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General discussionIs DRM that bad?(94 posts)(94 posts)
(94 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted December 05, 2015
Thus far you haven't gotten any "mindless" hate, which is good.

Keep in mind that there are still people who game but have bad or spotty internet connections (like our own tinyE, apparently), or none at all and use internet from places like the library to download games and take them home to play.
Post edited December 05, 2015 by tfishell
Posted December 05, 2015
considering everyone is shoving their own client, this sort of drm is problematic, try playing a ubisoft game on steam and you will know

when i pay for a damn game, i want the whole damn game with hassle free convenience if not then............
Posted December 05, 2015
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djranis: considering everyone is shoving their own client, this sort of drm is problematic, try playing a ubisoft game on steam and you will know

when i pay for a damn game, i want the whole damn game with hassle free convenience if not then............
Heh! Some will argue that you can only achieve this hassle-free convenience by installing whatever client the game requires. In the end, it turns out to be more hassle than 'convenient'.
Post edited December 05, 2015 by PookaMustard
Posted December 05, 2015
Now back to the OP. YES, DRM is bad. In ages old, most games either didn't have DRM, or had the mild and acceptable keep the CD inserted to play DRM. One might argue the latter is still bad, but not as much as the DRM of today, because the CD you get to insert to play is IN YOUR HANDS, not in a corporation's hands. As long as you had the CD on your person, you owned it and the game, and the third party involved in making the game was not nosing on you or telling you when to play, or another third party for that matter. The matter was right between your very hands.

Nowadays, that matter's taken off from your hands. Now you have to pass through the third party distributing the game in order to not just get it, but to also play it. I'll make it much more simpler to understand. Through DRM, you are no longer able to do what you could do to your games, that is more freedom offered to you to do whatever you want with your game, playing it whenever you want and how, where and why you play it as you wish. All of this is now in the corporation's hands. Your games are getting downgraded to something alike RENTALS, and you pay full price to access any rental...

Say what you want about mods integration and whatnot. That could be done without Steam. Most of Steam can be done in another totally different program that doesn't go by its DRM principles. Or to say, you DON'T NEED DRM TO HAVE MOD INTEGRATION OR COMMUNITY FEATURES. And I'm for one, have been affected by the DRM severely. Don't just come out and say 'nearly everyone has internet' and whatever other modern day ignorance one can say to justify DRM. The matter is just downright more complex than that. This is why DRM-free has its own audience. And I'm part of the audience, after seeing what DRM is capable of doing.
Posted December 05, 2015
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djranis: when i pay for a dam game
[url=http://www.metamud.org/~eggie/commandos/mis3/05.jpg]:D[/url]


Yeah, I'm bored.
Plus I love this dam game and this dam level.
Posted December 05, 2015
Of course DRM is bad. I, too, have bought some Steam games recently (e.g. Bioshock 2 & Infinite) but that's only because they are not / are unlikely to ever be available on GOG. Steam is certainly a lot slicker and trouble-free than it used to be, but it still isn't fooling me into becoming a convert. Ultimately, when you pay for a product it ought to be yours for the rest of time, even if the next operating system renders it unplayable, but that's another subject. Don't let yourself be brainwashed into thinking DRM is good just because a site such as Steam provides a smoother experience these days : at the end of the day you are still effectively only renting a game which you have paid for - something which was undreamt of in the early days of gaming.
Posted December 05, 2015
Yes it is,when i wanted to play a game steam didn't work for 5 months due to the whole steamUI.dll failed to load they fixed that issue and i wonder if the issue will ever come back.
But that is what i get for having a really old pc and still no sight of buying a new one.
I even did buy a game on steam not too long ago but mostly just because it was really cheap and i had the available money and i wanted the game badly.I do preffer buying games more on gog now.
Posted December 05, 2015
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PookaMustard: Most of Steam can be done in another totally different program that doesn't go by its DRM principles. Or to say, you DON'T NEED DRM TO HAVE MOD INTEGRATION OR COMMUNITY FEATURES.
In fact, it has been done, As shitty as it was, the Desura client allowed a good deal of these features, including mod integration. And let's hope GOG's own Galaxy will in time allow all these things and more, whilst remaining optional and DRM-free (now, if it was open-sourced to allow community contributions and forks...)
Posted December 05, 2015
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Naszrador: I don't see your problem. DRM-free doesn't mean that other services, like your loved mod integration, can't be done. It's just that GOG hasn't done it till now. Galaxy is still in beta. And I never used it and still could mod any of my games without problem, so I don't even see the need for the Mod Integration. I can't remember a game where it was overly complicated or time consuming.
About pirating: go look for a random game that's DRM'd with the Steam wrapper. You'll find a crack without much trouble. DRM usually hurts customers more than pirates. GOGer's like backing up their stuff on physical DVDs, be able to play while offline because you're somwhere with limited, unstable or just no internet often. And you have the guarantee to be always capable of playing your games. Steam WILL die one day. Not today, not tomorrow, maybe not even in 20 years. But there are games I can see myself playing when I'm 80, and when Steams dead till then? Or if I want to let them be played by a newer generation?
I can't see anything bad about DRM-free and should GOG ever drop their DRM policy, then I'll stop buying anything from them. Because that's the reason I am actually here. And many others as well.
you got a point, if a bad user wants free stuff, they will find it, just like you said.
there will always be people who will never buy stuff, not even at 10 cents.
so basically steam is preventing themselves from getting 10 times a big because of the client stuff they force upon users.
And in the end the paying customer is indeed the only one who gets hurt, but the DRM huggers dont understand that
and i guess most of them never will.
I read many posts about goog old securom, how honest buyers had to beg the support to make the game work cause you seem to have limited activations on securom, cause the info apparently stays after a user uninstalls his securomed game, this causes the user to run through the max number of allowed activations, so they have to beg, phone and prove ownership for being honest and buying the game, and that is discusting.
So lateron the horrible tages was invented, written with a - on the a i assume its a french word? or maybe german?
anyways its a very nasty drm, and this punishment is only for the good old honest buyers who forked out cash, did the right thing and buy the game.

