DRM and you

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cowsmanaut
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DRM and you

Post by cowsmanaut »

Most of us have been gaming since the early days of Pong, and we've seen the shifts of rules and companies. The rise of some and fall of others.. the one hit wonders, and the golden boys.

Think back to the early days where we were able to play via LAN or Direct IP, a quick phone call on a modem at first, and later just via our internet connection we could connect and play with our friends. The game you had on your shelf could be dusted off and played again, or you could sell or lend it off to your friends. In fact companies like Blizzard even had a play with a friend copy on their disc. You could make a local copy of the game on a friends PC and as long as they were connected with you, they could play too. Game sharing was a fantastic addition to an already rich experience, and it made sense, after all you both didn't need to own your own copy of a chess board to play together right?

Enter Sony. now don't get me wrong.. they've done some good things as well as bad.. but they came up with a new model of online play that started this ball rolling. Everquest, pay to play. You would buy the game, but you wouldn't be able to play the game unless you logged into their server and for that you had to pay a monthly fee.

Now keep in mind people were setting up MMORPG game servers with free play at the same time. Blizzard had their battle net which was free and people played others in Diablo 2.. and life was still good. The social impact of such titles, and the need to connect with others especially if you were lonely as an individual, outweighed the cost of the monthly fee. After all, what other experience left you with the possibility of connecting with real people without the preconceptions associated in face to face meetings in real life. You could wear an avatar of a bold worrior or amazon goddess. You could enjoy feats of "great import" within the games confines and share in victory with real people. There were some who met life long friends, and even life long partners in love. Weddings were held in game for real people having a REAL wedding. I know some who's entire social life is exclusively through an avatar.So it's not hard to see how they can convince people to continuously pay to enter such a game environment. Despite it being a previously unwarranted and unrequired.

Skip forward, and enter a change of law. Sony fought the rights of users to create their own Everquest servers. Claiming the agreement EULA prevented them from being allowed to play the game they purchased for free. Think about that, you've payed for a game, but you're not allowed to play it for free. Do you rent your chess board? did you rent your Dungeon and dragons rule book? That game of monopoly was pay to play wasn't it....?

NO.

Now, some game companies saw that players should be allowed some measure of rights. For example, guild wars still holds to the model of free online play, just buy the game and upgrades. Others follow this as well where you pay once and play for free. However so many others are keeping the model of pay to play.. and one such company shows how that evolution can go very wrong.

Let's return to Blizzard. Lan play, internet connection, and battle net all in the early days was free, and not forced, and as I said, they even allowed the friend copy model. However, they looked to other companies pay to play model and tried their own. World Of Warcraft. This evenually became a billion dollar a year cash cow.

11.4 million users in 2011, all paying $30/ month. So, 11,400,000 X $30 X 12 = $4,104,000,000/year sales.

For a game company that had struggled at earlier points in it's life, that was a huge change, and it made them turn inwards to see how they could continue this trend. Looking at the birth and rise of Steam, a method to deliver games which was it's own DRM in that people needed to be connected through steam to validate their copy of game, they decided to move battle net to their own DRM tool.

Starcraft 2 was the first stage. An internet connection was required to play the game. Up until this point games from Steam had to be connected for the initial install, but after that, they could be played in offline mode. However, Starcraft 2 required you to always be online, despite the fact that you could just be playing a single player session. They then moved on to Diablo 3 which is one step worse. Not only did you need to be connected to play, your character and game history was all stored exclusively on their server. In my own case, this meant that their own server had to be up to play at all (which wasn't always the case) and my own internet connection also had to be up (also not the case every day), and on top of it all, not errors during my connection to their server or my character history or character itself was lost (this has happened to me twice, the second time being the last time I played.. ever).

On a slightly related note, keep in mind that they fought against the practice (along with other companies) the sale in real money of in game items, that it was not right, and yet now in diablo 3, it's ok, because they are monitoring it. Ie, they are making money, where as before they were not.

So let's look at how the evolution of DRM and copy protection has changed our existing rights. The act of recording a movie off TV, or a song off the Radio is something that is still done to some minor degree. Yet yet sharing of that publicly available (in the case of radio, freely available) content has been made illegal. So that mixed tape you made for a friend or loved one is now against the law.. technically. Take note of the preteen girl who was aressted and charged for sharing MP3s of music that had been laying on the radio for free, for years.. Or the young 9 year old who downloaded a few songs and then went out to buy the album itself and was still sued and charged after the fact. Now, I get that it's wrong to upload the entire CD, especially those just released (or not even released yet). Just as it's not right to go into a theater and film the entire movie and throw it online for download. This is an OBVIOUS situation of stealing from those who have made this work. However, it's gone over the deep end.

