DRM philosophy has likely been discussed a great deal around here, but I still wanted to ask a couple of questions for little reason other than to do so. Generally speaking as to what people believe and/or have experienced and how that effects their buying behavior. More specifically I'm interested in if there is a monetary amount that people are willing to “overlook,” their issues and take a gamble.

(The next part is long and not necessary to read. I tend to be long winded so I thought I would extend the courtesy and offer an escape.)

I've never been wild about the idea. Its seemed to me something extra that could go wrong. As the years roll by nothing has happened to change that view in any positive way. Now I mostly look at it as a risky practice that is annoying to customers, and that does astoundingly little to address the problem it seeks to remedy.

When I think of DRM I generally think of three different occasions in my gaming history (though there are more.) The first is owning “Max Payne.” Its one of those games I've had for years that I tend to play a bit of every now and then for whatever reason, usually when I upgrade my system. CP on it isn't anything fancy, just a disk check. Its not like modern games that require activation or anything like that and has always been happy to have me install it wherever I needed it as long as I had the original CD, which is good. This was fine but two things started to annoy me. Needing to dig out a CD every time you want to play is always annoying, and technically unnecessary, but that part is uninteresting. After installing it on a system way above spec for it I became very curious as to why it was taking so long to launch. It was an old game and it was taking 10-15 seconds to open the launcher for it. So I did something I'd never done before and tried a noCD.exe or something to see what would happen, and what happened kinda ticked me off – it started instantaneously. I had been waiting 10 seconds or so every time I started the game for years all because the copy protection was validating my right to play. If this check could have been done quicker I would have never noticed or cared, but as it stood I paid money for someone to waste my time protecting their own interest at my expense. This may seem a silly thing to worry about, and truthfully its not a big deal and didn't change any habits, but it started me thinking.

The next event in my gaming life did change things. The industry had already figured out how to make strange discs that made copying them more complicated but it was just beginning to bud the idea of what is the more common practice today of using some sort of on-line activation. I entered into a local Target store and they were selling the then brand new Half-life 2. I enjoyed HL1 for the most part and 2 was so hotly anticipated that I figured I would go ahead and bite. The guy that checked me out said something about how I could have bought it on Steam, but I didn't know what he was talking about. I didn't know what Steam was, but I was about to find out. Before I could play I needed another application to install and be in working order on my system. I also need to create an account and wire my CD-key to my personal account, as well as give it the right to search my computer to update any old valve games AND if I had any unlicensed games on it (which I did not) it could lock my account and deny me the right to play even the legal ones. This all sounded like a nightmare to me. It was far too easy to see honest customers getting caught in all the hooks dangling about. It was also hard for me to process as to why a 1-player off-line game was requiring me to have the Internet to play.
To make things worse some of the boxed discs in stores had corrupted texture files which made somethings look strange, and since Steam would only allow you to play an up to date version of a game, it decided to download the fix over my dial-up connection which took several days to sort out. Typically I could have had downloaded a patch while playing but not in this case. I would have returned it but it is almost never possible to return a game once its open even though you can not read the EULA before opening it(not than anyone does.) So I instead went around whining about it in various relevant forums.

There I found many people like me on one side and another group of people saying it worked for them so it couldn't possibly be a big deal. There were also some saying how people should have read all the tiny print on the box. Even though that really only said you needed to have the Internet, plus no other game had really ever done such a thing before and people had little reason to be watching out for themselves in that way. In the end that changed everything for me. After playing through HL2 (I did pay for it) I never reinstalled Steam and I only think I might still know my account information. Which means even though I have the discs, I may never be able to use them. I know there are many Steam fans in the world but for me I will pass. At any rate since HL2 I've often wandered the PC games wanting this or that, but have never once spent more than 15$ and even that is rare(That may be wrong, I may have paid more for Oblivion.) One of the last times I'd done that I got burned again.

The last event isn't as long. “Two Worlds” was on clearance for 13$ somewhere and while I heard it was good but not great, I though it might be worth 13$. I've now had it two and a half years and I've never played it. As it turns out it was happy to install but it thinks the disc is a copy even though it is not. Most likely it doesn't like my disc drive. I guess I could buy another drive but mine is working fine to this day and would cost more than the game to replace. In the end it would be more economical to repurchase it from GOG and simply bypass the problem. It is annoying to think that it is not the game that is incompatible with my system but the copy protection – that something extra that keeps finding new ways of getting in the way.

I can't say I know how piracy or DRM effects the industry as a whole ( I doubt anyone can though they like to pretend), but I can say for me it has dramatically effected my buying habits. For a good game I might be willing to over look it for 10$ but even then I have passed. “Assassin's Creed” seems attractive for 10$ at the store but the warning about disc drive compatibilities strikes close to home. I have passed up many games along the way, and its nice to know there is at least one place I can shop where I don't have to worry about getting bound up in red tape and technicalities. I can only hope the GOG catalogue continues to grow because now that I know I don't have to by games with DRM, I won't.

