[Rashnu]

At the moment, we don't have any idea whether RISEN comes with a simple DVD-check, copy protection measures a la SecuROM, Tages, StarForce and the like or with some elaborate system of DRM similar to the PC version for GTA IV by Rockstar.

There is some reason to believe we won't be bothered by StarForce. On the other hand, it is most unlikely to expect RISEN to hit the shelves with no copy protection at all.

Today, I would like to start the discussion with a link to an independent game developer who asked his customers what they think about DRM. His answer and conclusions is displayed on his blog (thanks to one-cool for the hint).

The German part of the forum discusses the DRM topic for months now and has reached thread #3 so far. Who knows, Deep Silver and others with ties to the gaming industry watch this forum and might get second thoughts about putting in copy protection measures that would alienate you, the potential customer.

A civilised discussion about it can help you getting insights regarding the decision process behind implementing such a "feature", whereas publishers get a feeling about what RISEN players may or may not accept in future games.

Personally, I would love to know the logic behind Rockstar's decision to make an account with their social club and Games for Windows - Live mandatory in order to even save the game. §dumm

In light of the possible emotions this topic can stir up in you, please always keep in mind our Terms of Use and the Netiquette. The moderation expects you to be mature enough to handle this topic with care. Please don't feed the trolls, report them instead.

[scarlak]

Protection does not deter piracy so it fails, it does achieve 1 that though.
Anoying the heck out of paying customers!
Open and shut case lol

[vivaxardas]

No protection, please! Exessive restrictions harm gaming experience of those who buy licensed software. Pirates will break it anyway, and pirated copies will be more convinient to play - no protection, no hassle.

[Zocky]

Well, standard dvd check is completly fine with me. What i really, REALLY don't wanna see, is:
- having to create online account to play game
- having to be online while playing in order to verify you really have the legal version
- last, but must importantly, no install limitation of any sort. With all respect to PB and DS, i swear to all the gods (innos, adananos and beliar ofcourse :P), that if i see this sort of limitation, not only will i boycot DS games, includeing Risen, but will to my best to spread this to anyone else. Because if there's one thing i will NEVER, EVER tolerate, is somebody forbiding or limiting me something i payed a whole lot of money (and sorry, for me that's a lot of money). I can stand many things, but this is where i draw the line. I'd love to play Risen, but if it has copy protection, similar to Spore, that limits number of install (+ require you to have account), i will ignore it, even though i will be sad for having to do that. But it's my opinion we, players have to make it clear where's the line. Nobody wants to buy car that only is driviable for 10 000 kms either.

I do understand piracy is the problem, so i'm sure there could be setifying solution for both sides. I wouldn't agree with online acount for Risen in order to play it (like steam or something), but i suppose if devs/pubs promise to release patch like half year, or 1 year after the release(when all copies are mostly already sold), that would allow you to play game without acount, like all gothic games so far, i suppose i could live with that.
But again, if it would be possible at all, i'd prefer something like in other gothic games. In any case, i really hope DS will not use some kind of draconian DRM like spore has. It would hurt them hell of a lot more then benefit them. Spore for example, despite all the DRM, is the most pirated game in history (it's official, not my words). Which just prooves what everyone is saying: That sort of DRM hurts only CUSTOMERS, who PAYED for game, while pirates don't have to bother with any install limitations at all. I hope DS will take this into consideration.

[Bastardo]

Protections are useless... publishers have annoyed customers with this stupidity for years now and still you download a crack or a ddl and you're ready to go with your free copy, while who paid for it has to deal with copy protection (no matter if it's causing problems or simply annoying you at every startup). Only who has the original game goes through copy protection. Who doesn't, can easily bypass it and never has to go through it again, therefore it's pointless.

Who can download a pirated game is smart enough to eventually get the crack (if it isn't included already with also a nice readme explaining step by step how to fuck the copy-protection).
Nothing can stop a good pirate from getting through. And there are plenty on the net.

Ultimately copy protection affects stuff this way:
Customers: They have to insert the DVD everytime and/or be connected to the net (once or every time doesn't make a difference, either you have access to the net or you have not) and/or subscribe to useless stuff and/or resolve stupid puzzles using the manual (old skool copy protection) and in all these cases, being treated as a potential criminal by the people you've just given 50€.
Who steals: download completed, copy&paste, overwrite, congrats. You have a protection free game, and you didn't pay anything.

And people wonder about it.

[Powaz]

Check this too.

[Rashnu]

Check this too.

