Good Old Games: DRM drives gamers to piracy
Good Old Games hopes the Witcher 2's lack of DRM will open doubters' minds.
Speaking to bit-tech for a future feature about DRM in Custom PC, Good Old Games' PR and marketing manager, Lukasz Kukawski, said that the effectiveness of DRM as a piracy-deterrent was 'None, or close to none.'
'What I will say isn’t popular in the gaming industry,' says Kukawski, 'but in my opinion DRM drives people to pirate games rather than prevent them from doing that. Would you rather spend $50 on a game that requires installing malware on your system, or to stay online all the time and crashes every time the connection goes down, or would you rather download a cracked version without all that hassle?'
According to Kukawski, the situation with restrictive DRM has reached the point where gamers often feel pushed into buying a game at full price, but then still download a cracked version to avoid the DRM. 'I know people that buy an original copy of the game just so they don't feel guilty,' says Kukawski, 'and then they will play a pirated version which is stripped of all DRM. That’s not how it should be. Let’s treat legitimate customers with respect and they will give that back.'
In addition to driving gamers to cracked versions of games, Kukawski also asks how anyone can believe that DRM acts as a deterrent to piracy. 'If you see the news on gaming portals that a highly anticipated title has leaked before the release date, and you can download it from torrents without any copy protection because it has been already cracked, how can you possible believe that DRM works in any way to reduce piracy?'
Despite heavily criticising DRM, however, Kukawski still has no love for pirates. 'Piracy is evil,' he says. 'By pirating a game, a movie, or a song you’re stealing from people who put a lot of hard work into creating something for your enjoyment. That’s disrespecting the creator who’s providing you with something that adds joy to your day.'
While Kukawski's comments themselves aren't revolutionary in the DRM debate, it's interesting to see them coming from an online game retail business, as well as a game developer. After all, Good Old Games is owned by CD Projekt; developer of The Witcher 2, which will also be DRM-free. You can check out the trailer for The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings below.
'We are making a bold step by putting up this highly-anticipated title without any sort of DRM,' says Kukawski. 'We believe it’s going to be a huge success, which should really open doubters’ eyes.'
Is DRM a necessary evil in a market that's rife with piracy, or does it indeed drive gamers to download cracked versions of games? Let us know your thoughts in the forums - after checking out the Witcher 2 trailer below, of course.
Look out for a full feature on DRM in Issue 94 of Custom PC, on sale 19 May this year.
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Discuss in the forums ReplySame thing goes for DVD's BTW.
On some (especially Sony) DVD's the DRM is so strong, they don't playback on the PC at all.
The cure is ripping them, watching them, then deleting the rip again.
It's the very restrictive DRM that I find offensive e.g. Assasins' Creed requirement for a constant online connection while playing.
although he got to keep in mind that there is a difference between pirating a game and buying a game then use crack to make life easier. with later, developer still gets the money.
For full blown DRM, Steam is the best option but even that can be circumvented. What Steam does well though is that it's relatively painless for the user, coupled with extra features like game updating, friends lists, sales etc. It's far from perfect still but compared to everything else (I'm looking at you, EADM!), it's a pretty good system.
i really can't see it encouraging piracy, at least not much anyway.
i have never pirated a game, yet i have illegally downloaded other media, so i really don't see myself changing that due to DRM,
as for DRM being a deterrent, i actually think it is amongst some people.
its easy for people on this website to say DRM is easily bypassed, as this website caters to the type of people who would have no problem bypassing DRM, but what a lot of people forget not everyone is experienced when it comes to this type of stuff, not everyone would have the knowledge to pirate games.
so whilst DRM is a hassle and is easily bypassed if you know how, there are still plenty of people out there who wouldn't have a clue, and it is for those people that DRM makes sense, unfortunately.
so as much as DRM is a hassle and even though it is easily enough bypassed, i don't see it going anywhere anytime soon.
Totally agree... C'mon I have hundreds of Steam games, it's DRM but it's not intrusive, nor it requires me to be online to play my games.
Win, win...
Steam weekend sales = win!! :D
iirc ES4:Oblivion didn't have any DRM at all? That obviously didn't do well.