You raise good points, I wonder if developers know how much they drive the second hand market and delayed purchasing decisions with DRM.

I can tell you how my habits changed, I bought an XBox 360 (I actually have 2 now) and mostly I play that. I also quit playing 2 of my favorite genres almost altogether: RTS and FPS. At a glance the industry might think of this as a win, but it's not, I used to buy games for buddies all the time and host LAN parties that encouraged the purchase of new games. I probably buy far less games total now and spend less yearly.

I don't think so. I don't remember ever discussing anything about DRM here. Do you guys remember ever discussing DRM around here?

As I get older and more and more of the games I want to play are older, I'm getting progressively less tolerant of DRM in my purchases.

There are still games out there that I'd love to play, but won't because the DRM is ridiculous. I would love to try SC2, but given the asshole move of removing network play and mandating an account, I won't be doing that until the price gets really low, probably well under $5.

I still haven't played Spore, same thing ridiculous DRM on something they expect me to pay full price for. Even after they stripped the game of much of the vaunted experience.

Pretty much everything that requires a steam activation that isn't being sold for under a few bucks. Same for G4WL.

I used to tolerate DRM for downloads, but since Unisoft closed up their old store and failed to convert folks over to the new one, I'm even less apt to accept it for games selling for over $5 than I was. I mean WTF you advertise a game as being purchased with downloads, then a couple years later you opt to remove that ability.

This right here is the winner of the argument.

I simply won't buy games w/DRM on it. Putting DRM on games is nothing more than giving the companies that make DRM's money for doing absolutely nothing. They've effectively created a bogeyman to support the 'need' for their product, which doesn't do anything to counter the bogeyman anyways.

W/that in mind, its rather easy to speculate the impact that DRM has on piracy: None, as most pirates will learn how to evade the DRM, and show how they did it on the internet.

What's more, I'm convinced gaming companies that are reluctant to put DRM on their games are then threatened by the DRM makers and their partners in the industry, wherein the gaming company is forced to put it on, as its cheaper and less time consuming that bringing a court case against them. Something has to change, and I believe it will eventually. The bogeyman can only last for so long before the perpetrators behind it are thoroughly exposed.

What kind of DRM a game has most definitely affects how much I'm willing to pay for it, or even if I'm willing to buy it at all. Assuming a top-end game (one I'd normally be willing to pay $40-50 for), a simple disc check doesn't really affect the amount I'm willing to pay, provided there aren't any known problems that it causes (if there are a fair number of customer complaints about the disc check not working right or otherwise mucking things up then I'm not willing to buy the game at all). If a game contains DRM that requires a one-time online activation at installation then that drops the price I'm willing to pay to $20 or less; if that activation comes with any kind of meaningful install limits (5 or less installs) then I'm again not willing to buy the game. If the DRM for a game requires any kind of online checks beyond one at installation (e.g. Steam, GFWL, SC2, Ubi-DRM) then the game might as well not exist as far as I'm concerned- no price is low enough to get me to buy it.

Ultimately the driving force behind my behavior is that my time is limited and valuable, so anytime a game has problems and doesn't work right that quickly diminishes the value of the game to me. Thus I evaluate the extent to which I'm willing to tolerate types of DRM (and how much I'm willing to pay) on the basis of how likely the DRM is to cause problems and waste my time over the lifetime of the game.

I ignore DRM systems that are easily circumvented. I boycott DRM systems which are not easily circumvented. That's the long and short of it really.

The PC is an open platform and thus activation DRM is irrelevant. If the activation servers ever go down the community will fix the games, or likely has already done so years before. It's the same thing as removing the disc check from Chaos Theory so it works on Win7, or even patching the DirectX implementation in Thief and Thief 2 so they work on modern graphics cards.

DRM that cannot be circumvented like streaming is a different matter though and I will never support OnLive and services like it, even if they nab exclusives. Console DRM is much more difficult to circumvent and you usually have to modify hardware, so I stay away from anything on console that uses DRM (which is mostly DLC and downloadable games). Same for iPhone and systems like that.

So... open system activation DRM? No problem, completely irrelevant. Closed system DRM or streaming? No thanks, I will never give you money.

I avoid DRM as much as I can, to the point of forgetting about games that I was waiting for passionately (forgetting as in not buying them after all and I don't pirate stuff, but I do remember the bitterness, oh the bitterness of it all!).

Starcraft 2 I bought even with the whole battle.net business, a case in which my lust overcame my repugnance. My emotional response to DRM comes from owning a bunch of games that refuse/refused to work because their "anti-piracy measures". Getting a "oh loop da doop jump through a hoop, and put in the correct disc" message when the program was started through the correct disc's autorun is unpleasant even in the mildest events. Getting a "your cd-key is no good" message (eg. Crysis Warhead) in the installer and hence not being able to install the game (followed by hours of chatting with their tech support*) is mentally exhausting.

