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Edited by Big Black Bear:
3/19/2013 10:00:12 PM
33
DRM Hurts Companies More than Piracy
[url=http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2013/03/19/drm-hurts-companies-more-than-piracy-developer-argues/]An argument against DRM from a surprising source - a game developer[/url]
This is a hot topic with the recent SimCity problems, but I've never really considered the cost of DRM systems to the developers themselves. I think he makes a very valid point.
What do you think?
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4 RepliesWonder who bumped, but this is now outdated
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4 RepliesOP is hurtbutt.
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4 RepliesMy honest opinion is that the article is fairly accurate. The problem is this idea of piracy or stolen games. As this topic comes out, more and more studies are showing that piracy is fairly minimal when it comes to games as late. As thus, EA is a nominee for the second year in a row for the "Worst Company in the US" award. Mainly, this doesn't come to a shock to most due to the problematic SimCity launch. EA is probably one of the strongest proponents for DRM and as you can see, EA isn't really great in the public eye. Also, when it comes to piracy, a lot of people could say it could be because of high price of games. Why is it every year it seems to be rising $10.00 USD for a new release. Even moreso, the timeframe that games would stay that price has grown progressively. For Example, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim has been out since 2011 and it is still not down in price or only by $10-20 at most. [url=http://www.walmart.com/ip/Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim-Xbox-360/15751923]Walmart Skyrim Price[/url] Even with these somewhat expensive prices, people still overwhelmingly buy the game. So, why DRM? I remember a time where game developers encouraged modding, gaming community, and being able to fix their own issues. The age of LAN parties is gone and that is a culture that is going to be missed by a lot of folks. Maybe it is just me, but I just don't feel the trust like I used to...
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He's right your just punishing the paying customers with all the anti-piracy crap.
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I think I have not bought a single game with always-online DRM.
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27 RepliesEdited by CrazzySnipe55: 3/20/2013 6:30:10 AMDRM is stupid. It is always stupid. It kills the used game marketplace more than digital downloads. Additionally, the idea that DRM is NECESSARY for the gaming industry to counteract is laughable. Look at the music industry. Pirating music is just about as easy as making a Facebook status. So long as there's a YouTube video of a song that I want, I can just go to http://www.youtube-mp3.org and get an HD copy of that song for free without having to pay a dime*. But, guess what: the music industry is still a booming, multi-billion dollar industry. iTunes is still very much a super successful thing, and it can coexist with services like Pandora and Spotify. Piracy is much more prevalent in the music industry, and yet it manages to be extremely lucrative. Guess what again: the music industry doesn't put DRM on their music. Sure, there've been lawsuits here and there but it seems they've stopped caring as much as they used to. So, given that, what reason is there to have DRM in video games? *for ass-covering purposes, don't actually do that; it's illegal
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1 ReplyFrom what I've noticed the people that pirate games usually aren't the kind of people to pay for games in the first place, which is something developers need to see. If there are 1M gamers and 500K are pirates, then the pool for selling the game is around 500K, not 1M. Another thing is that DRM has discouraged me personally from buying more games from the same developer. I bought Company of Heroes played it for a bit, then uninstalled it. A few months later I re-installed it, but the authorization code didn't work anymore and it said I was locked out due to piracy. I contacted the developers (Relic) and they asked for picture proof of ownership and dragged out the whole thing taking days to reply. I got frustrated and threw the damn disc away. -blam!- that shit, I paid them money and for them to question me and make me unable to play my own game is beyond redemption.
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I've always bought my games legit since they cost so little but at the same time I am totally against DRM in games and have never and will never buy a DRM game like Sim City or Diablo III that requires 24/7 internet. So the guy is pretty correct, DRM hurts them more since paying customers like myself won't go a mile near DRM infested games. It's also why I was against the xbox DRM One as well and refused to buy it in that state. Why should my games/consoles be held hostage by big brother game company? They trust me less, the loyal paying customer, over people that pirate stuff even after the fact I paid full price for the game. It's just so dumb and an unnecessary 'feature' in games that hold back offline play.
