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General discussion (archive)DRM is dead apparently(62 posts)(62 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 22, 2009
A genuine statistical analysis will never happen, it would require truthful reporting of illegal activity and thats not going to happen. Seeder & download numbers from torrent sites are no real indication because they have no way of differentiating a pirate from someone wanting to get a replacement for a scratched up disc and even if they could they'd need to include more than just torrents, everything from usenet to sneakernet
There's also no way short of massed qualitative research to determine if a pirate copy equals a lost sale, I've encountered a number of people who just download everything thats new to look at for a few minutes and then move on to the next shiny thing without even really playing them. There's also the more traditional type who might actually be the sort to buy things and are just being arseholes by "stealing" it
Posted July 22, 2009
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TheCheese33: It will all become rentals. You can only play the games you buy on their terms, but don't even think about asking for a lower price. Games aren't considered serious art by the majority, so they won't lift a finger to regulate this madness.

Well you nailed it right there. The goal of monopolists worldwide is to get the consumer class to rent everything. With no property of your own, you're completely dependent on them.
But sticking to just games:
DRM dead? No. It's like our (america's) politics. The two-party system will be dead when people stop voting for it. DRM will be dead when people stop paying for it. But plenty of people are lining up to buy it off the shelf on release day. Plenty of people are shelling out cash to steam.
Most people just don't care that they're really renting the game, and apparently don't mind paying full retail price for a rental. A lot of these people actually defend it. I started a thread on steam's (or valve, can't remember) forums once to complain about the fact that I would have bought Portal from the store if it had not required a connection to register, and that it cost them a sale. I pointed out that the game was out in the open on piracy sites. People were rationalizing the fact that the DRM, instead of preventing piracy had cost them a sale, and trying to spin off straw man arguments about how steam provides users with a service.
Oh snap, you mean steam will graciously allow me to download the game again? As if I'm 15 years old again and can't manage my own backups and can't find my way to w4rez.
Well, at least we still have general purpose computing for the masses, and a relatively free internet. They probably won't last either. This video pretty much sums it up:
EDIT: SORRY, VIDEO NSFW
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-mt4BpnfAN-o/how_anti_piracy_screws_over_people_who_buy_pc_games_flv/
Post edited July 22, 2009 by shakezilla
Posted July 22, 2009
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shakezilla: EDIT: SORRY, VIDEO NSFW
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-mt4BpnfAN-o/how_anti_piracy_screws_over_people_who_buy_pc_games_flv/

Geez, he swears a lot doesn't he?
But I agree with what he's saying.
Just wish I could show that to every publisher.
Posted July 22, 2009
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Aliasalpha: A genuine statistical analysis will never happen, it would require truthful reporting of illegal activity and thats not going to happen. Seeder & download numbers from torrent sites are no real indication because they have no way of differentiating a pirate from someone wanting to get a replacement for a scratched up disc and even if they could they'd need to include more than just torrents, everything from usenet to sneakernet
There's also no way short of massed qualitative research to determine if a pirate copy equals a lost sale, I've encountered a number of people who just download everything thats new to look at for a few minutes and then move on to the next shiny thing without even really playing them. There's also the more traditional type who might actually be the sort to buy things and are just being arseholes by "stealing" it