We used to be able to make back ups of our games, music and other media. Now through increased DRM and copy protection methods we're finding it increasingly difficult to do, not only are the itunes and other DRM tools making it harder to back up what's yours, they are even looking to limit more of your rights. Yes, rights. You legally had the right to back up your media, but that's going away in most cases. There's a law called "fair use" which allowed for the use of small portions of media of different types as educational tools. They're trying to make that no longer possible, and in doing so, it should be illegal. However instead what's more likely to happen is that those rights will be removed. You see, there's this funny little loophole. Yes you have the legal right to make a back up of your media, however the copy protection on the item in question prevents that. Now they've made a law stating that circumvention of copyright enforcement software is illegal. See how that works? You can copy the disc, so long as you don't circumvent the copy protection, but you copy protection prevents you from copying the disc.

DRM was first intended to prevent "illegal" copying of content, yet has been advanced towards control of viewing, copying, printing, and altering of works or devices. If you just think about that, and how you can no longer sell or lend copies of much of our media. That be changing from physical to digital media our rights have been blindly removed by the law makers. That book on your kindle or Kobo can't be shared, but if you own the physical book you can do as you wish, lend or sell. That Game you purchased, well as far as Xbox One is concerned and much of the PC market these days, you can't lend or sell that either.. but you used to. Next will be Blueray/dvd devices where once you've played it on a device, it will be locked to that machine.. and if it breaks down.. well sorry, you'll need to buy a new copy of that movie because it's locked to the now dead device. you can see how that could be the next step right?

How did we get here? well look back, and look at the blind purchases millions upon billions have made. Voting with their wallet. Stating that the game, movie or song was more important than our rights. So, when launch day comes for the Xbox One, and millions of people purchase it, they are saying DRM is fine. However, if they wait, and say no, DRM is not fine, then the message is clear. Remember, DRM stands for "digital rights management" and those rights that are managed are your own. Companies that can not sell a product, are forced to change. Their only goal is your money. Remember that. Just think, if not a single Xbox one is sold within the first week, what kind of response would you expect? I think that they'd change their tune very fast, I doubt it would even go to 3 weeks at the most before they broke down and said, Ok, well take that out.

Stand firm people.. let's not let them advance and take more than they have.. let's make them retreat.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Bit »

There is enough older stuff one can buy for a few bucks - which is really worth the money then.
Simply don't buy the newest stuff from the big ones all the time. Or support indi-projects, or open-source things, where the project matters more than the money. Just refuse to install things that even disallow to resell the object, which is a basic right - so, violence of law itself. DRM sounds to me more like 'direct regulary money'...

Then again - getting your rights stolen - that just happened to you Cows, last year. And you surely put some time into that - without getting that time paid again. In fact there are rights, there are also rights for digital medias, and if there are mechanism that protect those rights, I'm really fine with that. If that's called DRM or however. I just won't pay for the same thing twice.

And I'm getting WILD if someone (like for WoW) wants to have the right to check what else is in the computer's memory or on the disc. That's just sick.
And I hate it, that I have to create an account for Mozilla to synchronize brower's datas. What else will they do with my bookmarks and passwords one day? That all is possible within a LAN. What, if the company (even meaning it good today) will be sold some day? ...what, if those all collected data are available for a non-democratic system which takes over one day?

Digital rights starts with those words that I am typing here at the moment - and if there has to be a management for digital rights, it has to start with the protection of the privacy - then continue with commercial things.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by PetriH »

There is also another side on the coin. The current situation is that GameStop et al make literally billions of dollars per year from secondhand sales and rentals without game developers getting a dime.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Sophia »

What's your point?
They made their money when the product was sold new.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Seriously Unserious »

This is a trend I've really started to notice most during EAs Sim City debacle a few months back. Before that I'd been vaguely aware that the gaming industry was moving in that direction, but since I don't play very many online games, and hadn't bought any new games in a while, I just hadn't noticed it. Then came SIm City, a franchise that's near and dear to my hart, and that I couldn't buy and play because the developers had ruined it with a combination of excessive DRM, online only play, a buggy, underpowered set of servers, and basically taking my favorite parts of the game out completely, the parts that made the SIm City one of the best games for accurately simulating and modeling cities and city management. Suddenly, this whole DRM issue became very real to me.

