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[Zaphos]

Bring back the code wheels!

Steam annoys me ... I was playing replaying some half life last weekend and noticed that it put an ad for left 4 dead on one of the loading screens, and I was like, I paid for this damn it, it's not ad supported 

Internet DRM in general, and the idea that you can't play some stuff after the company fails or loses interest and shuts a server down ... really sucks.  I heard a whole bunch of music store DRM servers have already just gone away, leaving their customers with worthless files.  And I think, sure, Valve looks like they're here to stay, but they probably won't be around forever.  And the custom schemes that companies come up with ... good luck playing those ten years from now!

It's more important to preserve the arts than to marginally increase some company's profits.

(EA already turns off the servers that enable internet multiplayer of their sports games after just a few years I think?)

A little-known fact is that DRM does work to prevent casual piracy.

In theory, yes, but I wonder the extent, and how to measure that?

[Aik]

This just in! Most DRM is to prevent games from being cracked before release! Why bother? Here is a question "Hey, do you want a game now, before it is released, for FREE? or do you want to wait and pay for it?" This is a question publishers do not want users to have the opportunity to ask themselves.

Well, yeah, I know. My point was that this doesn't work. The user's going to decide themselves anyway, regardless of what the publisher wants.

Just for the record, I don't really care about DRM such as serial keys or needing to have the CD in the drive. Serials have their uses, and are convenient with shareware. Besides, if I lose my key I can just go and find another one, it doesn't put me out that far (had to do that recently for NWN2 - I think the serial was on a loose bit of paper and where that paper is now - who knows?). CD checks are mildly annoying, but if it helps the publisher sleep at night, y'know, I'll cope. Neither are going to stop anyone computer literate from cracking it if they want to though.

I don't want to rent a game though, and I don't want to be inconvenienced any more than needing to have a one-time check that deals with everything. I'd like to be able to start the game with no chunking and churning as the DRM checks I haven't done anything, and the game to run smoothly without the DRM causing problems.

Steam is out - it's renting (plus I have a slow connection due to Australia's third rate internet problem). SecuRom - in my experience with it - is crap. The reason I haven't actually played NWN2 yet is that it takes forever for the game to start up as, presumably, the DRM is doing its thing. Whoever developed the DRM for Hammer & Sickle should be shot - I had to crack (my legal version of) that to get it to run at all.

As for stopping casual piracy - it might, I've no idea. In my experience of casual piracy, someone passes around a DVD full of software and cracks to go with them. I can see how it might help a bit, sure, but how many people who use their PCs for gaming don't know about cracks? A diminishing number, I suspect - and as said, any copy protection will do as well.

I guess the real answer to the question comes in watching companies who distribute without DRM. Who've we got there - Stardock, and ahhh, CD Projeckt (unsure about that one)? Not a good sample size though.

[Core Xii]

And I think, sure, Valve looks like they're here to stay, but they probably won't be around forever.

The exception with Valve however is that they're a developer rather than a publisher, so at least with Valve's games, I'd expect them to release them to the public if they ever go down. Of course this does not include other developers' games on Steam.

[salade]

like people are saying, it's intrusive DRM that makes our bloods boil, not just DRM. and we all accept that steam is a great way to provide DRM that is a great compromise. But what about the companies that seem set on using DRM of the super severe nature. First of all, are there any? (I don't play many PC games, but EA is looking to be the most guilty of this heinous crime(of course, EA is guilty of many heinous crimes)).

[Alevice]

And I think, sure, Valve looks like they're here to stay, but they probably won't be around forever.

The exception with Valve however is that they're a developer rather than a publisher, so at least with Valve's games, I'd expect them to release them to the public if they ever go down. Of course this does not include other developers' games on Steam.

As satted in another thread, there are thankfully unofficial clients that let you play offline.

[team_q]

Steam also lets you play offline, if the Steam server go down, you can still play all of your games in offline mode.

I dislike DRM as much as the next guy, but I hate piracy more.

[Cheater‽]

Steam also lets you play offline, if the Steam server go down, you can still play all of your games in offline mode.

I dislike DRM as much as the next guy, but I hate piracy more.

Yes, but to go in offline mode you need to connect to the servers.

