Drm Restricted Commercial Games

DRM will make me:

  • More likely to buy (I will pirate if possible)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Less likely to buy (I dislike the DRM restrictions)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No more or less likely to buy (Piracy isn't an option, DRM doesn't bother me)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No more or less likely to buy (I'd never pay for a gp2x game)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0

The main point is that DRM doesn't work, because its Digital
Once one person gets around it somehow, because it's digital, they can transfer it to someone else for free (or as near free as makes no difference), in a few days anyone can download it free on the internet and there is no way for the company to reverse that.
 
Redeeman posted on May 2 2006 at 09:25 PM said:
Why does it annoy you to have a game on an SD card? I am not annoyed that I have games on cartridges.
well for example, now with networking capabilities i may wish to put the game on my server..
but in general, i wasnt complaining that the game needed to be on AN sd card, but THIS specific card.
Same here, not so much that it has to be on an SD card, but if I want to buy 10 games, totaling 250 meg I don't really want to have paid for 10 256meg SD cards just so the DRM can lock against something. I buy very, very few gba games because the silicon carts make the games cost way more than I think they are worth.

Remove the DRM requirement and you can sell games at £3-5 less as a download while keeping the profit margins the same. That equates to more sales and happier developers.
 
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As long as I can copy my games to my external 200GB hard drive i'll have hooked up to my breakout box i dont really care, if they are locked to SD card, that will be shit, because say you have 10 SD games, thats a lot of cards to carry around / store / probably lose somewhere and never find again.
 
I'll probably buy the games to support the developers, then get a cracked copy so I don't have to worry about the DRM.
 
FluffyPanda posted on May 2 2006 at 09:23 PM said:
Redeeman posted on May 2 2006 at 09:25 PM said:
Why does it annoy you to have a game on an SD card? I am not annoyed that I have games on cartridges.
well for example, now with networking capabilities i may wish to put the game on my server..
but in general, i wasnt complaining that the game needed to be on AN sd card, but THIS specific card.
Same here, not so much that it has to be on an SD card, but if I want to buy 10 games, totaling 250 meg I don't really want to have paid for 10 256meg SD cards just so the DRM can lock against something. I buy very, very few gba games because the silicon carts make the games cost way more than I think they are worth.

Remove the DRM requirement and you can sell games at £3-5 less as a download while keeping the profit margins the same. That equates to more sales and happier developers.
Paradox posted on May 2 2006 at 09:31 PM said:
As long as I can copy my games to my external 200GB hard drive i'll have hooked up to my breakout box i dont really care, if they are locked to SD card, that will be shit, because say you have 10 SD games, thats a lot of cards to carry around / store / probably lose somewhere and never find again.
You can get a download, eventually or so the demo claims, that is DRM'd to your GP2x so it doesnt matter where its stored.
 
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And then you've got the problem that you can break your gp2x and your replacement won't play any of your games. But now we're going round in circles.

I guess I'll just have to agree to differ with some of you. I can't see a single advantage to ading DRM to the game and nobody has yet proposed one that I can see any merit in. At the same time I can see disadvantages to the consumer (i.e. me).
 
Aninhumer posted on May 2 2006 at 11:05 PM said:
I'll probably buy the games to support the developers, then get a cracked copy so I don't have to worry about the DRM.
This is what i'm constantly doing with the cd and games i buy. What a strange world ...
 
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I don't want to have to carry around 2 sd cards, I bought a nice big sd card so I could fit everything on it.

I would understand if these became some really big like 200mb+ games then I would not be too upset about carrying another card but I see no reason with the big SD cards there are out now.

Then locking to the unit, well I don't know how long my gp2x is going to last. There would need to be a way to unlock it from that old unit (without using that unit because it could break) and put it to your new one.
This is the most ideal way to go about it, but it has to work with Windows, Mac and linux. So maybe an online thing would work the best.

IDK much about DRM but I am not exstatic about it.
 
FluffyPanda posted on May 2 2006 at 10:18 PM said:
And then you've got the problem that you can break your gp2x and your replacement won't play any of your games. But now we're going round in circles.