One of the secretfiles games also has tages, i know cause i bought the games on steam, i really like the games cause after playing the 1st one whic had no DRM i wanted more, more :D
So i got the pack, but i wont play cause i am not messing the pc up with nasty rotten DRM.
or play lagging games because a steam client eneds to run in the back checking things and phione home, thus decreasing gaming performance.
So thats why i hope these drm huggers will see the light and release them drm free, and see that there can be made money if they also release games DRM free.
Posted December 05, 2015
I dont mind DRM that much but ofcourse I would prefer games without it. I also dont like the fact that i need to enter my password or use an other client program to be able to play my game/program.

The reason you are checking Steam more often is probably because of 1- Steam has more new games, and 2- Steam has a wider range of games and sales. Also because of the regional prices same game is cheaper on Steam even if GOG has 50% sale. I still prefer buying the game from GOG because of the DRM free. However, I bought some legendary games like KOTOR, Witcher series and Fallout Series both from GOG and Steam.
Posted December 05, 2015
djuanis and PookaMustard make excellent points.

DRM is a slippery slope. After Steam's success, others followed, and that is also why some games come with multiple layers of DRM on them - which is absolutely absurd.

The whole thing having your games under control of the publisher or a "turd" party, is they have the ability to pull the plug. In some cases you may argue "oh, but those were bad games", but it should be up to the user to decide. Sometimes people buy bad games because they are cheep enough and for a good laugh. Also what about the sleeper hits? Several games like this have already had been "killed off".

If people continue supporting DRM like this they may wake up one day to a gaming world where the mainstream is publishers deciding "when you've played enough of this game and it's time for you to re-buy it for the new OS or console. Or move on to the sequel." Games are more than just games, like movies and music, they come with a little bit of history to them, it would be a shame to have that disappear when they pull the plug on the game's server.
Posted December 05, 2015
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mg1979: The main drawback is that you need an active internet connection basically all the time, but most people here probably have it anyway, at least you need it to download games... So why people hate DRM?
I'm tired of this argument. I can have internet connection at the hostel common room, but not in my own room. I don't want to need going down to the common room all the time to be able to play my games, like recently Starcraft forced me to do
Posted December 05, 2015
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mg1979: The main drawback is that you need an active internet connection basically all the time, but most people here probably have it anyway, at least you need it to download games... So why people hate DRM?
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P1na: I'm tired of this argument. I can have internet connection at the hostel common room, but not in my own room. I don't want to need going down to the common room all the time to be able to play my games, like recently Starcraft forced me to do
I'm tired of it too. And I'm also getting tired of repeating to these folks that not everyone has unlimited bandwidth.

True story, my brother told me my limited bandwidth was a flimsy excuse because all I need to do is just move. :P I wonder how fast his middle finger would go up if I told him to "just move". XD
Posted December 05, 2015
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mg1979: As most people know, DRM-free means the games can be shared with torrents very easily, I guess GOG isn't happy about it. Lately I've been using Steam too, and I don't think it's that bad. The main drawback is that you need an active internet connection basically all the time, but most people here probably have it anyway, at least you need it to download games... So why people hate DRM? Old DRMs were invasive and/or bothersome, requiring cd checks, etc, but a DRM on the model of Steam's isn't bothersome at all to me. I have to say I don't use GOG Galaxy and I think I never will, unless it becomes something spectacular. Steam has mod integration through Workshop and for this reason alone is ahead of everything that Galaxy can do right now. Personally I'd trade the DRM-freeness for mod integration very willingly, but I'd also like to be able to install my games when I'm not connected to the internet.

There was GOG Downloader, where you logged in, so it had access to your account. If the DRM were limited to the actual setup program, I'd find it acceptable. That is, if GOG Downloader or a similar lightweight installation launcher checked if you actually own the game on GOG: the launcher would download the list of the games you own, then (even offline) whenever you run a GOG installer it would check if you own the game, if you don't you wouldn't be able to install it. It would be problematic for all the current installers for which you can find torrents, but the program could check the registry to find installations of GOG games you don't own or similar things.

I mean, let's face it, DRM-free is great but it's a double-bladed thing. I repeat I'd trade it for additional services (mainly mod hosting and automatic download/integration of mods/configuration tweaks/whatever).
I am not going to get too mad about your post (mostly)

But I will say this and others have said it countless times before:

IF YOU ARE HAPPY WITH STEAM, WHY DO YOU COME HERE?

ALSO, HOW DO YOU THINK A REVERSE QUESTION WOULD BE DEALT WITH ON THE STEAM FORUMS???

DOUBLE BLADED? FFS ALL YOU WANT IS CONVENIENCE OR DEATH
Posted December 05, 2015
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DRM is bad because

- it takes away control from the user over his software. Remember when Amazon deleted e-books long after the purchase? Modern DRM can do that or something similar to you any time.
- it restricts honest buyers but doesn't stop crackers. (I refuse to call them pirates, because cracking software isn't even remotely equivalent to robbing, kidnapping, and murdering people at sea.)
- it's a additional layer of code that is prone to additional bugs and security flaws.
- many of today's DRM methods require online activation even for offline software. That means you can't install these programs on offline PCs.
Post edited December 05, 2015 by V4V
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionIs DRM that bad?(94 posts)(94 posts)
(94 posts)