Author Topic: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS  (Read 434459 times)

Spectere

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Re: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS
« Reply #510 on: November 13, 2008, 08:24:33 PM »
Damn, I thought Mirror's Edge was coming out for PC this month, but I read it's not coming until January.

Indeed.  How much are you willing to bet that EA is going to blame its relative lack of sales on piracy rather than the fact that there's such a long delay between the releases (and the fact that they're probably going to package the worst DRM imaginable with it).

What you just said should be applied to the gaming industry as well.

It can be applied to pretty much any industry, really.  But yeah, I agree, the gaming industry is notorious for fanboyism.
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MortifiedocAlot

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Re: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS
« Reply #511 on: November 13, 2008, 09:29:58 PM »
What you just said should be applied to the gaming industry as well.

So much worse then OS whores. I have a friend who thinks anything apple is "beast", thinks the xbox is gods gift to gaming, thinks shooters are better with 2 joy sticks, thinks halo is one of the best games made, and probably plays WoW on his (I think) windows XP run laptop.

Indeed.  How much are you willing to bet that EA is going to blame its relative lack of sales on piracy rather than the fact that there's such a long delay between the releases (and the fact that they're probably going to package the worst DRM imaginable with it).

Hey, you'd be surprised what piracy can do.

http://kotaku.com/5085915/90-of-world-of-goo-installs-are-pirated

If I was selling a game, I'd DRM the shit out of it.


Spectere

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Re: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS
« Reply #512 on: November 13, 2008, 10:34:19 PM »
I have a friend who thinks anything apple is "beast", thinks the xbox is gods gift to gaming

That's an extremely odd combination...

If I was selling a game, I'd DRM the shit out of it.

That would be a really foolish move.  The DRM in Spore, et al, spurred far more legitimate customers to pirate than it encouraged pirates to go straight.

Here's the deal.  The DRM that EA's been using isn't removable via standard means (it utilizes null registry keys, or something of the like, that cannot be removed with regedit), has been known to cause system instability, and is a potential security issue due to it requiring a privileged service to run at all times.  Another issue is that the SecuROM system in use is that it requires you to be online when you install the game.  Additionally, you are only allowed to install it a limited number of times.  If you can't do a proper uninstall, you lose an install.  If you run out of installations you have to call EA, 2K, or whoever, and convince them that you're not a pirate.  What if the activation servers are shut down in five years?  You can't properly install the game.  Furthermore, the system simply doesn't work.

Spore received harsh criticism for its use of SecuROM's online activation system.  However, despite the extremely harsh (to legit consumers, that is) DRM employed, the game was still released, fully uncracked, several days before it was slated to be released.  Since EA had numerous problems keeping their activation servers up and running, many paying customers were unable to play the game.  Meanwhile, the pirates were happily playing their copies of the game.

This is far from an issue with just Spore, too.  Every game that was released with that nasty form of DRM -- such as Mass Effect and Bioshock -- experienced similar problems at launch.  Paying customers got the shaft while the pirates can download, install, and play the game with zero hassle and without worrying that their copy will be invalidated after a few years or if EA happens to feel like revoking your key (which they claim they won't do, but who knows what'll happen down the line?).

Even if DRM had a small effect on piracy (unlikely) it wouldn't be worth the bad PR.  Look at the extreme backlash that Spore received (namely, thousands upon thousands of one-star reviews), not to mention all of the negative press.

PC gaming is killing itself...pirates have nothing to do with it.  Piracy is no worse now than it was during the shareware era in the early 90s.
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Eggman

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Re: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS
« Reply #513 on: November 13, 2008, 10:58:32 PM »
I don't know if I'd go that far. The current generation is far more used to pirating things and having emulators already there for people. They take it for granted that all the work and methods exist and for the most part, don't seem to have any idea as to what they're actually doing to smaller developers.