I guess I'll just have to agree to differ with some of you. I can't see a single advantage to ading DRM to the game and nobody has yet proposed one that I can see any merit in. At the same time I can see disadvantages to the consumer (i.e. me).
The old system let you reset the DRM ID of your console aswell if I remember back from the JoyGP days.
 
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I have been known to prefer carrying around multiple CDs than record them to my Minidisc player or convert to MP3. I have also been known to buy multiple copies of the same music in different formats, or multiple copies of the same game for multiple systems.

Therefore, DRM doesn't bother me at all. I actually like it better when I feel like the software and the media it comes on are inseperable.
 
But if you can reset the ID then the DRM doesn't work, and as FluffyPanda says:
WERE GOING ROUND IN CIRCLES HERE!
 
"Give me convenience, or give me death."

Someone made the point about cartridge systems in the past. I have no problems with that - Take cartridge off shelf, put the cartridge in console, switch on the VCS (or whatever), play the game. No problem. Your game system is static, and your game library is beside it, all pretty logical.

However, when it's a portable system, that sucks big, hairy balls. I don't want to have to carry around multiple SD cards. In fact, because they're so small, every additional one increases the risk that I'll lose or misplace one. If I have on SD card, and it's plugged into the GP2X it's not going to fall anywhere.

While I have a Nintendo DS, and plenty of commercial, legitimate ROMs, I still download the ROM images and copy them onto SD-card, because I don't want to cart around a load of little bits of plastic, when I should just be able to carry the console and that's it (especially when you need the storage space for batteries!) I don't mind buying ROMs for the DS, because that's the native format, and from a loading-time point of view, it's a big plus. Plus, it's Nintendo, and historically-speaking, you expect a ROM-based system.

Another case in point: The only reason I bought Half-Life 2 was not because it's a great game (which it is), but because I could download the cracked version from the newsgroups and not have to worry about whether the steam server was going to be working today or whatever, which was a big problem at the time.

When I got my Darwinia CD last year, I was absolutely delighted to find that it had no copy-protection. That means I can have it on my PC at home and my machine in work, without carting a CD around, just waiting for something to happen to it, or to be forgotten and left in the wrong drive. Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, I'm physically unable to use both machines at the same time. I respect what they did, and I try to spread the word about Darwinia to gamer friends and point them towards the demo, available on PC, Mac and Linux. It is a fantastic game, I urge you all to try it!

The whole point of doing good business should be to provide added value to the customer. Someone laughed at the point being made that DRM-users are treating customers like criminals. What's so laughable about that? Just the simple fact that DRM exists means that the vendors are assuming that we will pirate the game. How would you like if it, next time you went into a shop, a security guard followed you around, and everytime you picked something off a shelf to look at it, asked you, "Are you going to buy that?" Actually, no, he'd probably ask "Are you going to buy that, Sir?", with the extra level of obsequiousness adding insult to injury, as intended.

DRM is just a way of making things look good on paper for shareholder meetings, and it provides the circular argument of piracy vs sales that idiot Sales Directors and CEOs need to take the attention off their incompetence.

Basically, the whole idea of using DRM and locking software to physical media invalidates all the advances that shareware made in terms of respecting the customer.

If I have to swap an SD card through the machine just to play a game, I know there's going to be a time when I'm at home and I want to either play the game, or watch some video, and I find that the wrong card is in the machine, and the one I want is somewhere else!

If a vendor tries to sell me software with DRM, they're basically saying, "We'll sell you this, but you can only play it from the CD or SD card it's on, because we don't trust you to keep it to yourself. In fact, we're pretty sure that you'd upload copies all over the place." I'm sure as hell not going to have anything but contempt in response to that kind of attitude. That's how I feel about it, and I'm not sorry - I do have some self-respect, and it looks like roughly 30% of the (highly accurate, I'm sure) poll voters feel that way too.

Granted, serial numbers are a form of DRM, but they're pretty non-intrusive, and enable the developer to provide added value in terms of extra downloads (e.g. Nintendo DS VIP titles have a serial number which unlocks downloads on Nintendo's web site.)

