Discussion DRM. Evil or Only standing way to fight against piracy?

[MilesThatch]

This is a discussion thread:

So I am kind of conflicted in this. While it's true that bad DRM that breaks the game or makes the game unplayable is a hinderence, does it justify making it easier to pirating your game by not implementing any DRM what so ever?

PS: Best DRM is one that bricks the pirates computer : P

 

[MilesThatch]

My main grime with these sort of news segments talking about DRM being the root of all evil in the gaming scene is the fact that nobody is providing an alternative. There's a Norm where if you want to play a game you buy the game, if you don't like the game you can refund it. Piracy in this case is undoubtably equivalent to stealing anything from your local grocery store. And so from what I see, these people logic is "Oh, pirates are still going to steal so what's the point of putting in some sort of a system that at least puts up a fight against pirates..

Do you also not put any measures in attempting to at least preventing shoplifting? If you're getting bullied in school do you just let the bully continue?

I agree that it sucks when some DRM Solutions have bricked games in the past. But the only thing these people offer as an alternative is to just make piracy as easy as possible by not implementing drm in the first place.

Another thing of these people keep mentioning is that piracy is but a small percentage of all the game sales, and yet I haven't seen anyone post any sort of study or research on the subject. You also can't trust the reports of global corporations with their products, because they don't conduct the studies without a significant bias towards their own investors.

 

[Coded Games]

I never pirate games and am basically always connected to the internet. Because of this, I've never been negatively affected by any sort of DRM.

So, I really don't care about DRM at all.

 

[wadaltmon]

I mean... the EU did a study very recently that showed an overall negligible effect of piracy on overall copyrighted content revenue. It's a good read, if only for the abstract and results. https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2017/09/displacement_study.pdf

There's also an interesting Forbes article on the matter. Although it's from 2012 (and doesn't actually cite any studies), it does bring up an interesting point: piracy stems from people's aversion to traditional business models. https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikka...-think-about-economic-frontiers/#2029a82330d5

If people are only going to listen to one song, why buy the whole CD? Similarly, if people are only going to play three hours of a sixty hour game before exhausting all enjoyment from it, why would they have to pay the same price as someone who will play and enjoy all sixty hours? Similarly, many people are lashing back at COD:Blops4. They now have to pay 60 dollars for less content, plus they have to buy the whole season pass rather than buying map packs and content drops individually. It becomes the same issue. If companies would be up front and honest, and provide adequate demos and options for refunds, piracy would be SIGNIFICANTLY lessened, then DRM would not be needed. David from Wolfire Games has his thoughts on the matter documented here: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/05/wolfire-programmer-poor-pc-ports-not-piracy-hurt-business/

In fact, doesn't the very usage of DRM like Denuvo, who were the self-proclaimed "uncrackable DRM", encourage people to try and crack said DRM?

I also see no issue with removing DRM entirely. A company that builds up good repertoire with their consumer base can still make a great deal of revenue from a distribution system without traditional DRM (this meaning one can download their games from a singular hub, and copy them DRM-free, OR submit to other DRM like Steam), or without DRM at all. They exist, and are largely lauded for it.

 

[ElectroMan]

My main grime with these sort of news segments talking about DRM being the root of all evil in the gaming scene is the fact that nobody is providing an alternative.

Critics need not provide any alternative solutions to make their point. To resort to ad absurdum, if the government started placing cameras in your home and you said "hey man how about not doing that," the response isn't "well you're not offering a solution for home security so we'll continue this flawed security implementation."

And so from what I see, these people logic is "Oh, pirates are still going to steal so what's the point of putting in some sort of a system that at least puts up a fight against pirates..

There are other reasons to circumvent DRM. If you buy the product and it doesn't allow you to enjoy it (as many consumers experience due to DRM), then a potential solution to that would be to break the DRM and gain access to gameplay. I'm not condoning this, I'm just saying there are other reasons to crack these systems, other than piracy. And yes, that would imply that DRM may cause some form of piracy to arise. So then it's not a simple matter of "if we implement it, piracy will decrease; if we don't implement this, it will increase." There are other non-trivial factors at play that prevent this from being so black and white.

 

[wadaltmon]

Critics need not provide any alternative solutions to make their point. To resort to ad absurdum, if the government started placing cameras in your home and you said "hey man how about not doing that," the response isn't "well you're not offering a solution for home security so we'll continue this flawed security implementation."



There are other reasons to circumvent DRM. If you buy the product and it doesn't allow you to enjoy it (as many consumers experience due to DRM), then a potential solution to that would be to break the DRM and gain access to gameplay. I'm not condoning this, I'm just saying there are other reasons to crack these systems, other than piracy. And yes, that would imply that DRM may cause some form of piracy to arise. So then it's not a simple matter of "if we implement it, piracy will decrease; if we don't implement this, it will increase." There are other non-trivial factors at play that prevent this from being so black and white.

Let us all remember that Assassin's Creed Origins's DRM is known to cut frame rates in half. And Sonic Mania, a game released within the last year, was rendered completely useless due to DRM preventing people from playing it at all.

 

[Guest User]

Let us all remember that Assassin's Creed Origins's DRM is known to cut frame rates in half. And Sonic Mania, a game released within the last year, was rendered completely useless due to DRM preventing people from playing it at all.

the bizarre results of Spore by EA/Maxis and it's DRM are interesting as well in terms of making sure your DRM is actually compatible with what you want to achieve.

while the game wasn't as big a hit as they expected, even if it had been the best game on the planet the DRM was essentially a ticking time bomb that was going to kill the userbase after a certain point anyway with it's 3ish installs per purchase and a semi-always-online requirement for an entirely single-player game.