Game developers say no to DRM: "hurts our customers"

boing
21

I understand the sentiment, but they signed up for it. They chose to make the software dependent upon their continued support indefinitely. If they don’t want to do that anymore, then the proper thing to do is to remove the DRM and/or release the software as open source so that anyone else can remove the DRM and maintain the software.

It would be better if it were set up that way from the start - that DRM was time-limited and automatically deactivates the restrictions after a few years or when the company drops support. Trying to retroactively fix it at that point in time is not optimal for anyone (producer or consumer).

8 Likes
22

My only problem with Steam is that the client has an ever-increasing OS requirement. They stop supporting older OSes for which you’ve bought games, so you have to upgrade the OS just to download the games that maybe aren’t even supported by the newer OS… I’ve already had this problem with a Mac machine. I imagine it’s only a matter of time before all the hundreds of XP games I’ve bought no longer have a client that will download those games.

2 Likes
23

It’s not even that - Valve’s found that they can make millions without having to develop games any more!

5 Likes
24

Hey man, Source Film Maker has democratized original content youtubepoop

2 Likes
25

Uh, don’t remind me, the Saxxys are fast approaching, another hundred odd videos to wade through to find the rare gem, while discarding the multitude of “I will kill myself because I am sad my friend died” videos…

Still, it’s sometimes worth it…

1 Like
26

Wait until they’re over and watch the finalists.

1 Like
27

There’s always a handful which don’t make the cut which are worth a watch…but yeah, I should really make better use of my time!

28

meh. it is a fun game and i figure dropping $15 or so a year on crate keys is a fine ‘subscription’ cost for them to keep the servers running.
also how is this all that different than community servers that give you in game cosmetic goodies/effects if you pay them at few bucks to help keep it running?

4 Likes
29

Agreed. But so does locking the doors after store closure, a form of RM :-). Stores do it because they think that the loss of sales from inconveniencing customers is dwarfed by the increase in sales from customers who now pay for goods.

Shouldn’t operate that way. You shouldn’t have to lock your doors. But despite everything, stores that don’t inconvenience their customers don’t last long.

I’m not saying DRM is good. But as we see from the sales figures every time this experiment is conducted in the video game space, not using it gets you slaughtered.

I look it as different segments:
(A) I want it free, I’ll pirate it.
(B) I don’t want the inconvenience (and risk) of piracy, but if I can get the legit software for free, I’ll pirate it.
(C) I feel bad if I pirate it, but if DRM is onerous, I’ll pirate it.
(D) I don’t pirate software.

(A) and (D) are irrelevant. The only question is the size of (B) vs. (C). Among young males, I think the size of (B) vastly dwarfs (C) (both of these are dwarfed by (A), of course).

And yes, for other goods not targeting young males, I think you could get away with no DRM.

If only the statistics bore that out. The last great heroic attempt to go without DRM was World of Goo.

(I’m old, and my piracy days are 30 years behind me. I heavily benefit from no DRM. But asking companies to commit suicide just to make my life better would make me feel guilty. Demanding that they do would just be wrong.)

As an aside, I do think the industry has an ethical obligation to come up with standards to allow the consumer to understand what sort of DRM is in games including under what conditions your game will stop working. A few icons displayed on the packaging would do it. I don’t care if games will stop working when they shut down the server, but they should be obliged to tell me that when I buy it.

I doubt it will happen, but informing the consumer of the limitations of the product is the only ethical option.

30

I love DRM. The sense of accomplishment I get from cracking it is far beyond anything I achieve in the game itself.

8 Likes
31

You keep making this argument, but it doesn’t work. Your analogy is like game developers allowing games to be downloaded before you pay. DRM, as @LDoBe has pointed out, is me calling in to Snapper to get a code every time I want to fire up the lawnmower, not leaving the factory doors open so I can go get a new one.

10 Likes
32

I just want to reiterate that Shadow Warrior 2 (and 1) are legitimately great games. If you love over the top FPS nonsense in the vein of Serious Sam, this delivers.

1 Like
33

and $40 is actually a price point that if I were gainfully employed I would have bought it by now.

34

Stephen walks into a grocery store, grabs a clerk by the scruff of his neck.

“WHAT IS YOUR GAME, ROGUE? WHY WOULD YOU BUILD THIS STORE?”

Gibbering ensures from confused clerk

“ANSWER ME! I KNOW THERE’S AN ULTERIOR MOTIVE OTHER THAN SIMPLY SELLING THINGS. IS THIS AN ILLUMINATI PLOT? ALIENS? I NEED ANSWERS DAMNIT”

3 Likes
35

That’s probably not coming out until Christmas, and it’s just DLC for Star Wars Battlefront.

6 Likes
36

For what it’s worth, Steam literally got me to stop pirating. Steam made buying games way easier than the alternative, and sales made it cheap enough I could afford some even when I was not making a ton of money. When I became more financially solvent Steam basically turned into my de-facto place for gaming.

There’s a risk of course; Steam could explode tomorrow and leave everyone unable to use the games on there that are DRM’d. (Which, by the way, are not all of them.) - GOG is a fine competitor in this sense and I think are doing amazing work in terms of offering the ease of use and functionality of Steam without the DRM, but they are also going to always have less selection because of it.

Steam basically has all it’s cards on the table, there’s no need to seek some crazy ulterior motive. Steam has a basic DRM (SteamWorks) that is very lenient compared to many other standards (once a month check-in with offline mode and no other requirements other than to use the launcher) and is designed to hit the intersection of ‘lets companies feel that there’s at least a small barrier to piracy’ and ‘makes customers feel secure they won’t get disconnected mid-game because they couldn’t check-in’. They have a client because for a long time it was a huge advantage to them over brick and mortar stores - it both lessens the barrier of entry (instead of forcing people to go do a thing, you can buy it online! it’s convenient!) and it also is more convenient for players. Remember installing something like Mass Effect with all the DLC? Took all afternoon. On Steam? Right click, install, come back in 30 minutes.

You can take a moral stand against DRM and GOG is the right way to do it, but stay focused and don’t lose context on why Steam is what it is today.

5 Likes
37

Oh, I do actually agree, and I’ve got more hours in TF2 than I’d rather publicly admit :wink:

They do seem to be moving toward the “games as a service” model rather than “games as a product” model though (they even tried to put hats in Portal 2’s multiplayer!)

1 Like
38

Hmmm… a lot of what you are referring to is the hardware survey which is optional. Every so often they’ll request you opt-in but it’s up to you, i’ve not read anything yet to make me think they don’t honour that. Their privacy policy seems fairly reasonable as far as it goes, at least compared to the 20,000 word legalese on something like itunes. Whether user data can be effectively anonymised though is another issue.

1 Like
39

And Halloween is fast approaching!

1 Like
40

I’m not claiming that they are the same form of customer inconvenience - customer inconvenience takes a million different forms. I’m claiming that just because something inconveniences customers is not reason enough to reject it as “not working”, even if it’s circumvented.

I’m also fine with DRM being rejected by the customers. If it then turns out that the development expenditures cannot be sustained without DRM, then game development will die on open platforms and gamers can buy consoles or iPads. There’s no rule that we as consumers must allow a game market to exist.