Anyway, I find it somewhat hypocritical for them (GBAX) to be selling DRMed software, and then Craig goes and writes up a (damned fine) article about the GP2X, with a major part being about emulators, which is copyright and IP infringement (no matter how nicely any of us would like to spin it), and then we find this gem: " tried episodes of Lost straight from Bit Torrent and also some movies and the GP2X handled them without any fuss at all:". That really says it all, I think. If he's reading this and not blushing, then he has no shame. I will, of course, happily offer an apology if he can produce proof that he owns the originals of the games in the pictures of the emulators, and I presume he owns an Amiga from which he obtained the Kickstart image for UAE? I would assume he must have the DVDs of "Lost" and "The Warriors", at least.
 
Why does the poll not allow you to select that you'd be willing to buy the games with DRM without saying you'd pirate them? :p That doesn't make much sense.

At any rate, I can see the reason to want to have a form of non-restrictive and oppressive DRM to ensure the developers aren't hurt by piracy in such a small niche market. For example, I'm giving it consideration for yet-to-be-released titles I am involved in developing. While I wouldn't mind giving the games away, after such an enormous time investment and all of that effort, a commercial version should at least net a bit of a profit-- something that may never happen if anyone can drag and drop the game onto their SD card and play it without paying for it. I imagine I am not the only one who would say that would be extraordinarily discouraging, since the community is relatively small and you may only achieve limited appeal anyway.

At any rate, as for concerns about being unable to get in touch with the company producing the games, I for one always keep up with my mail, and if a user had a legitimate need that arose I'd take care of it. I hate oppressive DRM as much as most people, but there is a dramatic contrast between a program that needs permission to run on a card that it didn't come with (how many GBA or DS games will run on anything but their original cartridge? ;)) and a movie you buy that won't play on anything but one TV, and not in your PC, or refuse to run without strange HD certified hardware, things like that.

DRM is all about logical design and support. If it's being supported by a company that is responsive and for a relatively small pool of customers, making logical decisions as to what is legitimate use (letting a user run the game on their 2nd GP2x, or make an archival backup for their own use) versus what is NOT legitimate use (making copies to distribute on the internet for free to peope not entitled to the game). If the company is irrational and unresponsive, the DRM may be intrusive. Otherwise, it won't be.
 
Okey Dokey.

First, I'm dandy with non-writeable protected SD Cards with games on them like standard portable game cartridges.

And I believe the only valid defense for DRM is stupidity.

People make a living giving away software these days: Red Hat, SuSe, Scribus, etc. People MAKE MONEY giving away something FOR FREE. They get it through support, through ads, through various non-standard business models.

Let's pretend that's not valid. Let's pretend StarDock doesn't exist.

OK, now why DRM? It makes things rough on the customer. OK, let's pretend it's perfect. It never bothers the consumer. A pixie inside the cartridge keeps it working.

OK, what's the point now? Eventually someone will get the pixie addicted to crack. Piracy being illegal is, barring weird US legal history, like guns being illegal - if the criminals want to get it, they're going to get it laws or no.

It simply doesn't work. Keep in mind it's not just a DRM / No DRM decision. You need to pay for that stuff. A lot, unless it's in-house, in which case you're wasting game dev time. Or money. Probably both. And coming out with something sub-par.

I bought FF Origins for the PS1. I bought FF Dawn of Souls for the GBA. Both new. I've logged less than ten hours between them. I've logged more on an emulator in FF1. I don't consider that piracy.

You can't make headway in a community like this - a "scene" - unless you can trust your audience. They're even more tech savvy than most, and you need to know if they like something enough that the price is right. If you can't communicate that, you're dead in the water. If you CAN communicate that, you have trust, and even on the Internet people are people (unless they're soulless children - not that there are any other kind - without wallets, in which case they couldn't pay anyway) and you can make money.

Remember, piracy isn't theft - it's piracy. Technically it screws over the creator, but it skips the manufacturer, distributor, and many layers of middlemen. Even on the other layer it's fuzzy.