Thanks for the link. Especially the "Practical solutions" and "conclusions" part.

Practical Solutions


Instead of an unrealistic and unviable list of demands, what the piracy debate really needs are practical suggestions which both parties can accommodate. In that spirit I want to provide a basic list of the types of things which games companies and consumers can each do to reduce the negative impacts of piracy and hopefully maintain a healthy selection of games to suit all tastes on the PC in the years to come.


Developers & Publishers


Release more demos. Demos are becoming rarer these days, and this provides an excuse for piracy. Of course Crysis had a full demo for example and was still pirated to the tune of almost 1 million copies in 2008 alone, however a demo released before the final game will help some legitimate purchasers avoid the temptation of day-zero piracy, help manage user expectations about the final game, spread valuable word of mouth legitimately, and also help identify major bugs earlier, leading to quicker patches.

Make copy protection and DRM methods clearer on game boxes and on game websites. Also publish a link to a page detailing the hardware with which the protection is incompatible (e.g. SecuROM & known DVD drive incompatibilities). Aside from deflating claims of a cover-up, this also allows customers to make a fully informed purchase and lowers support costs.

Publish realistic minimum and recommended specs. Too many people assume that minimum specs are sufficient to play the game at low settings, when in reality minimum specs are usually sufficient to only barely run the game in an unplayable manner. Recommended specs should be published to a standardized level across all games, e.g. 'Below is the recommended hardware to achieve an average of 30FPS at 1280x720'.

Provide a toll-free tech support line for DRM-related issues. It's completely unreasonable for legitimate purchasers to have to pay several dollars a minute to call tech support regarding issues that are no fault of their own, such as SecuROM disc check failures and known drive incompatibilities. Emailing tech support on these issues is also a complete waste of time due to vague stock answers, so email support also needs to be shored up.

Stop delaying releases by region. Releasing games earlier in some regions is probably the single biggest incentive for people to pirate a game and contribute to day-zero piracy. Releasing games with different protection methods in different regions also allows pirates to simply attack the weakest link to achieve a working crack. For example the TAGES system in STALKER: Clear Sky went uncracked for two weeks after release, however the Russian StarForce version of the game's executable - which was released three weeks earlier in Russia - was cracked and used as a working crack for the non-Russian versions upon their release. So release all games globally at approximately the same time, and unify the protection method if you're serious about slowing down day-zero piracy.

Lower prices on digital distribution. Instead of making sure that digital copies match retail copies in an effort to protect retail distribution, accept the transition to digital distribution by lowering prices to realistically reflect the lower costs, potentially increasing sales due to the greater convenience at a lower price.




Consumers


Reduce piracy. This article has demonstrated the potential impacts of piracy, so while I have no doubt that most people will just ignore it and continue to pirate games anyway, if you don't want the PC to become just an MMO and casual gaming platform, try to buy most of your games if not all of them. If a game is crappy, there's a simple solution: don't buy it and don't pirate it.

Stop making excuses for piracy. Not just your own piracy, but also the piracy which others commit and openly brag about, and which piracy sites promote through misleading propaganda. Stop helping them to justify it with made-up facts and regurgitated misinformation which you don't truly understand, such as claiming SecuROM is spyware. If you aren't fully across an issue, either research it properly before making a comment, or stay quiet. Don't blindly support piracy just because it's the popular thing to do.

Drop the DRM hysteria. Work with developers and publishers to provide verified and rational feedback on problems you genuinely believe are related to DRM so that they can rectify the issues, either through patches or workarounds, and of course to prevent these issues in newer versions of the protection systems. If all else fails, don't buy games which have problematic DRM, but don't pirate them either - this sends an unambiguous message to the games companies that all demand for their product - both legitimate and illegitimate - is falling.

Don't blindly support Steam. Steam is a good digital distribution platform, but at the moment Valve has an effective monopoly on digital games distribution. In the absence of a real competitor, prices will remain high and Valve will have no incentive to pressure publishers to both lower digital prices and remove redundant DRM on Steam-protected games.

Support small innovative developers. To counter the constant run of gradually lower quality franchise games such as the Need for Speed and Sims series, reward small developers who innovate and take risks with their own money - buy their games. Everyone loves to be seen saying supportive things to small developers, but data and anecdotal evidence from the developers shows that in private people pirate the hell out of these games, especially those without any DRM. Put your money where your mouth is.



This is just a sample of the types of things consumers and producers can do if they really want to improve the situation in PC gaming and prevent the death of their favorite genres - unless of course your favorite genres happens to be MMOs and casual games, or you own a console, in which case you have nothing to worry about... for now.