GTA4 on Steam required GfWL, but you could sort out an Offline account; R*SC didn't need to be logged in to play either... but it still needed to be running. Frankly, the amount of crap GTA4PC wanted to install was beyond a joke. And it STILL had the phone-home SecuROM.
...
I read this and came the following general conclusion:
It's all down to a lack of respect that seems to be inherent everywhere now. The developer/publisher doesn't respect the consumer enough to trust that they will actually buy a game. Some of the consumers don't respect the developer/publisher enough to buy the game. Vicious circle.
There is an offline mode, but the game programmers themselves may add extra DRM content to the game e.g. connection to Rockstar club requirement.
2. (edited) DRM hardly affects the majority of us who are willing to play ball. Laziness and not wanting to pay for stuff are the main roots, always have been.
I downloaded Rift at the weekend. Not illegally, there were free weekend keys handed out by Multiplay. So, when I'm done sunning myself in the garden for a few hours, I've got a full 8.5GB game ready to go on my PC. Piracy is as easy as that. DRM is used as an EXCUSE.
:(
Unless like me you have a crap internet connection then steam is bloody terrible as the connection is not always up (So stuff can not be authorised) and having to install half the game from the steam servers means that it can take several weeks (very slow connection if its even up) before the game is playable.
Steam is a good option for people with excellent connections and enough money per month to afford the connection, but it should never be the only option
Good guys the GoG/CDproject lot
I have a twitchy 'net connection and steam hasn't been a problem for me.
Every time my connection drops out it just pauses itself and starts downloading again when it regains connection.
Have you tried changing your download region?
And if you ask each party who started the disrepecting thing, they'll each point their fingers towards the other group.
I am not against DRM in itself, provided it is sensitive and doesn't impact on my experience. Steam is a great example of a system which is (most of the time) a joy to use and the DRM is compensated by lovely specials and the convenience of having all your games in one easy online library.
However, I do wonder whether much of the present push towards login/connection-based DRM isn't really about stopping piracy at all. Rather it seems to be about hooking legitimate consumers into the that publisher's particular ecosystem -- so that the publisher can get useful marketing information about you, sell you more stuff and build up an 'inconvenience barrier' making it harder for competitors to get your custom.
Steam, of course, does all these things and I still forgive it -- but if this is the 'real reason' behind the love of DRM from the industry then it is, at best, disingenuous of them to keep playing the piracy/DRM card. At worst, you could even consider it seriously anti-competitive: imagine the hullaballoo if a supermarket forced you to sign up to its loyalty card in order to shop there at all.
My arse. Maybe you enjoy having to install and register for 8 useless background apps and being cut off from your game after x activations, but please don't speak for everyone.
Sadly some of the more harsh DRM's actually damage a game. Look at Mass Effect when that first came out. Only 5 installs or some such and that was with a paid for legit copy. Yet a pirate version could be installed as many times and on as many machines as you want..like just about every other legit game. Or the Ubisoft fiasco where those who had paid for their game couldn't play it because of some server issue, but all the pirated ones played just fine. DRM like that does drive people to piracy. Fortunately companys like EA do seem to be learning, but unfortunately very very slowly.
Are you high :|
I'm assuming you didn't try to play assassin's creed 2 before the patch to REMOVE the DRM that made the game unplayable if you had an even slightly flaky Internet connection. I'm willing to play ball, up until a game that I payed for is unplayable due to a stupid business decision that screwed only the paying customers :(.
Piracy never in a million years killed off pc gaming. The fact that if I go and buy a PC game its totally valueless as soon as I've installed it because of DRM is why I am very very selective about titles. Now say I buy a game for my son's XBOX 360, I pay £40 and it turns out to be not very good, I put it back in the box take it back to the shop and get a decent proportion of that 40 pounds back, so I can afford to be a little less choosy in what I buy.
IMO that's why a lot of people will download a PC game, 30, or 35 pounds and never ever a chance in hell of getting ANY of your cash back at all.
Nor the last C&C.