Can piracy be a problem? HELL YES.

But using DRM to stop it is like trying to legislate away bigotry. You might make it less severe, but ultimately all you can do is drive it underground - where it probably was anyway.
 
Epicenter posted on May 3 2006 at 02:40 AM said:
Why does the poll not allow you to select that you'd be willing to buy the games with DRM without saying you'd pirate them? :p That doesn't make much sense.
That would be option 3:

No more or less likely to buy (Piracy isn't an option, DRM doesn't bother me)

Parkydr posted on May 3 2006 at 12:18 AM said:
Another problem is you can't sell the game if you don't like it. (Unless you sell your GP2X with it).
Which is actually a legally protected right as a consumer. Software companies have been trying for years to label their goods as services to screw the consumer out of his right to resell.
 
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The real way forward I believe for the GP2x, is to sell the games cheaply by e-mailing the games, without software protection, when their money is received, and trust their honesty not to copy it to other users.

If games are cheap enough (c. £5-£8 each), there is no reason for people to pirate; and far more sales will be achieved with the same profit margin - If you don't need to supply your software on a SD card, have a printed manual, box, distribution costs, etc; you could potentially sell a game for its profit value alone (£5-£8 a game). This would remove piracy and increase sales.

The better the software protection, the more restrictive it is, and the more the software costs, the more chance that the game will get cracked, pirated and downloaded for free anyway; the only people to suffer will be the legitimate buyers. Make the software cheap and everyone wins... ;)
 
bacteria posted on May 3 2006 at 10:14 AM said:
The real way forward I believe for the GP2x, is to sell the games cheaply by e-mailing the games, without software protection, when their money is received, and trust their honesty not to copy it to other users.

If games are cheap enough (c. £5-£8 each), there is no reason for people to pirate; and far more sales will be achieved with the same profit margin - If you don't need to supply your software on a SD card, have a printed manual, box, distribution costs, etc; you could potentially sell a game for its profit value alone (£5-£8 a game). This would remove piracy and increase sales.
That's true, but some people prefer boxed games, even if it is more expensive, like me ;) A boxed game is some kind of "collector" item, while a software is too unmaterial for me, it's just a long list of 0 and 1 , who want to pay for that :p
 
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Dzz posted on May 3 2006 at 01:23 AM said:
White Demon posted on May 2 2006 at 09:14 AM said:
In the second example, MORE people have actaully BOUGHT the game than in the first example, and none of those 10000 people who obtained a pirated version would have bought the game anyway, really, so any possible money loss there is irrelevant. But, because there is no DRM, a whole 1000 MORE people have actaully BOUGHT the game, earning the developer/publisher MORE money than in the example where the DRM exists.
Developers or distributors use copy protection because they do not believe this theory about sales. They believe that it's more likely that without the protection they would have 2000 people paying and 10,000 pirated copies, which is 1000 less sales.

Well going by the poll, this theory is working here. The poll results clearly state there are over 30 people who will not buy the game because of DRM, who otherwise most likely would have if there was no protection.
 
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FluffyPanda posted on May 2 2006 at 08:10 AM said:
rokdcasbah posted on May 2 2006 at 01:49 PM said:
i'm not saying drm is great, and if this were a discussion about music i'd be saying "steal steal steal"
Really? I wouldn't promote piracy.

i don't want to get into too much detail here because it's already off-topic. but basically the record industry are so unbelievably evil at this point, the thing that's in everybody's best interest is to just dowload the album and send the band a check.

music is afaik the only industry where the distributors get the product for free, and not only make money from sales but also get money back from the people that make the product. it'd be like working in a cubicle for 60-70 hours a week, not having money for food, but still owing thousands to your boss because giving them your labor and the rights to your creations wasn't good enough.

if you buy a cd and it costs $16...maybe $15.50 go to the suits. 50 cents goes to the band, who, even though they made a record for the label, still owe the costs of making the record (probably $10,000-$50,000). how many 50 cent royalty checks do you need to pay off that debt? who cares? you won't anyway, because the label decided they don't like the record and they're gonna sit on it for a year.
 
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