Cases where I bought a game (or a movie*) and DRM made a fool out of me while my class mates of the time pirated the game and had super duper fun with it without forgetting to make fun of my decision to buy stuff added great annoyance to my frustration. With these emotions combined, I am Captain PlzNoDRM!

The no DRM point was actually the main reason I joined GoG.


*I've bought movie dvds that keep looping the "YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR" anti-piracy ad over and over and over...
/edited wall of text into easier to read.

I had to email EA yesterday because Dead Space 2 wanted me to "activate" my system after I upgraded my RAM and I wanted them to de-activated all but the most recently authorized machine. I knew Apple's iTunes was that sensitive (they even go so far as to tell you 'be sure to de-authorize your machine before you perform your upgrade'), but not EA DRM. I haven't heard from them yet.

I used to buy every release I could with a backlog of maybe two or three games at any given time. I was on the bleeding edge with rabid expectations for the next "big release". Hellgate:London was the last straw for me, for several reasons. I have only purchased one new release since HGL. That purchase being the DRM free release of POP. Ubisoft repaid my support by jacking up their DRM usage rather than to stop or lower it. Witcher 2 will be the first new release I have purchased in a while.

After jumping off the game treadmill and finding GOG, I now play more games now than I ever did and enjoy them more. I also play them longer with multiple play throughs since I'm not rushing to finish before [Enter new release here] is available. My backlog is ridiculous with no purchases required for three or four years . . maybe longer since I continue to buy GOG releases. My expenditures for gaming have also been drastically reduced since I started buying only DRM free games.

Publishers lost an avid supporter by using DRM and I would guess a few thousand dollars in profits. I see no indication that they care about losing my business. DRM changed my entire view of gaming, music, movies and software. It's also been somewhat liberating to not be addicted to game release cycles.

And no, I don't pirate anything, nothing really worth the effort nowadays. . . =)

For me I still buy the odd game even with DRM on it, but it has also changed my buying patterns.

For one thing I rarely pay over $20 (very normal "cheap" price here in denmark) for any game unless I'm very very certain I'd like it, and DRM factors into my choice too.

I've heard good things about Asassin's Creed 2, even seen it dropped to $20 some places around here now. Still holding off on it because of the added DRM they added to the game.
I get upset about new DRM whenever it goes further and further.But often I end up caving, like the case of Bioshock or GTA IV. Were ready to buy the games on day one until news of the DRM came out and I decided I would do just as well without them.

Steam I've come to sort of like. It's kinda convenient to have access to all my games as long as I have my account. There's of course the risk of the account getting hacked or something, but still with the sales they have, it's convenient, though it's a resource hog and it's got some drawbacks. But at least mostly the DRM in use is not disc based and it advertises activation base games before you buy them, so at least you know what you're getting into. That said, I'd still like a DRM free option.

I like it when at least patches are released to scale back DRM a bit after release. Games like Trackmania United with the "Forever" patch altogether removing Starforce from the game. Or Bioshock which they removed the 3 activation limit, though I'd like the activations to go away altogether. Or Alpha Protocol which Sega apparently figured out their DRM was troublesome and patched it out altogether.

In summary, for me DRM I will live with, but what I'm ready to pay for a game drops to at most $20. But likely no publisher will admit there might be a bunch of people like me around.

I'm all for using installation keys, but I won't buy anything that requires online activation, or says it's going to put something on my computer that tracks anything and that "may or may not be removed after the game is uninstalled."

If it means staying away from awesome games just because they have shitty DRM, so be it. I have too much else to keep me entertained than worrying about missing out on those games.

Any game that uses DRM that I can't bypass, is a no-buy for me.

Steamworks games are directly a no-go for me, I can't and won't rely on somebody else to control what I do with something that I OWN.

However, other games that are available as a DD only, on Steam and other DDs, I don't mind getting, as I can easily crack them. Torchlight for example, replaced the two (one exe and one dll files), and now the game is DRM-free, with no activations or limits or whatever for companies TO FUCKING CHECK WHETHER I AM A PROPER CUSTOMER WHEN I ALREADY GAVE THEM MY MONEY.

I don't give a fuck about disc protections, I can easily bypass them.

Oh, and games that act like SERVICES (read Team Fortress 2), and not like actual PRODUCTS, have become a no-go, no matter how good they are.

Don't give me the usual "you're missing out on so many good things". If I thought I was missing out, I'd have pirated the damn game already.

I respect GG and GOG because of this. I know after buying the actual game, I can fuck with it how I want.

EDIT: Locally checked serial numbers are not a problem, since I make custom installations and rips of all my games, and I can easily integrate that serial number to be automatically installed.

Bard's Tale? Really? The 2005 version? I don't think it's the DRM that's incompatible with your OS, as much as it is the game itself. Seriously, I had to install the game in Virtual XP Mode, and run it from there as well.