Now I'm seeing it in more places, more games, and from more companies then I'd like.

I hate forced online play. I use a laptop as my primary computer, and when I have long bus commutes, I've used my laptop to play some of my favorite games while sitting on the bus. Games like Sim CIty 4, Civilization, 4 and 5, Master of Orion 3 and a few others. With forced online play I can't do that, I need an internet connection, and that's a little hard to get while riding on a bus.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by cowsmanaut »

I tried to post about this yesterday but the forum went down before my post went through.. ugh.. Anyway..

Bit, my problem wasn't so much that they used the work without credit, I have found my work numerous palces (various digital paintings) without credit to me, and yes it kinda bugs me, but so long as they are not trying to make cash off it, I'm willing to let it go. My issue with him was taking what I provided for free use, as something for him to make cash from. On various levels it was wrong.

Petrih, while I understand where you're view is coming from, it's unfortunate that i need to say that game devs seem to have this misunderstanding as to what their relationship is to their product. You make a product, you mass produce it, and you sell it to those who are willing to buy it. End of story. The consumers relationship to the product is they purchase it, and it's there's and they can use it as intended, throw it away, or, if they choose, sell it away to recoup some of their cost. Would you like to be told you can't sell your house, or car once you've decided to move on from them? People have been selling used items since before either of us were born, who are you to say no? this is EXACTLY what the EULA and DRM are doing, they are legal loopholes being used to circumvent the rights of the individual. There are LAWS in place to allow the sale of used items, yet these tools are being used to prevent that right. My job as a game dev is to make a game people will buy, and then move on to the next title if I want my next pay day.. simple. Sometimes it's worked out, and sometimes it hasn't. Just like millions of actors who don't make the tvshows and movies, or musicians who can't sell an album.. Sorry, but you understood how the world worked when you went into it, you can't change the rules in hopes of living off a single title. People sell their used books, music, movies, clothes, cars and so on.. some items gain in value over time and turn into collectables. Something we've all seen with Dungeon Master itself, as many here have sold copies of the game for no more reason than love of the game. You yourself, decided to create a title that is SO close to the original in function that it's a pure homage to the game. This is in it's own way, like reselling the product after modifying it.. say for example creating a cast of a car frame, changing it somewhat and selling them.. Something that if they could manage it, companies would seek to prevent as well taking away YOUR rights as a small developer! I'm sure you would see it differently once that day came.. and really this is my point. By allowing this by supporting it with your wallet, or supporting it in your own actions as a game dev, you're saying it's ok for the rights of the individual to be taken away as long as it's in a pretty package. This is EXACTLY how we've lost our rights so far, and how they continue to go away ..

Sophia, you are 100% correct.. they got their sale. move on to the next title or don't.. and as for places like EB games, they make sure of delivery of initial sales. They buy the initial level of units without full assurance of selling every copy.. and when a person returns a game they use that to essentially drop the cost of their next purchase (which is actually part of the inital mark up on the now already paid for game) and the person who buys that used game is unlikley to purchase it new anyway.. My father refuses to buy a game until it's come WAY down in price.. and as for some of my other friends, a few of them will not buy ANY game that requires them to be logged in to authenticate, let alone play.. meaning there is zero sales there..

Seriously Unserious, you bring up a great point, gaming on the go doesn't work with that model. Just another example how our rights are hindered or taken away.. also another point where no sale is made if that's the only way they have time. Some people have a long commute from one location to another and use that dead time to enjoy some gaming.. now they can't
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Seriously Unserious »

I don't mind needing to be online briefly during or shortly after installing a game to authenticate it online, and have an opportunity to download any new contents and/or patches that may have come out since the disk was pressed, as long as the authentication is fully transferable to someone else at my own discretion.

