Ok, I will bite. For games which are totally single player, a connection to a server is seen as DRM. The reason being that the company is the one with the power to switch off your use of the digital media, hence, they have the "right" to "manage" your use of the "digital" product. Whether they choose to do that or not is another matter, but the fact that the decision about when or if you can play your single player game is taken out of your hands by the need for connection to server can be used as a DRM mechanism.

With multiplayer games there is an inherent need to communicate to other devices for the multiplayer component via whatever medium, hence that is another matter. Single player DRM free can only be thought of a standalone product, which needs no permission - be it via key, login, always on, phone call, doing the can can or any other means - to be able to execute fully.

That's main thing I take from this is the start "seen as DRM".... The problem here is that you are equating a dependency with DRM, and that is the way of monsters. Architecture which has an always online dependency, is not per definition DRM, more than an architecture depending on say... DirectX or Windows.... Or even electricity. You could use the same argument as above with electricity. DRM is about how it is used, not what is used, so without knowing the actual implementation of the always online component it is not necessarily DRM.

The bottom line here, and what people must be very aware of, is not falling in the trap of "I don't like it, therefore it is DRM"

Ah, ok, so I can play this Bloodbourn, on my PC without an internet connection? No, I can't, I am at the whim of the vendor continuing to provide authorization to be able to use my product.

Your given examples are not valid - DX has no online requirement other than the acquisition thereof - although you could take a USB to someone who has it and copy it onto that. Hence it a different.

Again, with the Windows, you need an operating system, but it doesn't have to be windows - this is your choice based on the options available, and does not require permissions in some situations anyways, you can get Linux and use that as your OS, with no internet requirements.

Neither of these examples "Require" and active connection to enable your digital product. Even electricity, you can provide that yourself via a motor, or hamsters in a wheel. Nor do you have to phone up the electricity company to ask them if its OK to use that electricity at that point.

And its not an "I don't like, therefore its DRM argument", I don't like clientware - that is not necessarily DRM, but I still don't like it.

Well there I'd debate you since DRM ultimately ties back to unjust laws regarding ownership of things we pay money for. Most people are politically and historically illiterate. So I have serious doubts about the average human beings ability to see and understand the world intelligibly.

Hoping that removal of DRM will change laws that are unjust is on the level of hoping that taking a painkiller will somehow resolve that gaping hole in your gut. As I said, people have more important battles to fight - including attempts to change underlying laws which allow for uncalled for DRM usage as opposed to pointlessly suppressing the symptoms.

Anyway, I'm glad you consider yourself so much smarter than most other people. We need more people like that. Uh-huh.

Oh, as long as it's just Gearbox... at least no one who boycotts always-on DRM will miss out on any good games.

well to be fair it kind of is. the second that company decides to pull the servers, you can't play that game anymore. if you believe you have a right to play a game you payed for and you can't because of something they do, then that's them effectively managing that right for you.

Yup, and that is a very sad thing, our kids , are kids that grew up with cd/dvd mp3players and more mobile shittystuff,
and also stream and other DRM shits, take all these crap for granted cause they dont know better.
Cd/DVD is not that bad, but they have to google or visit a museum to find out what a vinylrecord is, or a (cassette)tape
or an old 8mm movie and more stuff that we grew up with, and VCC, VHS, Betamax, Laser Disk,
we had at least all of the latest things, our kids only know about cd/dvd (if their lucky) or nowadays start with a mobile which has access to the internet and social media, thats how our kids grew up.

I can only hope that i live to see the end of this Gearbox shites, with luck they might be bankrupt in 5-10 years, cause sooner or later they al go bankrupt, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Anyway, unless Gearbox is already part of 'good ol' EA , they will probably taken over in the near future,
and drm will end sooner or later , i hope sooner but i fear it might never end, but the stronger the drm the more of challenge it will be for the ones that dont love DRM to work around it.
The bigger they are the harder they fall, and if i am around to see it happen i be making a nice screenshot of it when it happens, print it out and hang it on the wall.

Not that i hate DRM :D nah,

[sarcasm]
DRM is the best thing ever invented.
[/sarcasm]

better then a top ten:

10. the plow,
9. the wheel,
8. printing press,
7.refrigeration,
6. communications,
5.steam engine (transport ofcourse and not the steam gaming),
4.auto mobile,
3.lightbulb,
2.computer
1. the internet


> source of the 10 best inventions: geniusstuff.com/blog/list/10-inventions-changed-world/

Tragically enough they are never going to give up DRM, MMO's and steam are basically DRM and they've basically gotten a generation of gamers now to accept it. A sizable chunk of the gaming market will fork over money for a drm'd game, MMO's proved that with World of warcraft.

Tragically enough as a part of the first generation of video gamers as soon as steam store and MMO's gained traction I knew to expect more of the same, the last 15 years have been pretty horrifying if you were in your late teens early 20's during the mid 90's. The division is selling well being online only, Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 basically gave the green light to everyone to push always online now.

The free market in gaming can never work because it requires us to be geographically located near these companies otherwise our rage/complaints won't work without physical presence. The internet changes the dynamic where they can push games and a large part of the gaming market (kids/morons/idiots) will buckle because they generally don't have a clue what they are doing to gaming by their stupid purchasing habits. The old primate brain didn't evolve to participate in a market society, you can always find people dumb enough to feed corporate criminality.

That was supp99. Not me. Right now, on average, kids these days are by far the most computer litterate of any generation that has preceded them. It's just that this proliferation has created a perception of dilution - like somehow geeks have died out just because their interests have gone mainstream.

And yes, I do miss the old LAN gaming experience. I had a cyber cafe right outside my old college (both cyber cafe and college are long gone now - makes me feel old) and many a game of Quake 2, GTA and Total Annihilation were had. Good times.

My apologies about that! (..was just briefly searching for that "citation" & found it in one of your posts without noticing that it was a quote - and I was (as now) really tired...sigh)

That is as opposed to your smart and superior brain which just a couple of posts earlier suggested that curing symptoms would cure the disease :-P

The point being, depending on architecture it does not have to be authorization. If it is, then it is DRM, however if is some part of the game that works server-side (i.e.. not authorization but game game related) then it is not (just badly implemented....). Always online is then not used to manage your rights, but a shortcut or some type sort of implementation decision.

You are using a bit of circular logic there - always online is drm, therefore those using always online is using drm. I am not convinced. There are dependencies (your hamster will die....) which are out of your control, but it does not make it DRM. DRM is about actively regulating your rights after purchase, and bad design decisions are not.

I watched gaming go down the shitter the last 15 years, the fact that gog.com even exists is actually proof the average human being is irrational. No rational computer literate person would ever accept handing over rights to own their own shit and allow game companies to turn their games off and pay for it. That is a level of stupid that is off the charts. You paid $40-60 bucks and now they can just turn the game off at any time because they've engineered the game in such a way as to have absolute control of how you use it. That's a stupifying level of dumbness on the behalf of the average gamer.