Two Worlds II - DRM Details

WTH is wrong with them and why limited installs?
I can understand that they want to protect their product from pirates but 2nd hand gaming is not piracy .
One time online activation with a key would be enough but placing limits begs for piracy and not only cracked exe but fully pirated game because this mentality needs to be punished .

Are we not blowing this a bit out of proportion?

In my experience, the limited installs never last - and I've never had a problem with that kind of thing.

Ok, so that's just my experience - but it sounds relatively lenient to me.

If we want to bitch about this sort of thing, I suggest Ubisoft as the target

Originally Posted by Tragos
WTH is wrong with them and why limited installs?
I can understand that they want to protect their product from pirates but 2nd hand gaming is not piracy .
One time online activation with a key would be enough but placing limits begs for piracy and not only cracked exe but fully pirated game because this mentality needs to be punished .

Then punish them by simply not playing the game. Pirating the game won't cause them to stop, it'll just increase DRM efforts.

Limited installs protects against key sharing by pirates. There are other ways to do this too, for example limited time activations (once a day/week etc.).

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Are we not blowing this a bit out of proportion?

…said the man who wishes for a complete restructuring of the world
(sorry… friendly tease)

Originally Posted by kalniel
Then punish them by simply not playing the game.

Everyone's so vengeful… DArtagnan is effectively right…

No one needs to be punished, that's just makes people to 'resist' more stubbornly and to apply even stupider ways to 'protect their rights'. Companies punish us for not buying their games and we punish them for punishing us by not buying their games… makes perfect sense… What companies need to do is to find a way to encourage people to pay for their products, and that's exactly what they are not doing.

Originally Posted by holeraw
…said the man who wishes for a complete restructuring of the world
(sorry… friendly tease)

Hehe, not too many people think too highly of my "proportionate idea"

Originally Posted by holeraw
If I find myself interested enough in this game I'll buy it and then use a pirated version instead.

Where's the sense in it when it does no CD-checks ?

Apart from the limited installs.


And remember what the employee of Funcom said to me : "Dreamfall got great critics, everyone played it, but no-one bought it. It was copied to death." That's why, two employees said at the Gamescom, no-one know whether there'll ever be a successor to both TLJ and Dreamfall.

Originally Posted by holeraw
Companies punish us for not buying their games and we punish them for punishing us by not buying their games… makes perfect sense…

Very good said !

I suspect that *one* of the many reasons why MMOs become so popular is the kind of copy protection that's built into it, in theory, at least (like Battlenet, for example).

This could mean that offline singleplayer effectively dies out. Apart from the casual market, of course.

Originally Posted by kalniel
Then punish them by simply not playing the game. Pirating the game won't cause them to stop, it'll just increase DRM efforts.

Limited installs protects against key sharing by pirates. There are other ways to do this too, for example limited time activations (once a day/week etc.).

I have bought several games from gamersgate and each key is unique , the "key sharing by pirates" does not apply .

"They can "increase the DRM efforts" all they want , all locks can be unlocked .
Buying the game and have a lesser experience from those who don't buy the game… do i look like an idiot ?

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Where's the sense in it when it does no CD-checks ?

Apart from the limited installs.

The limited installs is enough… I have two computers already in two different houses and I'm probably replacing one of them (and maybe even both) soon. I need to have a reliable copy that I know I can use whenever I want regardless of any excuses… (it's a semi-psychological thing)

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
And remember what the employee of Funcom said to me : "Dreamfall got great critics, everyone played it, but no-one bought it. It was copied to death." That's why, two employees said at the Gamescom, no-one know whether there'll ever be a successor to both TLJ and Dreamfall.

I bought that
And I'm still waiting… and waiting… I need to know how it ends!

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Hehe, not too many people think too highly of my "proportionate idea"

Your idea is flawed in that it requires that people will not be stupid. And that is totally wrong, it's against the natural order. Therefore you suggest restructuring nature itself. Therefore you are evil and you think you are god.

Originally Posted by holeraw
Your idea is flawed in that it requires that people will not be stupid. And that is totally wrong, it's against the natural order. Therefore you suggest restructuring nature itself. Therefore you are evil and you think you are god.

Having a brain and using it for improving the world is the new natural order

Rather, it will be - eventually.

Originally Posted by holeraw
Companies punish us for not buying their games and we punish them for punishing us by not buying their games… makes perfect sense… What companies need to do is to find a way to encourage people to pay for their products, and that's exactly what they are not doing.

Part of the problem is that the punishment from the companies only reaches those who actually do buy their games.

Anyway, yes, I agree, it is time to try something else. Reward honesty, make sure the paying customer gets a product which is at least as good as what the pirates get. I like the GOG.com (GoodOldGames) way of doing things.

Kay

Originally Posted by KayAU
Part of the problem is that the punishment from the companies only reaches those who actually do buy their games.

Okay, how do you, then, reach those who do NOT buy their games ?

And I don't believe "the gaming community" will come up with a solution to THAT, because there'd be pirates among them, within the community, and they will not want any solution to piracy.

Because that would mean hurting or "deleting" themselves. (The pirates, I mean.)

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Okay, how do you, then, reach those who do NOT buy their games ?

By adopting a subscription model in which you pay less and you get more.

I believe the flaw in their reasoning is that they consider all the pirated copies to be money that they didn't get. But I think that's misleading. If I have, say 50 euros to spend on a game each month and I have to choose between game A and game B then if I can pirate them I will buy one of them and download the other - if I can't pirate them I will only buy the one. In such a case the other company doesn't really lose.

If I could use a service in which I would pay a subscription of 50 euros and be able to download anything I want, I would get both games legally both companies would get 25 euros each. That might not seem a lot but if it was an attractive model (pun maybe intended) then enough people would be using it for the companies to make good profit and the pirates to be without an 'audience' substantial enough to bother cracking games.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Okay, how do you, then, reach those who do NOT buy their games ?)

I don't know a solution to that, but punishing the paying customers sure doesn't make any sense. They might as well try a friendly ad campaign saying "please don't pirate our games". I doubt it would do much, but I think it would be at least as effective as a draconic DRM system, and without alienating the paying customers.

Alternatively, they could hire some gangs to randomly beat up people in the streets. At least that would have a chance to randomly affect some of the pirates. As the current strategy only affects paying customers, this would be an improvement.

Kay

Originally Posted by holeraw
I believe the flaw in their reasoning is that they consider all the pirated copies to be money that they didn't get.

But no-one, not even the industry, thinks that.

Originally Posted by kalniel
But no-one, not even the industry, thinks that.

Really ? I could very well imagine "the industry" think this way.

It's called a business after all.

Originally Posted by kalniel
But no-one, not even the industry, thinks that.

They don't? Then why are they using DRM to begin with?
Isn't it because they expect that people who won't be able to get their game illegally are going to pay for it?

EDIT: ok, I wrote 'all the pirated copies', maybe 'most' would be more precise.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Really ? I could very well imagine "the industry" think this way.

It's called a business after all.

The industry have stated otherwise:

Originally Posted by BSA 2009 report on software piracy
not every unlicensed or stolen software product would be replaced by a paid-for version.

BSA is Business Software Alliance, by the way.

So, the only way to bypass this nasty DRM is to get it for free without DRM and even earlier than others?

Originally Posted by Ergonpandilus
So, the only way to bypass this nasty DRM is to get it for free without DRM and even earlier than others?

Why bypass it? If you don't like it, just don't play the game.

There will no doubt be cracks, so it's certainly possible to buy the game and then crack it. I always buy games, but I tend to play them with no-CD/DVD cracks (at least after X years when I've no idea where the DVD is).