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I also think it's cool that Game of Thrones is the most pirated TV show...and also one of the best-selling TV shows. Also, Netflix scours pirating websites to see what people are downloading so they know what shows they should pick up.
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Youtube prevents the need to commit piracy.. you can watch gameplay, reviews and walkthroughs of a game to see if you really want to get it.
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5 RepliesEdited by TopWargamer: 3/24/2013 6:01:30 AMAs bad as piracy is, piracy is by no means a loss of a sale. Think of piracy as...an "extended demo that lets you do everything." Let's say you pirate the game, play it all the way through, beat it, and you thought it was an amazing game. Well since you thought it was an amazing game, you go ahead and buy it. See the thing is, the people who pirate games don't want to spend money on a game that they think may or may not be good. So pirating lets the user decide whether the developer earns the money or not. So if any developer produces a crappy game, the dev really doesn't deserve the money since the dev produced something crappy and bad, but on the other hand, if the dev produces something awesome, then the dev deserves to get paid. See...this is how the mind of a pirate works. Oh ya and anyways...DRM is bad and it should feel bad. I'm never buying an EA game again, because they seem to be the only company who does DRM on their games (correct me if I'm wrong...I know Blizzard uses online-DRM for some of their games, notably Diablo III).
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2 RepliesNothing is wrong with DRM. Stop overreacting.
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1 ReplyMeat Boy guys is totally right. DRM just makes gaming frustrating for the paying customer and doesn't affect the pirate one bit. I'd honestly buy Simcity right now if it didn't have DRM, and its especially frustrating to consider that the game has almost been fully cracked meaning that players who download it illegally will have a more flexible game than those who paid for it legitimately.
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so funny story...
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1 ReplyWhat the hell is DRM?
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1 ReplyIf I like what I pirate, I buy it. Money will be made. BTW, DRM is OP. Long live the BR.
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I hate piracy because other people are indirectly paying for the pirates' content.
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Not gonna lie i misread your title as DMR hurts etc, etc.
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Maybe the bigger issue here is that games have gotten too big. Games are starting to cost as much as blockbuster movies and taking the same manpower. Eventually, it won't be possible for games to recoup their investments in sales alone. I think gamers and the industry would be better off focusing on fewer games.
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I wish publishers could sop being so greedy and maybe look at things like this guy does.
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I think the article brings up a good point, companies should focus more on the paying customer than the pirates.
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So he's suggesting huge corporate game producers should actually be considerate of their customers? Who the -blam!- is this guy?
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It's interesting that the author of the article didn't touch on the other big cost of DRM - implementing it. I'm not sure how much it factors into the equation, but there is some cost to developing the DRM system in the first place, then maintaining the various servers, etc.
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14 RepliesThe whole Sim City disaster is a great showcase of how NOT to handle piracy. Maxis has lost who knows how many sales because of just by the notion of an always on DRM, and once offline saving is figured out there's going to be no incentive NOT to pirate the game. Heavy DRM is just taking a complete step backward.
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1 ReplyI'm okay with small preventative measures like CD keys, or even some less invasive practices. But in regards to the Sim City method, I'm not okay with that since it messes up the experience you pay for. Honestly, there is absolutely no way to ever make a game 100% pirate free, so why even bother? Why not just stick with CD keys to weed out those who are slightly less dedicated to pirate a game then leave the rest up to the users if they want to buy it or pirate it? That's the only choice developers have in the end, the ridiculous DRM systems they put in games now are just an illusion of security. For instance, the Sim City DRM can be bypassed by editing out two lines of code.
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Derp. An "implied loss" is still a loss. If somebody pirates a game, there's something they want from it, so you just lost money. The amount would be less than the cost of the game, because there'd probably be no certainty that they would've bought it, and in many cases the loss could be fairly negligible - say, 5% or less of the game's price - but there is [i]still[/i] a loss there. That loss doesn't disappear just because it's difficult to quantify, and it's just, plain and simple, not up to him to judge whether or not DRM can ever have a positive effect on the net profit generated by a game. Further, for him to then rail against the equally unquantifiable loss of customers driven away by DRM is simply hypocritical.
