Warsaw isn't Krakow

Fixed the link for you ;)

I thought that a game tried that.. and failed. All that happened was intercepting the data stream, constructing a server that could supply that data when requested and then change the game to use 'localhost' instead of 'drm.game.company.com'.

You can fight effectively as long as the only thing you give the customer is a video stream (i.e. OnLive).

Got to be careful when Moose are around..... they are very crafty.... you know they are just waiting for the right moment.

A møøse ønce bit my sister...

...to bite your sister.

They overprice their stuff and don't offer it as a convenient download and then on top of it force you to buy a new DVD drive if you watch movies from 5 different regions.

So in this case I would say they are as much immoral as pirates, since they also cause financial damage to their customers.

People kill for a few dollars or ruin a life for a few minutes of their sick pleasure.


Since we can talk openly here: I used to have pirated copies of a few games, including Duke Nukem 3D, for many years. However that was only an exception, I had maybe 20 or so pirated CDs at all and a large collection of legit games.

It became an increasing pain to me to find my CDs or DVDs (trust me, at the point where you have hundreds of them and search for a specific one, it is a pain, unless you completely reorganize them). I copied the CDs and DVDs to the computer with a software for virtual CDs, but what happened is that I needed to download cracks for games I legally owned so they run at all.

I started buying digital downloads at some point, and it started on the 3D Realms site with Monster Bash, and then there was Peggle on Steam. My first game on GOG was Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition, together with Disciples 2 Gold that I had wanted for ages.

These days I pretty much buy only digital distributed games. I believe that is the future, also because putting games to retailers etc. costs the developers a lot of money.
I hope retailers go extinct, so developers are not bound anymore by their crazy prices. And then we can see new titles for maybe 25 USD already on release instead of 50 or 60.

When I was young, developers actually released demo versions of their games.


I think this redbull writer invented that then.


Do they eat humans now? Oh, wait, that sounded totally wrong...

Hehe, I see we had the same thought :-D

Great post. I just want to add another motivation however, which is "I make $50 a month and can't afford jack shit." That reason became apparent to me after spending a year here in Georgia, these people can scrape together enough money for a cheap laptop or 2005-ish era desktop but asking for even $10 a game after that is not gonna fly.

Not sure what the answer is there other than to just look the other way, basically.

In any event I think it's less about "can't stop piracy so might as well not use DRM" and more about "can't stop piracy and should focus on please those who ARE consumers." GOG does this with extras, simple installers and a DRM free aspect which is needed for older games to add that library motivation. Steam does this with a ton of social and online features. Everyone has their selling point.

They key is to focus on consumers, not the opposite.

A few more years in the direction they're going and you'll be annoyed at all the regulars who don't recognize GOG as a place for oldies anymore.

Oh I will - I'm here for the oldies - but one can't stop an unstoppable force. ;) I'm surprised that GOG hasn't tried to get more DRM-free AAA titles (or maybe that actually have), as I'd think that companies are becoming more open-minded to the idea of DRM-free, based on GOG sales data. Even sequels like Postal 3, Serious Sam 2 and 3, Duke Nukem Forever, etc. that have done their time on Steam could appear here.