Copy Protection DRM

[KingAl]

Since you've got a guaranteed way of checking for pirated versions, just enforce the demo on them. Let them play games like anyone else, just not able to create their own with special settings. Periodically you could "unlock" these demos for a limited time to let people try out the full game. Having a large player base goes a long way towards making the game enjoyable for everyone.

In fact! Why not preempt the pirating and upload it to bittorrent yourself? You can look at it as free marketing... Heck if you make a big deal about it you can probably even get some free press. Because you are in control, you can always revoke the passes if something goes wrong...

Haha. IV already has done all of those things which you've mentioned

[onigami]

I hate having to enter a forum with this as an introduction, but here I go.

As someone who was involved in the emulation scene during its "Golden Age" (i.e., 1996-2001), I've always had a soft view on piracy in general. The problem with piracy is simply that once technology reaches the level of which it can be pirated to a mass level, that it will be pirated.

What's kept gaming from suffering the losses of the adult and music industries (I've always openly questioned whether much of the losses of the movie and television industry had anything to do with pirates) is online gaming and online authorization. After server browsers moved majority in-game, all devs/pubs had to do was slap on a CD-Key authorization system to their meta-server and the clients, and ta-da! Problem solved. Is this permanent? Pretty much for now. (However, I never referred to this as DRM so much as a security measure. It also helps stop cheats)

What the industries fail to realize is people don't pirate on moral grounds. They do on difficulty/accessibility grounds. Once it becomes easy to copy a movie at at near-exact quality at a mass level and make it available to everyone free of charge, and easy for people who want it to just get it and play it, don't you think people will at least be tempted by the notion of pirating said movie? It's like being at a candy store with door unlocked, and nobody else (store employees included) inside. If you steal, you won't get caught because there are no witnesses. So would you at least be tempted to steal? Of course! It's free candy, practically. There's no morals to free candy.

The movie industry may very well self-destruct as a result of this, because unlike every other industry, this is all they have to fall back on. Single-player gaming may be suffering a slow death as a result of this. If Madonna's signing to Live Nation is an indication of ANYTHING, labels will be (in a decade's time) earning their profits from shows rather than records, returning to the times of the 19th century, only updated to hyper-capitalistic levels. Television has the least to lose (at least in America...I dunno about the Beeb or other places), considering their money comes from advertising, and have no worries of "0-day" releases or leaks. The adult industry...well, they're always cheeky, clever bastards, so they'll think of something.

[OScoder]

Just a thought:
If it is immoral to pirate a game just because it doesn't profit the developers, does that make buying second hand just as bad? I'd like to ask the makers of the piracy adverts whether they think the second-hand service of game shops illegal activity!

OScoder

[Xocrates]

Buying second hand means that the product is transfered from an owner to another. Pirating means they both get it.

i.e. You already got the money. And the number of folk with the game remains the same.

[Catch-22]

Ah, well I don't mean to be picky but there's quite a few spelling mistakes in there Just means I was paying attention

I agree with most of what you said but I just don't see the point in copy protection at all, the harder a game is to crack, the more groups are going to see it as a challenge. You might be forgetting that it's a GAME for them to CRACK the game, it's like the space race but instead of USA and the USSR trying to be the first on the moon it's RELOADED or Unleashed trying to be the first group to crack an app or game. 13 days isn't really that much either, considering release dates are not always internationally synchronized.

The easiest way for a company to dominate sales is to exclusively release to a console, and then release to PC gamers at a later date. Console piracy is a lot less common these days. Ubisoft have done this with Assassin's Creed, but of course this means that PC gamers have to wait a while before they get to play the games they want.

Meh, I go by the philosophy that people will buy what they think is worthwhile. I'm willing to admit that I have several thousand downloaded MP3's and yet for some reason I still have 6 original CD's of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I'd never buy A Knight's Tale on DVD, and yet I have a DivX video of it on my hard drive (that I have never watched).