Here is a study that argues piracy is not harming producers as much as they believe. The study is a few years old so it's primary concern is music sharing, though one could probably find similar figures for all file sharing.
http://news.cnet.com/Music-sharing-doesnt-kill-CD-sales%2C-study-says/2100-1027_3-5181562.html?tag=mncol
And to tie this back into DRM: although I purchase all my digital media, I also download un-hobbled, DRM-free versions of my purchases to "future proof" my library. So I may be a pirate but not in an illegal or (subjectivity alert) unethical way.
I can sympathize with developers who rely on income from their work. It takes time and money to produce quality code and piracy is surely a valid frustration. Often, I find, developers take it personally and resort to knee-jerk reactions rather than rational solutions.
So I complain a lot but what do I suggest? Good question, voice in my head. I understand some DRM uses the buyer's credit card number for encryption. I think that, in itself, is a good idea. If the software's serial key is a person's credit card number, many will be unlikely to share it. And, in that scenario, the customer is not assumed guilty and punished prematurely.
That was off the top of my head so feel free to agree or disagree and I will take no offense when someone shoots holes in my brilliant plan. One might also ask what to do in the case of gifted software. I don't know. Perhaps a hybrid system would be the best approach: generic serial numbers allow for limited distribution until credit card number (or other) is confirmed and entered in a key file.
Posted July 22, 2009
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PoSSeSSeDCoW: I noticed this in particular with the release of Dark Athena, which, as some of you may know, had incredibly intrusive DRM. IIRC, its DRM was not cracked until about a week after its release, which caused many people to comment that they had purchased it in store instead of waiting for a cracked version.

That game reeks of so much digitalized shit, that even a cleaned out version would make me gag...
Posted July 22, 2009
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Aliasalpha: A genuine statistical analysis will never happen, it would require truthful reporting of illegal activity and thats not going to happen. Seeder & download numbers from torrent sites are no real indication because they have no way of differentiating a pirate from someone wanting to get a replacement for a scratched up disc and even if they could they'd need to include more than just torrents, everything from usenet to sneakernet

A good and proper statistical analysis is quite possible, but won't be done because it would require quite a bit of funding. With regards to levels of piracy, these numbers don't have to be absolute, they just have to correlate well across multiple titles; for example, one could simply choose the number of downloaders on several major torrent sites, then normalize the data over time based on total torrent activity. The absolute numbers would be meaningless, but it would provide a fairly accurate relative metric for comparing the amount of piracy between different games.
The other types of data that would need to be taken into account for such a study are such things as DRM type used, sales numbers (broken down into physical and digital sales, as well a breakdown over time), pricing (also broken down over time), time until DRM is cracked, mean and median review score (and standard deviation), game genre, target market demographics (age, location, education level, etc), advertising budget and mediums used, development budget, regional (non)availability of the game, and probably a few more variables I've missed. Obviously dealing with so many variables you'd also need a pretty massive samples size, say around 80% of the games released over the past 3-4 years (any longer period of time and market shifts would start to skew the statistics).
Take all this data and let around 10 trained statisticians correlate and comb through it for 6-12 months and you'd probably be able to see some interesting results. The general methodology would be to create pockets of normalized data from the entire data pool, in which 2-3 specific variables could be correlated with everything else being pretty much equal, and try to tease out what will probably be somewhat subtle trends from all of this. If done properly such a study would be fascinating to look through, and probably quite enlightening to everyone not already mired in one or another dogmatic position on the matter. However, seeing as doing such a study would probably carry a price tag of anywhere from several hundred thousand to over a million dollars, it's doubtful we're going to be seeing one done anytime soon.
Posted July 22, 2009
Yeah I see your point, I wasn't really thinking of the required data in an indicative trend type of way, I was thinking more of raw numbers
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DarrkPhoenix: However, seeing as doing such a study would probably carry a price tag of anywhere from several hundred thousand to over a million dollars, it's doubtful we're going to be seeing one done anytime soon.

Especially not with piracy costing the industry TRILLIONS of dollars every second!!!!
Also there's a chance they don't want such a study because it might just say that things aren't as bad as they seem
Posted July 22, 2009
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PoSSeSSeDCoW: Now, if you look at some games released completely without DRM, Demigod and World of Goo, you'll see that a lack of DRM (despite what many people who pirate say) often leads to increased piracy rates.

Not so (see below).
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PoSSeSSeDCoW: I'm sure most of you are familiar with what happened with Demigod, which had about 85% of day one users being pirates, which, in turn, lowered reviewers scores of the game (as it caused connection problems). World of Goo, according to one of the developers, had a 90% piracy rate..