Nor GTAIV
I bought the movie, I just want to watch the darned thing, not have to make popcorn and visit the loo after putting the disc in and having it ready.
I haven't run in to any really restrictive DRM for games, but then again I don't buy many either...but bad DRM would deffinitely keep me from buying a game on principal if not for the fact that it would annoy the heck out of me and prevent me from enjoying it.
After I finally got it up and running after the installer trashed itself a couple of times, this was the end result --
http://www.holistix-technology.co.uk/GFWL.jpg
*Every* rig I've used (including friends) seems to have problems with GFWL, at least initially, of some kind. The hoops I had to jump through to get the Fallout 3 DLC working for a friend were ridiculous, and there's no way an average user could perform them. No wonder a lot of people prefer console gaming.
I'd have no qualms with piracy to circumvent this sort of nonsense, only I don't trust torrents... you've no idea where they've been and what they contain.
Ironically it could be the case that torrent releases may contain more easily removable malware than shop bought games, and that's pretty awful, IMHO.
As such, I avoid games that require always on connections.
There have been a few lost sales from me there.
I do use GOG for that reason. I've even rebought games from them (eg BG & BG2) that I already own as I don't have to worry about needing a CD anymore.
The long term problem for publishers is where someone has to resort to P2P to access a game they've legitimately bought and subsequently decide to use P2P in future. While there are risks (dodgy downloads, ambulance-chasing lawyers), they are marginal compared to the continual inconvenience of supporting the games industry (registering with an online store, placing an order, having to install extra software to download it, going through activation, contacting customer support when any of the previous steps fail, etc).
Systems that do "per-play" checks and tie people into a single account (Steam being the largest by some margin) also lend themselves to more detailed analysis like: What type of games are most popular during specific holidays? Do world events (natural disasters, conflicts) have an impact on sales, and of which game types? What link is there between hardware setup and games purchases? Such data mining could also be focused down to individual users - find out what games they like best and then charging a higher price for them (wouldn't work on everyone clearly, thanks to price comparison engines, but it should work on enough to make it worthwhile and it would show which users were price-savvy - valuable data in itself).
Control of course, is even better from the publisher's side of the fence. Unfortunately, as long as a significant portion of the gaming public are prepared to "tolerate" it, such DRM will almost surely continue.
A one time activation online is fine (as long as I can get online!).
As for the DVD issue - I hate it when a disc refuses to play in my PC (which is a bit of a pain as it is my media centre).
What's the rate/level of piracy on Xbox/PS3 I wonder?
also - I will definitely be buying The Witcher II if nothing else to support CD Project's anti-DRM business practices ... (oh, and I enjoyed the first one as well ;) )
The highest seeded games on their relevant formats:
Highest PS3 game seeded 220 times.
Highest 360 game seeded 466 times.
Highest PC game seeded 5226 times.
Quite a discrepancy between PC and PS3 and 360. But, to bring the PC down to the same level I just totted up pages of various PC games right down to a game on the PC being seeded 449 times. So not the same as PS3 but not far off 360.
The grand total was 121,852 individual PC seeds HIGHER than the highest 360 seeded game. All of these seeded games are constantly being leached.
The PC is a very accessible machine that helps us achieve a lot of different things. Including having 261 times (261x) more seeds available to download. Not driven by DRM. Driven by a lack of DRM.
@Leveller ...to what extent does the higher PC number reflect the number of PC's out there compared to number of consoles AND the relative ease to torrent on a PC compared to consoles (I have no idea as to the ins and outs of console pirate downloads)?
@those saying "gonna buy Witcher 2 'cos of no DRM" ...could it be this article was a sales pitch? And you've bought in to the programme?
Cynic? Moi? Nay!
The Witcher 2 having no DRM has been announced months ago. Don't you agree it's a good thing though? They've already given me an unprecedented and excellent service with gog.com so i fully intend to support them with my purchases.
DRM really just makes me think twice before purchasing a Windows title now, because I'm afraid it will be more trouble than it's worth.