After playing a - torrent downloaded - version of Darwinia *gasp*, I loved the quality of work so much that I purchased a legitimate official Darwinia soundtrack, and I put a pre-order on Defcon because I trusted the quality of work from Introversion. I could've easily downloaded a zero-day torrent of Defcon if I wanted it, and for quite a while several people I know were playing fine online with a torrent copy.

Has downloading an illegal copy of Darwinia impacted my decision on purchasing a legitimate copy of Darwinia? Possibly, I've already finished it and don't see much point in buying it, although the thought has crossed my mind in a similar sense that I have legitimate copies of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Would I have bought the soundtrack for Darwinia or pre-ordered Defcon had I not illegally downloaded and played a copy of Darwinia? Probably not.

My 2 cents, take it or leave it.

Edit: I'd also like to add that Shrimpster (or Chris) has made some very good points too. I wonder how many people who play StarCraft have the original CD...

[Pox]

Ah, well I don't mean to be picky but there's quite a few spelling mistakes in there Just means I was paying attention

I agree with most of what you said but I just don't see the point in copy protection at all, the harder a game is to crack, the more groups are going to see it as a challenge. You might be forgetting that it's a GAME for them to CRACK the game, it's like the space race but instead of USA and the USSR trying to be the first on the moon it's RELOADED or Unleashed trying to be the first group to crack an app or game. 13 days isn't really that much either, considering release dates are not always internationally synchronized.

The easiest way for a company to dominate sales is to exclusively release to a console, and then release to PC gamers at a later date. Console piracy is a lot less common these days. Ubisoft have done this with Assassin's Creed, but of course this means that PC gamers have to wait a while before they get to play the games they want.

Meh, I go by the philosophy that people will buy what they think is worthwhile. I'm willing to admit that I have several thousand downloaded MP3's and yet for some reason I still have 6 original CD's of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I'd never buy A Knight's Tale on DVD, and yet I have a DivX video of it on my hard drive (that I have never watched).

After playing a - torrent downloaded - version of Darwinia *gasp*, I loved the quality of work so much that I purchased a legitimate official Darwinia soundtrack, and I put a pre-order on Defcon because I trusted the quality of work from Introversion. I could've easily downloaded a zero-day torrent of Defcon if I wanted it, and for quite a while several people I know were playing fine online with a torrent copy.

Has downloading an illegal copy of Darwinia impacted my decision on purchasing a legitimate copy of Darwinia? Possibly, I've already finished it and don't see much point in buying it, although the thought has crossed my mind in a similar sense that I have legitimate copies of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Would I have bought the soundtrack for Darwinia or pre-ordered Defcon had I not illegally downloaded and played a copy of Darwinia? Probably not.

My 2 cents, take it or leave it.

Edit: I'd also like to add that Shrimpster (or Chris) has made some very good points too. I wonder how many people who play StarCraft have the original CD...

Piracy is certainly a great marketing avenue... even more so if you make the pirated copies break after a few days.

[HothGremlin]

It's quite interesting that people tend to forget where terms and usage come from.

DRM for example
In an interview one year ago, an austrian "anti-pirating" lobbyist said that, "the public should have never heard about DRM". He argues that DRM was designed to operate without the user knowing. And, yes, he sells that as a feature, due to the user not having to be aware of what's going on and being possible to just use the software he bought. Well, so much about wonderland.

So what the heck is DRM?
Nowadays it is very difficult finding out about DRM. In the beginning, DRM hast been "Digital Rights Management, [...] a system whereby the usage of copyrighted data by someone who has purchased a copy of it may be restricted by the copyright holder. In contrast to the usual legal restrictions which copyright itself imposes on the owner of a copy of such data, DRM would allow additional restrictions to be imposed solely at the discretion of the copyright holder, through hardware and software code under the copyright holder's control." DRM found on wikipedia - in 2002

The Keyfeatures of DRM
In the beginning, DRM was not just Digital Rights Management, but very connected to DRMS, the systems, that provided DRM to the copyright owner. If talking about DRMS nowadays, we have to hear about occurences like WOW, steam and others, but in the beginning, DRMS was tightly connected to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palladium_operating_system and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing

As I've written earlier, DRM was not meant being known by the public. And that's the main theme. And that's where TCG (Trusted Computing), Palladium and all the other systems began.

