prevent me from playing the game" goes in the file of "reasons to abandon PC for console". Not to mention if I just hear "you only get 3 installs" and don't bother to research that further: only 3 installs? Hell no, I'm going SexBox for Mass Effect.

It is of course rather doubtful whether the survival of the PC as a gaming platform has any intrinsic value to devs whatsoever. Standardised hardware is a huge advantage for any software developers, and the consoles offer that.
 
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It is of course rather doubtful whether the survival of the PC as a gaming platform has any intrinsic value to devs whatsoever. Standardised hardware is a huge advantage for any software developers, and the consoles offer that.

Very true. Though PC's huge install base always manages to lure publishers back. Even a specific service like Steam has an install base of 15 million, which puts it on par with current-generation consoles in install base.

Hell, in a lot of ways Steam is just a way of transplanting console values to PC: it offers standardized software to developers in the SDK (though it can't really help the varying hardware), it offers an install base and wards off pirates, and in trade for that you pay them. Much the same as any console, really, 'cept the variable hardware.

Still, innovation is inevitable. Either current publishers will largely abandon PC gaming to publishers more capable of adapting to PC's specific strengths and weaknesses (like Vivendi/Blizzard or Valve) or they too will adapt. Because this method just isn't working unless someone makes an unbreakable DRM - which is just too unlikely.

Too bad we'll have to listen to all this "PC gaming is dying" nonsense in the meantime.
 
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Hell, in a lot of ways Steam is just a way of transplanting console values to PC: it offers standardized software to developers in the SDK (though it can't really help the varying hardware), it offers an install base and wards of pirate, and in trade for that you pay them. Much the same as any console, really, 'cept the variable hardware.

Throw in a really robust hardware abstraction layer (aka game engine), and you're even closer.

Still, innovation is inevitable. Either current publishers will largely abandon PC gaming to publishers more capable of adapting to PC's specific strengths and weaknesses (like Vivendi/Blizzard or Valve) or they too will adapt. Because this method just isn't working unless someone makes an unbreakable DRM - which is just too unlikely.

Indeed.

Too bad we'll have to listen to all this "PC gaming is dying" nonsense in the meantime.

Who says we have to listen?
 
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Still, innovation is inevitable. Either current publishers will largely abandon PC gaming to publishers more capable of adapting to PC's specific strengths and weaknesses (like Vivendi/Blizzard or Valve) or they too will adapt. Because this method just isn't working unless someone makes an unbreakable DRM - which is just too unlikely.

Too bad we'll have to listen to all this "PC gaming is dying" nonsense in the meantime.

I dont really buy into the "PC gaming is dying" cries in the strictest sense either. As long as the PC is a fairly essential tool that exists in most homes there will be game development for it. But it is not a given that big name devs will stay on the platform.

And I'd say Windows and DirectX brought the console values to PCs well before steam:)
 
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But it is not a given that big name devs will stay on the platform.

Nor is it a given that the platform needs said big name devs.

To be honest, I think the PC can survive fine if EA and the like completely abandon it (Activision-Vivendi abandoning it may be more jarring - but they're not going to). Publishers leaving does not remove the potential of the platform, which means that inevitable new (European?) publishers move in.

Already you can see people (like CliffyB) retreating while the two groups that advance on the console are people who understand its mechanics (Valve, Blizzard) or have a level of contact with a (regionally defined) market segment (CD Project, GSC) (or understand both, really, but you know what I mean).

Seriously, would you feel it a bad thing if the mainstream AAA market abandons the PC to the above-named groups? I certainly wouldn't mind.
 
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