That is a definite improvement over some offline, in-game authentication formulas, such as the abysmal authentication system from the original Airline Tycoon, which would interrupt the game, shut down all controls and not release it until I dig out my manual, could the right word out, and type it in, all the while the action in the game's still going on, and I can't pause it because the pause button's disabled while the authentication system is active. And it kept coming up ever month (game time). It was so bad it practically made the game unplayable and I literally had to find a cracked version just to play it properly. I recently bought Airline Tycoon 2, and it uses online authentication, but once the game's authenticated, I don't need an internet connection again, unless I want to use an online feature of the game. That I don't have a problem with.

If the authentication transferable and one-off, no problem. If it is non-transferable, then I have a problem with it. If it requires online authentication every time I load the game, then I have a problem with it.

EDIT: Right as I was typing this reply, I got a call from some dumb ass claiming to be calling from Windows, and I recognized the voice as the same dumb-ass that's called here repeatedly for the last couple of years or so, every few weeks. I know this ass is a scam because every time I try to get any contact info out of him, he just invents some excuse to get off the line. I've also read about this scam in the papers and it's a know fraud going on in the area. The guy would eventually claim my computer has been hacked and for a sum of money paid by credit card, he'll gain access to my computer to "fix the problem." This guy's really starting to piss me off. :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:
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Re: DRM and you

Post by PetriH »

Sorry for the late reply. I got distracted by the Catalonian Sun :)

Cowsmanaut, Sophia: I am not against you, nor do I have a strong opinion about this. I was merely pointing out the reason why they are doing this. I think it's good to try to look at the situation from both sides. I think I stand somewhere between the consumer and the big companies. I understand both sides and I think both sides have good arguments.

The problem with retail business is not related to consumers selling/lending/renting games to each other. It is the business GameStop et al are doing by systematically cutting publishers and developers from the equation. That's what they are trying to stop.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Seriously Unserious »

Still, I can see Sofia's point, for every copy sold used, at least 1 copy had to have been sold new at some point, so the developers have made their money by then. PetriH, I can see your point, 2nd hand game sellers like GameStop are taking up too much of the market share on used games and that can be a problem, but I'm sure if the developers really wanted to, they could work out a much more creative way of dealing with this to make buying new preferable to buying used without trampling on the rights of their paying customers.

Businesses used to operate on the principle of the customer is always right, now the corporate giants seem to have decided to change their tune to the customer is always wrong. Why should I support a company that feels that way about me? Why should I support a company who's reaction to competition is to trample on the rights of the individual in order to stop competition from another corporate giant? For that matter, it doesn't make sense for retailers like GameStop et all to take the developers out of the equation. After all, if you do that, where are you going to get your new and used products to sell? Do that and eventually your out of business.

IMO this is all a bunch of reactive insanity going on. Of people thinking that the only way to survive is to screw everyone else. When you look at the software industry supply chain as an example you can see just how ridiculous that way of thinking really is. The retailers need the developers in order to have products to sell, the developers need the retailers to sell their products, and both need to customers to buy their products, and the customers need both to have products to buy and a convenient way to shop for them.

When retailers take the developers out of the equation and you don't get any more new games, so in the end everyone loses. When the customers take the retailers and developers out of the equation (piracy, cracking, etc), they hurt the people who make and bring the games to them thus everyone loses since crackers and pirates won't make anything new, just steal the hard work of others. When the developers take their customers and retailers out of the equation (excessive DRM) they take the very people who pay money to buy their games out of the equation and who will buy what they develop?

Right now we have every group trying to take every other group out of the equation, by one method or another, and all we're getting is insanity and a real mess.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Sophia »

No, both sides do not have good arguments.

One side's argument is "I bought this and paid for it, it is now my property and I have the right to resell it."
The other side's argument is "No, you don't, because our business model is terrible."

GameStop may be a problem for developers and publishers, but the problem isn't with GameStop's existence, the problem is with the developers and publishers not really knowing how to deal with that.

New car dealers take trade-ins and sell used cars so they can be a part of and make money in the used car market because there is lots of money to be made there and they know it. What they don't do is take every step to exclude themselves from this market and then try to make cars that don't work if anyone other than the original buyer puts the key in the ignition.
Seriously Unserious wrote:2nd hand game sellers like GameStop are taking up too much of the market share on used games and that can be a problem, but I'm sure if the developers really wanted to, they could work out a much more creative way of dealing with this to make buying new preferable to buying used without trampling on the rights of their paying customers.
In other words, that.