Licensing hardware?
Core features are harware DRM implementations, already implemented in all new CPUs. And no, this is not a conspiracy.
http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2006/03/09 ... dtcp_drm/2
http://www.techspot.com/news/24929-amd- ... -gpus.html
There are many other links. Read them yourself.
Hardware that processes and controls DRM? Righto. Is that cool? Damn no! Because that means that, if you buy a computer, you are not really buying but licensing it. Think you can attach whatever parts you want to it and install whatever software you like? No you can't!

I won't discuss now about the word pirate, but it's dumbshit as well. Piracy is robbery (or blackmailing) committed at sea or on shores. Robbery is the forced privation.

Conclusio
Pirating lobbyists is much more fun than pirating games (which sux).

[Phydaux]

...I won't discuss now about the word pirate, but it's dumbshit as well. Piracy is robbery (or blackmailing) committed at sea or on shores. Robbery is the forced privation.

The meaning and usage of words changes over time. Language is continually evolving. Wikitonary has 4 separate definitions for the word Piracy (it is a homographic homophone). You deduce the correct meaning from your knowledge of the subject and the context of the sentence the word is used in. Clearly, piracy in this thread means: "The unauthorized duplication of goods protected by intellectual property law (e.g. copying software unlawfully)"

[Montyphy]

LOL Limewire

[shinygerbil]

I won't discuss now about the word pirate, but it's dumbshit as well. Piracy is robbery (or blackmailing) committed at sea or on shores. Robbery is the forced privation.

Uhh...excuuuuuse me....

the word "dumbshit" is usually used to refer to unintelligent faeces.

[MrSeagull]

Look at it this way, if you sucessfully pull of the server-side DRM, out of those other 10 who pirated Darwinia, a good chunk of them will pay for Multiwinia.

I liked that idea of pre-empting crackers with your own torrent release. With a CD key that allows single-play only. It's like a stealthy demo. You would need a full version CD key to play multiplayer - or to unlock the limited form of multiplayer (just enough to give a taste). The only catch is the game has to have good multiplayer content.

[xander]

You would need a full version CD key to play multiplayer - or to unlock the limited form of multiplayer (just enough to give a taste).

In the case of Defcon -- and, assumably, Multiwinia -- the game is entirely multiplayer. If you can't play multiplayer, you are basically missing the whole game. Also, it is much easier to control multiplayer keys -- a client must contact the metaserver in order to get a game going, and if you don't have a valid key, then the metaserver bumps you into demo mode. End of story. There is no way around that, other than having a valid key.

xander

[stormbolter]

I would comment quite a bit of things that appeared on the original post:

The first of all: developers don't really need to protect the games.

As some posters pointed, Galactic Civilizations 2 came without any type of copy protection. You could download off a torrent and play the same game someone paid for. Also I want to point that you could download the updates off P2P. What you really got by purchasing the game was, mainly, a nice manual and poster with the tech-tree (quite handy), and the fuzzy feeling that you're contributing to the developing of more games like the one you purchased.

And I can see Stardock is still developing games. Also, I have to say that it's update system makes more convenient to update a game than downloading via P2P, thus adding value!

Original Post commented about how radiohead's album got pirated even if it could be downloaded for free on its webpage. Now I haven't downloaded radiohead's album (one way or another), but I guess you didn't just went to radiohead and there was a huge button called "download our album". For the screenshots I saw it was some sort of online purchase, except you didn't paid nothing. Probably involved registration, though. Now the pirate way: I go to mininova, search "radiohead", click on download torrent, ????, profit!

The issue is similar to DRM, and it's called "conveniency". People will always take the easiest way, if they have the chance.