It's pretty telling that a game like World of Goo has a pretty long demo available, but the amount of people saying, "I wanted to try the game, so I just downloaded it," is huge.

Spectere

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Re: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS
« Reply #514 on: November 13, 2008, 11:18:59 PM »
The situation really hasn't changed, though.  It was actually easier to copy games in the early 90s because there was absolutely zero protection on them.  There was protection on a lot of games in the 80s but that fell out of favor for a variety of reasons.

The real thing that companies need to protect against is casual copying.  Pirates aren't going to stop what they do regardless of what kind of barriers you throw up at them.  Additionally, throwing up more barriers isn't going to do anything but deter people who intend to buy the game.  The thing is, the better your game is, the more people are going to want to play it.  The kids who don't have any source of income and the people that thing that they're above buying games are going to pirate it and the people who think that the game is worth it are going to buy it.

There are plenty of things that developers and publishers can do to prevent piracy without hurting legitimate customers.  Companies just have to start actually getting creative with their packaging, sort of like what Infocom did during their glory days.
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Bobbias

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Re: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS
« Reply #515 on: November 13, 2008, 11:27:41 PM »
That would be a really foolish move.  The DRM in Spore, et al, spurred far more legitimate customers to pirate than it encouraged pirates to go straight.

Here's the deal.  The DRM that EA's been using isn't removable via standard means (it utilizes null registry keys, or something of the like, that cannot be removed with regedit), has been known to cause system instability, and is a potential security issue due to it requiring a privileged service to run at all times.  Another issue is that the SecuROM system in use is that it requires you to be online when you install the game.  Additionally, you are only allowed to install it a limited number of times.  If you can't do a proper uninstall, you lose an install.  If you run out of installations you have to call EA, 2K, or whoever, and convince them that you're not a pirate.  What if the activation servers are shut down in five years?  You can't properly install the game.  Furthermore, the system simply doesn't work.

Spore received harsh criticism for its use of SecuROM's online activation system.  However, despite the extremely harsh (to legit consumers, that is) DRM employed, the game was still released, fully uncracked, several days before it was slated to be released.  Since EA had numerous problems keeping their activation servers up and running, many paying customers were unable to play the game.  Meanwhile, the pirates were happily playing their copies of the game.

This is far from an issue with just Spore, too.  Every game that was released with that nasty form of DRM -- such as Mass Effect and Bioshock -- experienced similar problems at launch.  Paying customers got the shaft while the pirates can download, install, and play the game with zero hassle and without worrying that their copy will be invalidated after a few years or if EA happens to feel like revoking your key (which they claim they won't do, but who knows what'll happen down the line?).

Even if DRM had a small effect on piracy (unlikely) it wouldn't be worth the bad PR.  Look at the extreme backlash that Spore received (namely, thousands upon thousands of one-star reviews), not to mention all of the negative press.

PC gaming is killing itself...pirates have nothing to do with it.  Piracy is no worse now than it was during the shareware era in the early 90s.

This. A million times, THIS.

I could not have said that better.
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MortifiedocAlot

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Re: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS
« Reply #516 on: November 14, 2008, 02:31:40 AM »
There are plenty of things that developers and publishers can do to prevent piracy without hurting legitimate customers.  Companies just have to start actually getting creative with their packaging, sort of like what Infocom did during their glory days.

I agree that DRM is a horrible way to secure your game, but it's better then absolutely nothing. If you can slightly harm a pirate it would make some of them buy the game just to not deal with all the hassle.

but fuck damn, a 90% piracy rate on an indie game is basicly the definition of shooting the gaming industry right in the legs.


Bobbias

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Re: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS
« Reply #517 on: November 14, 2008, 02:51:22 AM »
I agree that 90% piracy is beyond terrible, but I can understand how that happens.

It's much more of a hassle to some people to have to pay for stuff online and such. If they don't see it on a shelf, or it doesn't get any attention on TV, people tend to dismiss it and simply pirate it instead of actually finding a way to pay for it.