I'd also contend, though, that GameStop essentially is the "2nd hand game sellers" market these days, at least around here. So if the problem is that GameStop is making excessive and unreasonable profits and controlling the market, the real solution is more competition in the used game sector, not trying to crush that sector entirely.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by beowuuf »

Games are no longer run from physical media. They are probably the first major item that can be resold almost at cost and with a very quick turn around (a new game could be returned the next day after being played to completion by an enthusiastic player).

Every other second hand item is understood to not be as good. A game is perfectly playable by default form a second hand copy, and once you load the game to your computer it is indistinguishable.

And my understanding is that it's not like gamestop is charging a reasonable price, Gamestop is charging slightly below current value.

So to a publisher, it's not that they are making expensive games, as customers are still willing ot be basically the new game cost. And a publisher's expenses and expectation of recouping cost for a AAA title is getting obscene. The sold units that are still considered a 'flop' is getting to insane levels.

So reducing prices appears to be out in two ways - they are spending more money on development, and even if they took the price hit, Gamestop would drop the price a fraction anyway.


Throwing content at the situation is one answer, but even that is not clear cut. Multiplayer infrastructure is an easy way to extend content and get people to hold on to their games longer. But that is an expense, supporting online play with more content, etc is an expense, and of course multiplayer support is cutting in to single player, so games have a faster turn around when the single player campaign is short/lacklustre.


So to a publisher, it's perhaps not just the customer is saying 'i want to own my game' it's that they are also saying 'you better make it as good as current standards dictate, it better have a pile of features' and when they put money in to that, they then find the same customer goes 'thanks, but I waited a few days and gave pretty much the same money to this other company'

So they start putting handcuffs on the content - even the content designed to retain people. I'm not saying it's a position I agree with, but it's one you can understand. Just like I can understand the consumer wanting to get as much for as little, or a clever company finding a way to tap in to a market such as reselling games.


It's especially weird that the industry is in such an odd combatative spiral considering that there's more of a drive than ever to support artists and small companies directly in endeavours through kickstarter, etc. I wonder where the 'screw you' point is between small companies and large companies (on both sides of that equation as it relates to customers attitudes to them, and their attitides to customers).
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Gambit37 »

Interesting discussion here: "Used games and AAA markets can't co-exist."
http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/17/443762 ... bleszinski
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Sophia »

beowuuf wrote:And a publisher's expenses and expectation of recouping cost for a AAA title is getting obscene. The sold units that are still considered a 'flop' is getting to insane levels.
This was my point about their side being "our business model is terrible." There are backwards priorities-- lots of style and not much substance. They dig themselves into a hole and then rather than get out in any reasonable fashion, they try to step all over consumer rights to get there.

I'd argue that the "quick turn around" you mentioned means the game actually isn't all that good or deep and probably wasn't worth whatever the price tag was anyway, if people get bored of it that fast.

For example, Nintendo spends plenty on development but doesn't seem to have nearly as many problems:
http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/13/442633 ... tter-games
beowuuf wrote:And my understanding is that it's not like gamestop is charging a reasonable price, Gamestop is charging slightly below current value.
This is pretty much true, but that's mainly because of a lack of competition in the used game market.

By confining used game sales to "participating retailers" (i.e., GameStop) the Xbone is going to make this particular problem worse.
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Re: DRM and you

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Sophia wrote:For example, Nintendo spends plenty on development but doesn't seem to have nearly as many problems:
http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/13/442633 ... tter-games
Great article, and that highlights probably the best method of assuring there aren't an excessive amount of used games being sold.

I've noticed a rather disappointing trend in newer games that leave me losing interest in buying them, this slavishly throwing everything into graphics, graphics and more graphics, in an attempt to make them look more, and more realistic. While there's nothing wrong with good graphics, and in improving the quality of them there is something fundamentally wrong with attempting to use them as a replacement for developing a good story, introducing some randomity to improve re-playability, and creating new and original concepts, and that the UI is user-friendly and intuitive. Those are the things that makes a gamer want to keep playing a game again and again, and not be unhappy with paying a premium price, since he/she feels that the game was good value for the money. flashy graphics, crappy UI, and a half-baked story with only a couple of hours of game play that leaves the gamer wondering why the hell did I just pay $XX.XX for that? Is the sort of thing that add fuel to a 2nd hand industry, turns gamers off of wanting to buy any more new games and just plain kills the whole point of these games, having fun.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by PetriH »

Heheh, the discussion is getting pretty intense in the media:
http://www.destructoid.com/used-games-a ... 6227.phtml

"Let the videogame equivalent of inbred aristocracies wither and fucking rot."