And, for WoW DRM, I would like to mention the existence of "freeservers". I haven't played on any WoW freeserver, but I played on quite a few Ultima Freeservers, because they were fewer people and I didn't had to wait 30 (and excuse my english) f***ing months to be a good tailor. Not everyone can afford to pay a monthly quote to spend two or three hours a week slowly building the character. And I have a lot of friends playing on Lineage Freeservers, and they honestly think these servers are better than the original.

While Freeservers may not have all the features of the full servers (namely, they usually lack events), they compensate it with unusual features (on my favourite -and sadly deceased- Ultima Freeserver I could grow and harvest my own flax! and then spun it to make yarn!) and more often than not are underpopulated wich suits my style of playing. I think that defeats the "WoW DRM" easily.

As for DRM itself, the main problem is the same that with another DRM: you stop owning the game you purchased. You cannot lend it to a friend, you can't resell it if you don't like it, you can't rent it from a shop because of the same DRM.

A faulty implementation of DRM may lead to performance issues (like what happened with morrowind, with people installing the no-cd patch to increase performance), and of course, to usability issues. My laptop doesn't have an internal CD unit. it is located on a dock. That means that if I want to play a CD game on my laptop (while not on the dock) I have to apply some type of patch.

Steam is the classic example of well implemented DRM. It still has the issues of the DRM (I can't play most games if I don't have an internet connection, I can't resell a game I don't like -Sin Episodes anyone?) while on the other hand it offers some compensation (you can play it in any computer you own, activation is really easy). While I like what Valve is doing with Steam, I still have issues about purchasing games in it because of the DRM (and also because I like to own a physical copy of the game, and Steam games rarely come with freebies).

At local level, I see the main problem in my country is that the games are as expensive (or even more) as in america, while salaries are perhaps half (or even less). I have a good income for people my age (~1200€/month plus some extras doing conferences) and still, after paying the bills I end with about 200€ for spending in things I like. Now, usually people in the "playing age" in spain (20-25) earns about 600€-1000€/month. An Xbox 360 game costs 50-70€ a PC game 20-60€.

Also in Spain, as Pyro's developer Gonzo Suarez put it bluntly, "there is shame on purchasing original software". Fortunately, this mindset is changing, thanks to the efforts of distributors like FX interactive that brings good games at an affordable price.


A quick reply now to OsCoder:
Thanks to DRM second-hand shops may be out of bussiness. Gamestop stores in Spain refuse to purchase bioshock for PC because of the copy-protection scheme involved.

[JustinA]

First some semi-anecdotal information : there were at least ten times as many pirate copies of Uplink and Darwinia as there were legitimate sales. How do we know? Patches available on our website which only work on the full games have been downloaded more than ten times the sales totals of their games.

You're assuming that no one ever downloads the patches more than once. I, personally, have probably downloaded the Uplink patches a half dozen times. (Why? Because I get a lot of replay value out of that game and it usually ends up getting reinstalled when I get a new computer, reinstall the operating system, or the like. I've also, upon occasion, uninstalled games and then reinstalled them at a later date -- although I can't recall doing that with Uplink, per se.)

Of course, OTOH, some pirated versions of the game may be getting distributed with the patches already "pre-installed".

I don't really have any over-arching point to make here except that your metric for gauging the severity of piracy is somewhat flawed.

Recently somebody else posted a figure that 92% of the online players for their game (using their servers) were using pirated versions of the game. I still haven't figured out how you could arrive at a figure like that without being able to block the offending players.

[KingAl]

People can download it multiple times, but ten times each? Furthermore, I'd guess that the vast majority of Darwinia owners purchased it through Steam, where the game is auto-updated and as such doesn't come into play in terms of patch downloads. With that factored in, that figure of ten times more may be conservative.
I assume Reflexive just have a very loose DRM system - no centralised servers, or no way to confirm legal and illegal versions etc. which would account for their inability to 'control' pirates - while they could still estimate based on the IPs of people who have purchased versus the IPs of people who are downloading, as a most likely impractical example. Certainly, given that each player has a unique key, IV have been able to ban Defcon pirates who use the online server.