[team_q]

Then, when steam goes offline, go into offline mode, I won't be able to play Hellgate London, but I knew that because they let me know several times before it went down, guess what, I don't really care because I was done playing it months ago. Also, being able to play my games without worrying about CDs, ANYWHERE, is worth it much more to me then worrying about the future when I'm probably done playing those games anyways.

[Alevice]

Well, I have many games that are almost a decade old at this point, and I still play them. Not being able to play them because their copy protection measurements block it, it kind of sucks. Even if they warned it. If they happen to release a patch some time before their severs shut down that get rids of its necessity to connect, I am totally happy then.

And saying ANYWEAHR is very relative, when you still need to have an internet connection (in some countries, like mine, not everyone has the internets) and download a shitload of files to run the damn thing (in some countries, like mine, not everyone has high speed broadband connection). Having the cd is far more convenient on that.

[team_q]

Yes Anywhere is relative, but in my experience, if I'm at home, school, Internet cafe, my uncles, my laptop, my mom's, all different computers, I've played steam games at all those locations with my account, sure it took an hour to install, but thats better then making sure to remember to bring my cd's or at least their keys to install them. I have bought 2 pc game dvd's this year, Spore and Sins of a Solar Empire. Spore, because I didn't like EA's Digital download solution, and SoaSE I can't recall why.

Please don't misrepresent me by intentionally misspelling something I had spelt correctly.

[Mischief Maker]

I remember an example of preventative policing discussed in one of my criminal law classes.  Police were wasting a huge amount of resources answering shoplifting calls from a local big box store.  Tired of wasting their time on these calls, the police did a little investigation and found the shoplifting centered around these bins of impulse buys located right at the front of the store.  The police told them to move the bins away from the entrance and they would prevent a majority of the shoplifting.

A few weeks later the store put the bins back at the front.  The shoplifting had gone down, but so had the impulse purchases from the bins.  The stores decided the losses in business to legitimate customers outweighed the shoplifting losses.

Also, I wonder how much of Steam's success stems from being a DRM system "that works," and how much from the fact that Half Life 2 is its flagship title? 

Anyone here heard of gog.com?  They seem to be doing alright for themselves.  AND the games they're selling were on the pirate torrents years before the site itself started.

[Alevice]

Yes Anywhere is relative, but in my experience, if I'm at home, school, Internet cafe, my uncles, my laptop, my mom's, all different computers, I've played steam games at all those locations with my account, sure it took an hour to install, but thats better then making sure to remember to bring my cd's or at least their keys to install them.

I really wish I could say it is a feasible option in these places. I do not like having cds with me, which is why I get mini-CD/DVD-images even for games I purchased.

Please don't misrepresent me by intentionally misspelling something I had spelt correctly.

It wasn't meant to be derogative, sorry for the confusion.

[qubodup]

DRM don't work, man!

Sorry for forgetting to mention: An interesting article is linked in the description of the video from the first post.

It describes how DRM *does* work. The aim of DRM is not to make copying impossible. The aim is to make copying possible as late as possible. See this section of said article.

From an interview with Bioshock people:

We achieved our goals. We were uncracked for 13 whole days. We were happy with it. But we just got slammed. Everybody hated us for it. It was unbelievable... There is a lot of strain on our content-delivery servers and things like that, where everyone has to download a 10MB executable. I don't think we'll do exactly the same thing again, but we'll do something close. You can't afford to be cracked. As soon as you're gone, you're gone, and your sales drop astronomically if you've got a day-one crack.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை]

Yes, everyone seems to be saying that if you can crack DRM, it's useless, but that's not the case. Is a lock useless because you can pick it trivially? Locks still prevent people from breaking into houses and cars, despite how easy they are to pick for most people who know how to do it.

[Radnom]

Following Rinkuhero's post, the point of DRM is not (or should not be) to stop the experienced hackers but to stop anybody from copying the game. Just as a simple lock isn't meant to be protection from experienced burglars because such a sufficiently advanced lock would be very costly and annoying to bypass for the owner of the house - it's protection from everyone else!

I'm all for simple DRM that'd stop the user from installing the same game on 20 different computers that he doesn't own. It's the DRM that stops him from playing it on his own computers that's worrying.