Streaming gaming is the next step in convenience. Downloading, installing or transferring games? What's that? Something people did in the 90s?

Yet, I prefer to stay out of it as long as I can.

This.

You keep repeating that, and you are still wrong.

Case in point: the SPAZ developers were quite frank and open about why they decided to keep (minimal) online authentication DRM in their game, until eventually getting rid of it with the HiB release. It had _everything_ to do with trying to curb, or at least slow down, casual piracy.

Saying that DRM is aimed to stop _both_ piracy _and_ second hand sales is far more correct.

I tried the whole streaming gaming thing and it was shitty...Any hiccups in your connection or what not and the game craps out. Not too mention it can lag. And the version of streaming i used still put a semi-large chunk of data on your computer to begin with...and only kept a portion on its servers and it still sucked ass. I hope it never evolves.


I guess the new term is "Cloud" gaming...still shitty...

Look at On-Live, it reached a value of over 1 billion at some point via estimation and what it sold for a few million as it just is not that great and is not very stable.

And this. But I think awareness of this is mixed, specially with younger audiences moving towards consoles and away from PCs.

I feel like the biggest question is why you bother interacting with this prick?

I love GOG and I love having a virtual shelf of DRM-free games that I can back up and burn to media for convinience.

But the fact of the matter is that Steam got me back to PC gaming. Before steam ( and in the few years before they got their shit together) PC gaming had become a HUGE pain in the ass.

My preference will always be a DRM free copy. But if I have to have DRM, steam is the only way I'll purchase a game with DRM.

If it's not on GOG or Steam, I vote with my wallet and do not purchase the game.

As the net gets faster, I think we'll see more streaming game systems as well. It reduces piracy.

As far as DRM and piracy, I remember a classic example is Half-Life 1 and 2.

HL1 is a worse game, but got double the sales. DRM free.

HL2 is a better game, but was choked full of DRM. 1/2 the sales. Pirated more.

I think that hackers enjoy the challenge of beating DRM to increase their skills. Pirates enjoy distributing DRM-linked games for a # of reasons (get back at the company, the brassiness, the money).

I'm not against DRM, just intrusive DRM. I used to be okay with disc checks, but I don't even like those anymore. Serial numbers are nice if you don't need an authentication server. Mostly, I just don't want to deal with DRM crap when I could be having a ball with a game.

Going DRM-free is ballsy. I still haven't done it with my Kindle books, though if I could un-DRM them now, I think I probably would. Sure, some folks would steal it (I see somewhere online folks are pirating one of my books already regardless of the DRM). The Kindle DRM is completely unobtrusive, so I give it some leniency. But even so, DRM just tends to hurt sales in the long run for most products.

I don't think sales figures is the answer, because high-profile DRM protected software might sell well despite the bad publicity. But I think that's all to it: bad publicity. DRM doesn't kill franchises, only annoys everyone and hopefully security measures will eventually come to terms with paying customers some day.

I'm afraid arguing over this won't take you far though. Surely, like mostly everyone, you must have bought DRM-protected software many times right? Do you buy stuff off of Steam these days? So there you go, people do what they must. I tend to give away Steam keys and boxed "Steam-powered" games I get because I really hate to need an internet connection to activate and play games. Still I play games that need internet connection on my cellphone. Do what you must, dude.
Could that be? Score one for DRM-free, perhaps.

This! Exactly what I think.

Kind sir, would you please inform me where they're pirating your books so that I can take advantage? Thank you. ;-)

The real point of DRM is obviously to fuel these arguments and turn gamers against each other.

The Witcher 2 was released in both DRM-free and DRMed varieties. The most torrented version appears to be a rip of the boxed copy with the SecuROM stripped out. (Why bother?) Anyway, the point is DRM indisputably did not reduce piracy in that case.

Just punch him in the fa-...

Oh, someone said that already :(

Personally I don't mind Steam, which may be due to Half Life and CS fanboyism, but other DRMs (in particular Starforce when it was used somewhat frequently) are annoying, some more than others

It's a fair point. I download cracked copies of DRMed games that I purchased.