bit-tech.net - A Picture Pefect Quandry

[MudsAnimalFriend]

You know, the internet, that thing your computer is connected to all the time anyway?

My gaming system isn't connected to the 'net at any time and I find the irony of being forced online (i.e. warez central) to validate a single-player game hilarious. Any software with the sheer stupidity to demand online validation deserves to be pirated out of existence. Game producers would make more money if they diverted some effort from screwing their customer base with pathetic DRM schemes into simply delivering a better product.

 

[Zaleukos]

But that's the concern driving these better systems like online acivation. It wouldn't be a crapshoot as to whether your optical drive works with the CP software; it would just be a matter of connectnig to the internet once every 10 days. You know, the internet, that thing your computer is connected to all the time anyway?

It's not, and I spend about two months a year (incidentally the two where I have the most free time) in a place where all you can get is an almost unusable dialup connection. I've chosen to not buy several games due to this great system. Having to call the company is of course doable but also a bloody fuss. I dont want to spend 40 minutes in a phone queue just to play an offline SP game that I bought.

There's also the issue of what happens when the company goes bust or chooses to discontinue the service.

 

[MaskedMan]

People without internett are unable to pirate the game anyway, there is no reason why EA should should have to think about them.

 

[Myrthos]

There would be no need for copy protection when games would not be pirated. Although I dislike copy protection and hate the fact I have to play with a CD, I do understand that publishers want copy protection added to their games. I just wish they came up with a better method that doesn't irritate the ones who bought the game legitimately.

There must be a loss of sales due to pirating of a game. I don't think that loss equals the amount of installed pirated versions of a game, but still there has to be a loss.
Publishers lend money from a bank and give it to developers, to make the game they promised the publisher to make. The amounts of money that is involved is big these days and the publisher wants a return of investment that is diminished by a.o. the game being delivered late and the pirating of the game.

They have all kinds of ways (both good and often bad) in making sure the game is delivered on time and they have ways (mostly bad) to add some kind of protection to their games to stop the pirating part.

Games are not different than any other intellectual property. If you would have created something (anything will do) and you intent to make some money with it and you find out the very next day that it is available for free on the internet would that annoy you?
If you pirate games, just to not have to pay for the game (I'm excluding the NoCD cracks for those who purchased the game at the moment), you don't have a reason to be annoyed in my opinion as I feel it is the same thing.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

In my "A Thought" thread I had once the thought to build a game or program that handles things differently:

It is FREE, but REQUIRES that ONE CD-ROM or DVD is inserted in a drive ...
I would even o so far (if I could) and try to detect disc emulation software ...

The result would be a game that drives the usual copy protection schemes ad absurdum, in that it includes a kind of weird "copy protection" that is not really one.

It uses "the usual" techniques that copy protections use - apart from real technical solutions like Securom, Starforce etc. - for a FREE program.

But honestly, the only reason to build this would be to annoy employees of companies who silently use my software without permission.