Why do you want DRM? I mean, isn’t this something only publishers care about?
I tend to buy 95% of my games on GOG. I like not being treated as a pirate by default.
Personally, I feel properly working DRM will keep us away from the always online hell for longer.
A moral judgement that people should be paid for their work, whether it’s a 1¢ sale or $69.99 for a hot, new AAA release. Whomever rightfully got it should have full access to it, and whomever didn’t shouldn’t. And yeah, as Juan says, always online is a hell I’m glad we’ve largely avoided thus far; every time a publisher gives that a go, I cry out against it. The more defeats I see for other DRM methods, the more I fear publishers will shift to that approach.
Sure. But why does that require DRM, especially since that mostly gets cracked anyway? I mean, I think people should get paid for their work, too, but at the same time I don’t want to be bothered with DRM schemes, especially not stuff that installs stealthily on my PC after I’ve legitimately purchased a game. So why should I be happy a company uses DRM, especially when there are others that do perfectly fine without DRM (thinking about CD Projekt here)?
But I guess that’s why I mostly buy from GOG these days.
Did you fully read my previous post? I mean, it was largely tongue in cheek because such a thing doesn’t currently exist; I want an effective DRM (as in one that actually works) which doesn’t cause issues. My only question would then be why you wouldn’t want such a thing.
No, my point is why, as a consumer, you would “want an effective DRM” at all, regardless if it causes issues or not? I just don’t see why, as someone who legitimately buys games, you’d want DRM of any kind. Tongue in cheek or not, you seem to suggest that you’d want publishers to use DRM, and I’m just curious why you’d want that. For me, as an end user, I want control: when I buy a game, I want to be able to back it up, store it, reinstall it whenever I wish, etc., without being dependent on activation servers, checks at launch, etc.
You’re making suppositions that my magical DRM (which again DOESN’T EXIST, but for the sake of this theoretical argument we’ll say it does) would prevent that when I’ve said no such thing. My desire to have DRM is simply to prevent theft. edit - I’m a little uncertain as to the lack of clarity on this issue. Can you elucidate?
I still wouldn’t want that, because I genuinely think piracy is a net good and especially when it comes to game preservation efforts, which the companies don’t appear the least bit fussed about.
So if you could make all the online independent backups of games you want for games you legally bought without piracy, you’d still want piracy because reasons? Again, this is magic land so none of this is real, but that’s the argument I’m reading.
If games could no longer be legally distributed because the rights-holder went out of business or there were IP disputes / licensing snafus, etc, absolutely. And that’s not the only beneficial function piracy can play.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that people should be paid for their work, and I think anyone who values a product should pay for it as they are able. But a direct pay to play system isn’t the only way to achieve the former, and not everyone has the option or finances for the latter.
Sure. The thing that I don’t understand: why do you, an end user, want DRM at all?
I’m not even interested in “magic” DRM that is entirely invisible – my argument is, why would someone who buys games be interested in some kind of mechanism, real or imagined, that somehow prevents the “theft” of games? I just don’t understand the advantages that DRM offers to the end user – the only ones who benefit from locking down the distribution of software are the publishers, and even that is dubious. There are plenty of publishers who don’t use DRM at all, including CD Projekt.
Hence my failure to understand why a regular customer would want any kind of DRM?
Why would regular end users care about piracy? They only care about convenience.
I’m in book/magazine publishing. As long as an ebook is easy to get and affordable, people will buy them. If not, they’ll download a thousand ebooks that have fallen off the back of a virtual lorry, so to speak, and maybe read a handful of them. The end users don’t care about DRM, only convenience. DRM, for the most part, is an inconvenience, and as a publisher we don’t bother with it; instead, we try to keep the prices reasonable and access as unobstructed as possible.
For whatever it’s worth, while i’m well aware most end users only care about convenience, I for one make it a priority to buy from publishers that publish DRM-free - I really appreciate those of you that do so!
I don’t care as an end user, I care as a member of society. I view piracy as an immoral act, and immoral acts are corrosive (in massively varying degrees) to the society I live in. I mean, breaking the speed limit by 5 mph is as well, but people don’t think much about that, either.
Me too. The Golden Rule works well in that regard.
Okay. I think that’s an exaggeration, but at least I understand where you’re coming from now. Personally, I prefer games (or books, or whatever really) not to have any DRM. I like to think most people are decent and act according to their own conscience. Since there are still plenty of games (etc.) being published without any DRM, I think that holds true: if most people were thieving bastards, we’d have less choice than we actually do.
Well said, and I agree completely.
Absolutely. There is a reason I own 528 games on GOG and 101 on Steam. My first option is always GOG, and if they don’t have it, then I have to decide just how bad I really want to play it. If I think it’s a game that may one day come to GOG, I’ll wait. If it’s from a publisher that will almost certainly never release the game without DRM, then I try my damnedest not to buy the game. I have failed 101 times, but succeed far more often than that.
As far as pirates go, they can all go suck on virtual guns as far as I’m concerned.
HOWEVER, since they’re the only people with functioning non-DRM copies of the games, I’m glad they’re around in the unlikely event Steam goes away, or becomes less benevolent. So I can’t be too hard on the pirates, as archiving old games is a huge deal to me.
But the minute all DRM is removed from all games, pirates will have no place in my world.
So people do not get paid if the game isn’t infected with DRM?
Hmm, didn’t know that.
You shared this information with Larian Studios or CDPR?
Timebombed software is bad.
Thanks for that insightful contribution. If we can get past the “Well, golly - people can still make money without it” stuff because duh, of course they can, I’m talking about the imaginary concept of perfect DRM with no negative consequences for legitimate owners of the game.
We already have it. It’s called “No DRM”.
As long as we’re indulging flights of fancy, can I get a universal replicator like in Star Trek?
Actually, that’s a bad example. Universal replicators are possible.