Deadly Rooms of Death is entirely DRM free, to my knowledge. Hell, the application’s open-source. (The official level sets are not.)
I have never heard of any activation limits on any of Spiderweb Software’s games.
If you mean specifically downloadable casual games, then you may have a point. I don’t generally buy those anyway, but I will especially not buy them now that I am aware that they have restrictions on my ability to use them as far into the future as I may care to.
Now, I have been aware that some independent games can’t be downloaded again after the first time, which I also regard as fundamentally unacceptable (though understandable - server costs.). And I’ve bought one or two anyway, figuring I’d archive them myself. Didn’t actually happen. Won’t be doing that again.
You’re right, I did leave myself open. I did specifically mean casual games, but wasn’t clear about that.
And when it comes to casual games, there are no major distributors to my knowledge that have ever functioned without DRM. That has been the case for the entire history of the casual games industry, and it’s never to my knowledge been a problem.
I also want to reiterate, though it seems it’ll fall on deaf ears of those busy raging against the machine, that I have never heard of these activation limits preventing any of our customers from playing our games. If a customer were to somehow use up all these limits through legitimate use, our customer service folk would help them resolve the issue with minimal effort. PopCap has no interest in keeping legitimate customers from playing games bought in good faith, and has no interest in trying to get any extra money out of someone on some lame license technicality. That’s not how we roll at all.
And that’s what kills me about this whole conversation. People are saying they won’t buy the game based on some theoretical scenario that will keep them from playing the game. Yet that scenario doesn’t actually exist. The only thing keeping any individual here from buying the game and having fun with it is the decision not to buy it based on the false assumption that they wouldn’t be able to play it 10 years from now or whatever.
I guess the question would be why do it at all then? If it just mildly inconveniences a few people and doesn’t stop the pirates at all, why limit the activations?
Edit: Heh. That’ll teach me to leave a reply hanging open before sending it.
I think as someone already mentioned the difference is that Popcap games are like fastfood: quick and cheap.
That’s why DRM can fly with them.
I think one of the main points by anti-DRM people like me are not yet understood by the rest:
We refuse to buy FULL PRICE games that are limited by installs.
Nobody in their right mind would pay FULL PRICE for something more or less resemble a rental.
Just adjust the price for that shit to $5 - $10 to reflect the rental status and most would be consider to spend money on it.
My “new policy” to spend max 25 EUR on games reflects that idea that DRM shit is considered rental material.
Whoa man, not every game that comes on a disc has it, but DRM beyond disc authentication has been going on for I’d wager longer than organized digital distribution has.
I think that’s the main reason these discussions are irritating. It’s great to have your own opinion about DRM, but saying everyone else isn’t “in their right mind” for feeling otherwise is pretty retarded. Further, saying limited installs are the same as a rental is greatly exaggerating the situation. I think the whole limited install thing is a poor method of control, but it’s not a fucking rental unless you’re the type to uninstall shit or crash your computer on a regular basis. If your beef is that it limits you being able to sell the game to someone else, that’s one thing. But it ain’t a rental unless you get a very short time to use it.
And that’s what kills me about limited installation DRM. Why have it if it’s a scenario that doesn’t actually exist? Why are companies safeguarding their products against a false assumption? There has to be a reason for it, right? I’m assuming that reason is to prevent file sharing or piracy. That’s fine. It’s your company’s perogative to try to protect it’s product.
Don’t tell me that it won’t be a problem 10 years from now if I want to load up my legitimate copy of a game. Take a look at the landscape of the industry. How many companies have lasted 10 years? How many of us have software that we like to fire up every now and again that came from a company that no longer exists?
Mark me as one of the people that didn’t know about Peggle’s DRM (past and present) but is now suitably informed.
Just want to throw in that I had a great experience with Popcap’s support a few years ago, when I accidentally ordered two copies of Peggle, and then got a review code in on the same afternoon. Probably the easiest my-dumb-mistake resolution I’ve ever had.
Steam is not massively restrictive… in fact you can play and install your steam games on 100 computers at once. Its restriction is that it occaisionally requires an internet connection. In return, you get an effective method of enforcing anti-cheating (scourge of online gaming, other solutions punkbuster having a worse reputation for stopping you from playing a legal copy of a game than most complained of drm schemes), you don’t need to keep track of physical copies, install limits, patches, waste disk space on games you aren’t using, and you have a centralized medium for chat, forums, and voice comms.
Yes, Steam requires an internet connection, but it is not just some DRM scheme. You trade all of the above for the requirement of an internet connection – many of the features above are impossible without a central authorization model. I don’t really care about the need for an internet connection, living without one would be a major lifestyle change for me. As for having to run steam in the background, for years now I’ve set it in my startup directory… takes less time to start up than say AIM. It hasn’t caused me any noticeable change in performance (sometimes I will remove it if I am shutting things down 1 by 1 to diagnose a problem) or stability.
Anyway, I feel a little silly for unleashing such a torrent in response to such a small comment, but hearing steam referred to as a “massively restrictive DRM”, paid for just a little convenience really struck an off note for me. Steam is the least restrictive DRM I could imagine, given a centralized authorization system.
DRM isnt a protection against people torrenting your games. The gaming industry wishes they could plug that hole, but they haven’t found a way to do it yet.
Its a protection against more casual forms of piracy. Installing it on you machine and those of your 40 closest friends. Posting the code unaltered on a download site so your friend can “try it”. Or simply emaling it to him for smaller games like Peggle.
Torrent cracks are the only way to pirate games. They are just the only way that works given current copy protections. If the companies were to forgo copy protection entirely piracy would increase significantly. Although everyone here has the technical ability to handle getting a hack from a torrent, the majority of video players arent as technically adept as this forum.
Does the increase in piracy by not having copy protection cost more than the loss of sales from people who refuce to buy a product with it? That is unknown, people speculate on all sides and offer a lot of anecdotal evidence, but I dont know a good way to figure out that answer.
I love Steam, but I do recognize it as being a pretty restrictive DRM scheme. The only reason Steam gets a pass from most gamers (including me) is because it offers incentives to have it on my machine. I said this is in the Spore thread. Steam offers more than just DRM to the consumer.
When companies put restrictive DRM on their software, but don’t offer any tangible benefit to the customer, they devalue that software.
Is it really restrictive, or just effective? It doesn’t limit # of installs, # of machines, doesn’t stop you from playing if connectivitiy or auth availability is transitorily interrupted, and most importantly, it doesn’t restrict you from enjoying a bug-free game.
I guess it’s a big deal that you can’t buy/sell used steam copies. I suppose that I just don’t see it as unnecessarily restrictive… like you said, it’s a package deal, more than just a “DRM scheme”.