What people fail to understand is that games companies don't actually want to have an adversarial relationship with their customers. It's extremely bad for any business to become openly hostile or accusatory towards their customers, but by the same token when a lot of the people playing their games aren't actually customers, yet still seem to demand tech support and generally believe they're entitled to play something the developers have worked hard on for nothing, then clearly things can become nasty. In all the years I've been gaming I've never seen major game developers come out and openly state the things they have in the past year regarding piracy. You don't even need to believe a word they say, just look at their actions: developers who've dedicated many years almost exclusively to the PC platform, such as Crytek, are finally making the move only now. It doesn't take a genius to work out that in at least a few of the cases, something has forced their hand, and piracy fits the bill based on the available evidence.



Conclusion


I've seen the piracy debate evolve a great deal over the years. A few years ago people would firmly deny that piracy was anything more than just a few people doing it. Then eventually as a range of data such as the number of torrent downloads made it painfully obvious that it was actually being conducted on a huge scale, the next argument to be trotted out was that it may be large, but it doesn't really result in any lost sales. Now that we have sales figures showing huge differentials between PCs and console game sales despite roughly the same install bases for each platform, the argument has devolved into simply blaming the greedy developers and publishers for making crappy games and using DRM. Of course even good games by struggling developers with no DRM are heavily pirated, so I wonder what's next. I believe most people justify piracy on the basis that it's a victimless crime, "like punching someone in the dark" as Nelson Munce would say. The irony is that the real victims of piracy may end up being PC gamers.


Whether you agree with the findings and arguments in this article is actually not that important. The main aim of the article is to open peoples' eyes to the fact that the entire topic is actually quite complex, and that there's a great deal of misinformation currently doing the rounds with regards to piracy. I'm under no illusions that most people will not like this article because it doesn't support piracy, but ultimately my responsibility is to write what I believe to be true, not what I believe will be popular; more and more these days, the two are drifting apart anyway. With the Culture of Piracy so prominent now, it seems everyone is demanding freedom without understanding that freedom does not equal free; everything has a cost, and we need to recognize that if content creators provide us with entertainment, they need to be rewarded fairly for it. We need to demonstrate that we can exercise the freedoms we have responsibly if we don't want to lose them. People can conjure up all manner of excuses to justify rampant piracy all day long, however neither the data nor logic bear any of these excuses out in the end.

Please discuss.

[Powaz]

Release more demos. Demos are becoming rarer these days, and this provides an excuse for piracy. Of course Crysis had a full demo for example and was still pirated to the tune of almost 1 million copies in 2008 alone, however a demo released before the final game will help some legitimate purchasers avoid the temptation of day-zero piracy, help manage user expectations about the final game, spread valuable word of mouth legitimately, and also help identify major bugs earlier, leading to quicker patches.

I agree on this. Many people on interwebz say "I'll download this game from a torrent to see how good it is, if I like it I'll buy it.". Even if 2 of 10 guys who said this actually buy the game later still they supported piracy. The more demos the better.

There are another things I think kinda ruin PC and these are game reviews. You just can't trust the reviewers because when you buy a game most of the time you see it's completely different and you think "Is that the same game the reviewer reviewed". There should be more people like Yahtzee.

[Bastardo]

Why should I care about publishers' problems? I paid the game, so you *don't* annoy me with protections and that's it. Should I guard the stores I visit from thieves?

Support small innovative developers.

Agreed...

[Powaz]

Agreed...

That's what we're doing right?

[Argenguy]

That's what we're doing right?

Yep, PB is still a small company, compared with Bethesda or Square Enix.
Let's see if they will fulfill the innovative part.

[RobinHood 13.]

I know of a copy protection that blacklists daemon tools for example.
I don't think thath harms the pc, nor gives it any restrictions on playing the game,
except need of cd which is usual.
It's still easy to overcome [SPOILER]using Yasu tools should work[ /SPOILER],
but more advanced and therefore many people who give up trying to play their
downloaded pirated version.
This means less people who play an illegal version, and that way you reduce piracy.
Now that can be a good thing or a bad thing. More people will know of the game,
many of them may by it, especially when a cheaper version is released,
but you also get more interest in upcoming games.

I think as said in the nice little article above, releasing demos is a good idea,
that aswell as the copy protection i said.
I think medieval II total wars has such a protection.

If this may cause trouble then I would ask you not to use it.