I'm glad I don't work on AAA games anymore :D
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Re: DRM and you

Post by beowuuf »

Jim Sterling is nothing if not...forthright....with his views!
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Sophia »

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Re: DRM and you

Post by Gambit37 »

Ah. I just came here to post about that, and you beat me to it :-)
Here's another take, anyway:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... strictions
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Bit »

Aaaargh - they watch us ;)
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Seriously Unserious »

Now that's truly amazing! I never though I'd live to see the day when Micro$oft actually reversed a decision it made without a court ordering them to do so.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by cowsmanaut »

Need for disc in tray to play is fine/understandable.. I don't know how many people really cared about that. The family sharing, and having digital content no matter where you go seems to be out of spite though. I mean, my steam account can be logged into from anywhere and I can access my games, and I don't HAVE to be online to make the games work. Just for the initial install. So, they're claiming they "can't do it", but really it's a "won't".

Arguments are now flying around claiming that it's now just a 360 with slightly better graphics and that all innovation is lost.. which is a load of moo-poo to me. "Wahh we won't have cloud gaming" .. uh.. when was that stated.. and how do the changes impact that? oh.. right THEY DON'T.. sheesh. You want to play on the cloud.. connect.. play.. and when you're done, log out.. end of story..

Anyway, I'm glad to see users have been listened to.. even if it took Sony to make the difference.. I probably still won't buy either of them.. being forced to pay for an account on top of the game, the console, and my internet connection is too much.. and before anyone argues that people need to pay for the service.. I argue that it's never been paid for before it (beyond the cost of the game) and these days we get more bandwidth, space, and service for less cost anyway.. So if it cost nothing before.. it should cost less that nothing today :P Just ask all those people playing "MAG" .. :P
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Bit »

Here in germany there's just the discussion, because telecom wants to restrict the access speed from a certain traffic amount on. When I see how much MMORPGs like GW download for regulary festival settings - this can be reached pretty soon. And this one is even not a cloud game. Creating a test-account in WoW with original e-mail but anonymous userdata is a bad idea too. You cannot change the username later - even if you add payment datas... funny... - so --- wrong strategy, I'm off there.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

wow, count the times the word money was mentioned so far in this thread. one would think money is messing it up. g whiz. we pay to breathe, shit, sex, even sleep, even thinking can cost money, especially if it's a mistake or not a good idea. can't even die without costing money. what doesn't cost money? i'll just watch on the sidelines and wait til everyones broke and cash in my gor coin.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

i didn't play Heroes VI because they forced an online connection to play, so it may work for some, but for me, i put a dead stop on any more participation.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Seriously Unserious »

Chaos-Shaman wrote:wow, count the times the word money was mentioned so far in this thread. one would think money is messing it up. g whiz. we pay to breathe, shit, sex, even sleep, even thinking can cost money, especially if it's a mistake or not a good idea. can't even die without costing money. what doesn't cost money? i'll just watch on the sidelines and wait til everyones broke and cash in my gor coin.
I think that's because the forced online play, excessive DRM, etc. is all about the money. AAA developers want to spend obscene amounts of it developing games with gaudy graphics but shoddy stories and gameplay and expect people to pay big money to buy it by the millions, rather then spend less money and more time on developing a good storyline and good gameplay and focus the graphics as an enhancement to these, instead of considering the story and gameplay to be the afterthought, after the graphics have been made as gaudy as possible and cost as many tens of millions as possible, then take their own bad decisions out on us customers.

Yes thinks cost money, we all realize things cost money, that's not the problem and never was. The problem that's getting people so pissed off in this thread is that the developers expect us to pay money for shoddy projects and pay more and more money for less and less service, and now want to trample on our rights and try to put us in a situation where if you want to play a game, you MUST be online, you MUST buy it new from an expensive AAA developer and you MUST pay for it every month if you want to keep playing the game you already paid for, and the developer can take the game down any time without warning or notice, and if you just bought the game and your subscription just minutes before it went offline, tough shit sukka, we got your money and you're not getting it back, and if you get your credit card to issue a charge back to take the money back from us we'll kill all your other games and never allow you to play another game again.