I think they need to standardize online payment systems so that it works for everyone, because in my case, I have a paypal, but no other way of directly paying for stuff online. If something doesn't accept paypal, I'm fucked.

And personally, I'd rather pay for Indie games than commercial games at the moment, since most commercial games I've seen tend to be pretty poor in the gameplay area. Even Spore is pretty crappy as far as gameplay goes (though it certainly brought game development into a next generation).

And DRMing something just makes me want to pirate it for the sake of defeating DRM. I hate DRM in general. When I buy a game, I want the right to do whatever the fuck I want with it, within limits (such as hacking for the purpose of beating other players, and other stuff like that). I'm not paying to get locked out of it at the whim of the game's creators. Nor am I paying for a fucking piece of plastic, or some stupid little number that lets me install it. Nor am I paying for a program to install itself into my computer and fuck things up. When I pay for a game, I'm fucking paying for a GAME, end of story. And if the company decides that I am not paying for the game, but for some obscure license, or activation scheme, or malware and system instability, or a piece of plastic, I'm not going to pay.

Sure, I'd like to support the guys who make games. Unfortunately, you usually can't donate directly to the programmers (except in indie games). So you're stuck paying for the DRM, the license, the piece of plastic, the packaging, possible system instability, and all the rest.
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Spectere

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Re: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS
« Reply #518 on: November 14, 2008, 04:17:54 PM »
And DRMing something just makes me want to pirate it for the sake of defeating DRM. I hate DRM in general. When I buy a game, I want the right to do whatever the fuck I want with it, within limits (such as hacking for the purpose of beating other players, and other stuff like that).

DRM typically doesn't encrypt the game content, only the executable.

The thing that I mainly have a problem with is that the DRM essentially acts as malware.  SecuROM is a perfect example.  If you can't fully remove a program using the tools available with Windows (namely, regedit and Windows Explorer) then it's malware, hands down.  The fact that it runs in ring 0 at all times is unacceptable and horrifically insecure.

Valve and Stardock have the right idea, I think.  The DRM included in Impulse and Steam aren't particularly intrusive compared to what SecuROM does.  Additionally, it manages to protect the content relatively well without doing anything stupid like limiting the number of installations a person uses.  If I buy a game on Steam, my dad and I can play the game (albeit not at the same time) if he logs in as me.  I wouldn't have to worry about using up too many of my installations.
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MortifiedocAlot

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Re: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS
« Reply #519 on: November 14, 2008, 05:27:28 PM »
Valve and Stardock have the right idea, I think.  The DRM included in Impulse and Steam aren't particularly intrusive compared to what SecuROM does.  Additionally, it manages to protect the content relatively well without doing anything stupid like limiting the number of installations a person uses.  If I buy a game on Steam, my dad and I can play the game (albeit not at the same time) if he logs in as me.  I wouldn't have to worry about using up too many of my installations.

Seconded.


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Re: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS
« Reply #520 on: November 14, 2008, 07:44:37 PM »
I'm picking up drawing; got a sketchbook and am advancing at a seemingly good pace!

Blue0ctane

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Re: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS
« Reply #521 on: November 16, 2008, 05:20:21 AM »
Ohai guize.

Spectere

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Re: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS
« Reply #522 on: November 16, 2008, 06:21:59 AM »
wtf are you doing here? :P

Buy srsly, long time no see.  How are things?
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Jupi

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Re: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS
« Reply #523 on: November 16, 2008, 10:59:23 AM »
wtf are you doing here? :P


Quit stealing my posts.


In other news,

wtf are you doing here?  :P
actually fuck you guys just kidding keep my quote in your sigs

TimJing

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Re: THE MOST LAME POST PRODUCERS
« Reply #524 on: November 16, 2008, 12:16:52 PM »
It feels soooo nice outside. 58 degrees, breezy, and sunny. Absolutely delicious.

my avatar is peaches

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