Which, while they stated was disappointing, they also acknowledged they expected with or without DRM. There's no evidence at all to suggest having no DRM actually increased the rate of piracy. 80 to 90% is pretty much the norm with a game that includes DRM, from what I understand. Having no DRM didn't change that at all.
*edit* fixed quoting.
Post edited July 22, 2009 by Coelocanth
Posted July 22, 2009
now that those games have been out for a while, has there been any sales data to show how many copies they've sold to date?
Posted July 23, 2009
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PoSSeSSeDCoW: I'm sure most of you are familiar with what happened with Demigod, which had about 85% of day one users being pirates, which, in turn, lowered reviewers scores of the game (as it caused connection problems). World of Goo, according to one of the developers, had a 90% piracy rate..
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Coelocanth: Which, while they stated was disappointing, they also acknowledged they expected with or without DRM. There's no evidence at all to suggest having no DRM actually increased the rate of piracy. 80 to 90% is pretty much the norm with a game that includes DRM, from what I understand. Having no DRM didn't change that at all.

Having nasty DRM changed things for other games though. Remember Spore? Officially the most pirated game ever (or something, I don't have a link), primarily due to the fact that noone wanted its nasty SecuROM version on their system.
Posted July 23, 2009
Wasn't it also the worst reviewed item in amazon history for the same reason? Even more so than the book of that woman that lied about the porn in mass effect even though she'd never even seen the game?
Posted July 23, 2009
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Aliasalpha: now that those games have been out for a while, has there been any sales data to show how many copies they've sold to date?

I don't know if there's any sales data available, but 2dBoy (makers of World of Goo) said they were pleased with their sales numbers despite the pirating of the game. Further, they said they were glad they didn't bother paying for some DRM scheme when the game would have been pirated anyway,
Wishbone and Aliasalpha: good points.
Posted July 23, 2009
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Coelocanth: Which, while they stated was disappointing, they also acknowledged they expected with or without DRM. There's no evidence at all to suggest having no DRM actually increased the rate of piracy. 80 to 90% is pretty much the norm with a game that includes DRM, from what I understand. Having no DRM didn't change that at all.
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Wishbone: Having nasty DRM changed things for other games though. Remember Spore? Officially the most pirated game ever (or something, I don't have a link), primarily due to the fact that noone wanted its nasty SecuROM version on their system.

That's an interesting point, but I believe that part of the reason that it was pirated so much, maybe even the primary reason, is the fact that there was a leaked and cracked copy online about a week before the US release. I'd be willing to bet that a game that is leaked is pirated much more than any other game, because even people who are planning to buy it will download it so that they can play it earlier. Also, despite the fact that it was pirated something like 500,000 times before September 13th, it was also purchased 1 million times. Which is a 1:2 piracy to purchase ratio, which isn't so bad, especially when compared to 9:1 piracy to purchase ratio.
Nevertheless, it's hard to compare indie games to large, retail games, as there's such a difference between them and my comparing the 1:2 ratio to the 9:1 ratio is inherently flawed for a few reasons.
1. Spore (and most mainstream games) get more casual gamers and most casual gamers are unfamiliar with the level of technology required to pirate a game. Gamers that follow gaming news more closely, and will thus be more up to date with what's happening in the indie scene, will also be more likely to know how to torrent products.
2. For some reason, some people think that indie games are worth less than games by big name developers and publishers, if only because they have smaller dev teams. Any indie game that's $20 or above generally gets bashed for it's price (and pirated more). See World of Goo and Braid (an Xbox title, but applicable, even though its price was $15) while it is expected that all new released on PC done by a big name dev will be priced at $50, regardless of the length or quality.
Unfortunately, we can't really get definite numbers on how DRM prevents or promotes piracy, and I don't see how we ever really could, so all we can do is speculate.
Posted July 23, 2009
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Nafe: I'm sorry to hear of your suffering.

Who said I'm suffering?
Posted July 23, 2009
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Gragt: Who said I'm suffering?

Well I assumed you're a PC Gamer given your presence on this site and that a lack of new releases that interest you would cause a tear in your soul that could never be mended.
If this isn't the case then fair enough :).
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General discussion (archive)DRM is dead apparently(62 posts)(62 posts)
(62 posts)