If you've followed the EA thread from a few months ago, about the Sim City botched release, you will know that EA's already been doing at least some of that. If we just sit back and let the industry do whatever it wants that's what we'll eventually get. This was a backlash of customers saying "hell no, we won't buy it" and money talked and S.S walked. After all, this whole thing has been about the money all along, and if there's no money in crappy, overpriced games with excessive DRM, then industry won't do it, and those that persist in over-budgeted, crappy games with excessive DRM will wither and die, and those that don't will succeed. Simple. But for that to happen we have to let our voices be heard loud and clear. If developers find their over-budgeted AAA games are lucky to sell an few hundred thousand, instead of the millions and millions needed to make a decent profit, companies will either stop making such games, or will go out of business.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Ameena »

Businesses, by nature, exist to make money - if they're not making a profit, they stop existing. The problem seems to be that some businesses get so big they start thinking they can do whatever they want - enough people have spent money on their products by now that they seem to stop caring about the people themselves and more about the money said people are handing over. At this point they seem to start thinking more and more short-term - "How can we get even more money right now? Oh, we can do this thing which people might complain about...meh, who cares? Any fuss will blow over eventually and meanwhile we've got this huge fanbase handing over their cash and if a few stop doing so, then there are plenty more who'll carry on.". At least, that's how it comes across to me...and in the case of computer games it's "Okay, best way to make money? Make this new game really expensive. Best way to convince people to hand over their cash before they've played the game? Easy - make it look pretty. By the time they start playing and find it's terrible, it'll be too late, and because they'll have registered it to their account we've forced them to have, they won't then be able to sell it on and make back any of their cash, lol".
Meanwhile there are the little teams of, say, five or six developers who say "Hmm, all the new games are shit. You know what I miss? The stuff from twenty years ago when the graphics were all pixelly but we had MASSES of fun playing it anyway. I know, let's make our own! Oh yeah, and maybe we can sell it as well for a few quid..." and end up with my money ;).
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

right SU, it's all about the money. my question is... is it possible to find a few people out there that won't squable over money?, and do it for gameplay, fun, to feel proud, just as if they planted a beautiful garden for all to see, to make others happy who enjoy it. sometimes it is better to get others appreciation, then get noticed, then make a profit only after everyone has fallen in love with the efforts already in place. i think the business model is wrong, which is why they're using online tactics to lure in someone to a game. countless ads i come across trying to lure me into their so called, PLAY FREE scams, they'll give out the game for nothing, but we all know it does not stop there. this is a direct attack on the younger generation, using things like facebook, they are able to bunch people together to all want to play a game. if your best friend(s) are playing it, then that's how they get the client base and you're sure to join. gone are the days where it's the game that makes us come back and love it. it is now who is playing, who has joined with who, blah blah blah. i personally do not like any online gaming, not even chess.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

if only that could happen Ameena... i do like pretty and cool, nothing wrong with that. i also don't mind the 16 colours used as long as the gameplay is good. i played an old original computer chess game called Sargon, no colour. it looked like shit, but it had a pretty good engine, its ai was still better than my playing skill and that made it interesting to me. i could beat it, but its ai could beat me as well. i was thinking it would be an easy kill, nope. so the engine is most important, followed by story, then the graphics in my view
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Seriously Unserious »

Chaos-Shaman wrote:so the engine is most important, followed by story, then the graphics in my view
That's exactly how I see it.
Chaos-Shaman wrote:right SU, it's all about the money. my question is... is it possible to find a few people out there that won't squable over money?, and do it for gameplay, fun, to feel proud, just as if they planted a beautiful garden for all to see, to make others happy who enjoy it. sometimes it is better to get others appreciation, then get noticed, then make a profit only after everyone has fallen in love with the efforts already in place.
I can give you an example of 1 such developer right now, Nino Arndt of Velocigames, his most famous game franchise is called Gamebiz, he's done 3 of them so far, the 1st 2 were released as freeware, then later on he changed to shareware for the 3rd installment.

Another such developer is our own George Gilbert, developer of RTC, and Sofia, developer of CSB. and Rasmus, currently working on Dungeon Dwellers. and Rob Cooper of the new defunct Osiris Games, who developed a game called Chart Wars, then later Chart Wars 3, both freeware.

There are many more such developers out there, these are just a few I could think of off the top of my head.
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Re: DRM and you

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

are you done playing Serious Unserious
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