The problem there is, longevity. How can they separate the good from the bad and the downright awful?, as you rightly say, games often end up at that price after their term. But if they were to ship at that price the only way they could mark off would be to give them away, and that's not a viable option for anyone. I think as the prices on PC games stand, it is a healthy balance between relying on volume and the profit of each unit shifted, unfortunately moving either side of that balance means taking a gamble. A game priced at £30 on launch, say for instance that game isn't very good, recent examples like TDU2, AVP and I predict Homefront. They (apart from the latter) have dramatically fallen in price, just like you said into the £5- £15/20 price range. Now those developers can rely on people seeing this and buying into it under the belief they are getting a bargain, which is going to generate that volume of sales, the big money was probably made shortly after shipping at the full price tag, now they can fill in those gaps.
You reminded me of this story http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/693342/live-blog-dice-2009-keynote-gabe-newell-valve-software/
This Graph should come as standart as soon as someone start another "DRM is good for you" routine!:D
DRM's main purpose is to reduce piracy at release, when the game sells most and at the highest price. It sometimes does that effectively. If publishers regularly remove DRM after a while, like Ubisoft reducing the draconic DRM on Assassin's Creed 2 after a while, then it would be a good middle ground. It's a pity that publishers keep DRM forever, because it probably does little to their bottom line after a while and they probably do lose some sales because of it.
That puts it on the same level as the likes of SecuROM Online, with the added risk of having all Impulse purchases tied into a single account (meaning greater financial loss if that account is disabled for any reason).
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17408
"Conclusion
The 1000:1 ratio is really, I think, the key takeaway of the article. Several people have grasped that and started applying it to different numbers in the industry, and the results are very disappointing. "
And is funny because TW have the bigger sales in Russia , one of the most pirates country of the world, when the developers are writing in forums that have pirate links or there are pirate copies in many Comercial Centers in big cities . By the way, Russia have the bigger ratio PC : PC games sold of the world ;) .
The Humble Indie Bundle folks are apparently releasing a new pack together with Frozenbyte at 19:30 (GMT+3).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaM6LHC_uXA
Also, what happens when DRM requiring "phone home" mechanics has no home to phone? As in, many of us still play games from 10+ years ago (via Dosbox, etc). What happens if we still like to play our old games 10 years from now, that currently have DRM? Will we be able to?
There should be a law that after a few years, DRM is stripped from a game, so that it can continue to be played.
Really?! I've been on the same Impulse account for about 3 years almost. Installed games across over 10 PC's(my two home pc's, my work pc, my laptop and a few of my friends computers, I'm someone who doesn't really mind sharing my steam info or impulse info with anyone I know. So far no one has had a copy of any of my games not install due to DRM. I had a copy of crysis on over 5 computers and they all work still work. Sure I can't play online with each copy at the same time but i've never run into any activation limits on my games yet. I remember crysis and farcry 2 gave me a limit of 5 installs but on impulse I've not once seen that limit. Does that only apply to certain games then? I checked the Impulse website and it does list SecuRom for crysis but again, never seen it happen.
Thanks for clearing that up though, I'd hate to point someone to a service for the wrong reasons.
But from now on, if it is an EA product, I will pirate it every single time.
In contrast, copy protection all too often prevents honest customers from using the products they pay for. SecuROM, for example, rendered the Atari version of the game Armed Assault unusable with the very first 1.08 patch. The only way that honest customers could continue playing the game was to download a cracked version until the 1.12 patch stripped away the copy protection completely and made the game completely diskless. Many honest customers had the exact same experience with Neverwinter Nights and NWN2.
Requiring constant internet connection is a non-starter for those customers suffering with unreliable ISPs like Comcast. Limiting re-installation is completely unacceptable, period.
All customers have fundamental rights when purchasing a product that the product::
- Is fit for its intended purpose;
- Matches its description:
- Is of satisfactory quality to function for a reasonable time without defects.
Copy protection simply has a very high rate of violating these rights with no deterrence or hindrance to real thieves.
The real consequence of copy protection is not honest customers resorting to piracy after paying for a copy of a game. The real consequence is lost sales to honest customers like us who research games before we buy and refuse to purchase games that are highly prone to either never work right or stop working.