[Rethon]

Well, I think the most important part is missing in this article (thanks to Powaz for posting it ), and that's the second-hand trade. On the consumers' side the following point should be added:
You should never, ever resell your purchase, even if it's the crappiest game in history!
This is what the publishers fear in the first place, so this is the main reason why we have to live with DRM.

[Zocky]

well, i better not see image similar to that in Rethon's sig. If i do, i repeat, i'll boycot all games from this publisher (like i do with EA).

[Kostaz]

- having to create online account to play game
- having to be online while playing in order to verify you really have the legal version
- last, but must importantly, no install limitation of any sort.

Exactly
No online(I don't know about US but in Europe there are still people who dont have access to Internet)
No limit to installs
Since PB's games have a high replay value we will install and unistall the game many times.

Don't make our lives difficult.

I don't pirate but I am proud of having pirated Spore.(sorry Rashnu)

[Maladiq]

I have a simple solution. Give the game for free via download. If the game is good and has hundreds of thousands or even millions of downloads, than advertising on the official website would bring in a lot of money.
Though i may be an idealist saying this...

[Feyenord]

I've been thinking about DRM lately and how the copy protection for the games is getting worse and more annoying each year. Several questions came to my mind and I have my own answers to them, but feel free to give your own answers if you wish.

1. Why is the copy protection needed in the first place?
Seriously, why? The only thing DRM is good for is that it gives FALSE sense of protection to the developers/publishers. They spend a lot of money to buy the latest Securom, but in the end, the game gets cracked and can be distributed free of cost - consequently, it's the same as if the game did not have DRM in the first place.
Why spend a bunch of money for nothing then, and annoy the honest, legal customers?

2. What level of DRM is still acceptable by the customers?
a) Serial key, the oldest and most simple protection, probably the cheapest too. Just type in the key from your box.
Annoyance to customer: minimal!

b) Serial key, with mandatory online activation. This is, in my opinion, the ultimate protection. It can not be cracked (!), online games are the living proof. The only offset is that you need the internet connection, but then again, who doesn't have access to the internet these days? Even if the activation servers for the game go offline after many years, the publishers can simply release a patch and unlock the game for everyone.
Annoyance to customer: small!

c) Protection with CD-checking through programs like Securom, Starforce, etc. These programs can be very annoying. They install themselves deep into your OS register like spyware, and can cause several software conflicts and error's. And even if everything works correctly, the constant CD-checking can slow the game down unnecessarily or cause system instability!
Annoyance to customer: medium/high!

d) Advanced multilayer DRM, with CD-checking, and mandatory online activation with limited activation times. This seems to be the latest fashion in the industry and it's the absolute worst! Firstly, it's unnecessarily complicated, people just want to play the game, not spend 20 minutes activating and registering it. Secondly, it's as if you would buy a book or a movie and were told that you can only use them a few times. By my standards, this is totally unacceptable.
Annoyance to customer: extreme!

3. What would the world of PC gaming without software piracy look like?
I think it would be pretty much the same. The huge, over hyped titles, like Oblivion, The Sims, NFS series, etc. would still sell like crazy (just look at the sales figures for the last few years), and the small, relatively unknown titles would still get mediocre results at best. People don't have time to play all of the games that the industry pups out these days, and they certainly wouldn't spend there money for any game that doesn't make a strong impact on them.

4. How to improve the situation for the smaller publishers, who's titles aren't as hyped in the media?
MAKE your titles hyped. With internet as spread out as it is, there is no excuse anymore. Make sure that detailed preview and screen shots appear on all the important sites, it's free advertising, and very effective! Fans can be of great help here, although that they/we tend to be lazy () and the bigger their number the faster the information about your game will spread. People worldwide must be interested in the game to the point that they are willing to rush to the local store first thing on the launch day and buy it. Otherwise you're just loosing customers, by the tenth.


As far as I'm considered, I like the games from PB very much, and am set on buying Risen from the day it was announced . But if it comes out with DRM, including limited activation counts, I may have to give it a serious thought.

[Takuu]

Fill the gamebox not only with the Game CD, but with some stuffs like ex. Map of the world, book with the game story (wow - battlechest) .. . What am trying to say is: Give the buyers something that the cracked version will not be able to have it. So i can feel good for having the original box.

[Larisa]

b) Serial key, with mandatory online activation. This is, in my opinion, the ultimate protection. It can not be cracked (!)

Aaa... this method works for online games, not for something offline like Risen, for example.

[Zocky]

ONLINE accounts for SINGLE players-only game? this does not have any logic whatsoever.