Does DRM devalue a PC gaming purchases to you?

[Tidus]

DRM is a game killer, there's some games I wrote off before I even played them because of the DRM, I wouldn't put up with validating my game each time I play it, I'd rather not bother. To get people to accept DRM it has to be non intrusive.

Games are also pretty dear, most pirates probably can't afford to buy games so they make do with the pirated version, Online games will most likely sell best as users will need an official version to play on an official online server, so having an online game mode will be a boost for game sales.

[Saracen]

I'm fully in favour of games companies benefiting from the fruits of their labours. I've certainly argued in favour of copyright often enough. But when DRM starts significantly inconveniencing legit users, then it goes to far for me.

I shudder to think how many games I've bought over the years, or what they've cost, but it's shelves-full. And five in the last few weeks. But I will not be dictated to by a publisher and have to get permission from them to activate a game I've damn well bought. As a result, I cancelled my plans to buy Mass Effect and will not, under any circumstances, buy a game that has that kind of intrusive DRM. If all games start to adopt that attitude, then I'm afraid it will mark the end of my PC gaming career ..... and that's a career which, with a loose enough definition of "PC" (because it started with Apples), has already lasted nearly 30 years. And if it stops, it'll be the type of DRM used by Mass Effect that does it.

I'm a legit user. If publishers won't treat me with the respect that should entail, then to hell with them and their products. Whether they succeed with their game launches or go broke, I care not. But they won't be getting so much as a single cent out of me where that degree of DRM is involved. Screw around or screw up pirates all you like, but don't expect to screw me and still get my money.

[Stringent]

Steam is good, but its far from perfect. Lots of issues with it. The idea is good I will give it that. However buying stuff from Steam isn't. Add the tax which you don't see and it ends up being more expensive. I remember preloading HL2 for my mate, it was 23:00 all the stores were closed, or didn't have it. I paid more getting it from Steam.

Pirates will always find a way to sort things. They might strip the 50GB Blu-Ray and re-encode it to make it smaller. Heck I have heard of games which are normally on a dual layer DVD going down to 2GB cos the pirates have stripped it.

The last game I bought for PC was Bioshock, and even that has issues. The DRM on that was very bad DRM. People had trouble un installing and transferring to a new PC. All this will eventually push people away from getting games and go to console. So they still end up loosing more money. Actually, the last game was the C&C3 expansion at its release. Haven't touched it.

[Tidus]

Steam is good, but its far from perfect. Lots of issues with it. The idea is good I will give it that. However buying stuff from Steam isn't. Add the tax which you don't see and it ends up being more expensive. I remember preloading HL2 for my mate, it was 23:00 all the stores were closed, or didn't have it. I paid more getting it from Steam.

Pirates will always find a way to sort things. They might strip the 50GB Blu-Ray and re-encode it to make it smaller. Heck I have heard of games which are normally on a dual layer DVD going down to 2GB cos the pirates have stripped it.

The last game I bought for PC was Bioshock, and even that has issues. The DRM on that was very bad DRM. People had trouble un installing and transferring to a new PC. All this will eventually push people away from getting games and go to console. So they still end up loosing more money. Actually, the last game was the C&C3 expansion at its release. Haven't touched it.

Consoles are already dwarfiing the PC on the gaming front, even though more people own a PC than an Xbox 360 the console games will do alot better, DRM and system requirements are the worst for PC games, I payed a load of money for my PS3 on launch but I know I'll still be able to play games on it in 3 years time you can't say that for the PC, people who bought their PC a year ago and can't run Crysis won't be raving about PC gaming.

Stopping game pirates will be a real challenge though, if they are willing to spend the time cracking DRM and compressing games for download.

[Sinizter]

DRM devalues any purchases for me - SIGNIFICANTLY.

I dont like anything with DRM on it and will not buy it if I can avoid it. It just causes too many headaches, specific system requirements and other problems - any of which might crop up if anything on my system changes. Even windows updates can mess some of them up.

[Gunbuster]

I remember reading a while ago that a developer was advocating selling to the people that buy and not even considering piracy as it will be there no matter what.

The idea is you want as many sales of your game as possible. So make a game that targets people that will pay for a game and can run it. That means genres that the more honest prefer, useful features like registering allows you to keep your key for forever and the capability to download the game and games that the majority of the gaming community can play.

I also wonder how much of the PC gaming money pot is being hoovered up by Nvidia and AMD? by making such high demands are they forcing out those that can't pay and those that can to buying fewer games?

[Vice]

DRM is definetly not fun. I'll give some examples of where Intrusive DRM hurts the consumer while the Pirate gets an easier experience:

1. Computers move on, but the intrusive DRM does not. The DRM is no longer compatible with your new operating system even though the game itself would physically run if the DRM didn't stop it.

2. The company forces your game to validate online, but you don't have an Internet connection or the validation servers are deactivated because the Games producer is losing money by keeping them active 5-10 years after the game is initially released. Also the Company may go bust and is unable to run the servers any more.

3. Some DRM is so intrusive that it begins to interfere with the stability of your PC, or stops other programs from functioning such as NERO or other Optical Disc devices.

4. The DRM may require you to use the CD/DVD that came with the game meaning each time you play your disc is being worn out going in and out of its case which has usually hard grips that can damage the center of the disc. Not to mention the hassle of having to keep digging the games packaging out.

5. DRM Bugs can simply cause your game to stop running. False positives, and general bad coding by the DRM's creator causes bugs that may make the game completely inaccessible to paying customers.

6. Re-installation issues if you don't call up the Games publisher and deactivate your old Installation. What if they stop maintaining those Phone systems, go bust or believe your a Pirate?

And finally, Number 7, DRM doesn't work. With each new DRM it only causes the Customers issues, costs the game company money in developing/purchasing/licensing the DRM and the pirates still get a DRM free version to download and use as they wish. The DRM is there to stop people from pirating the game but it doesnt do that. These Release groups that Rip and Crack games are not Joe-Average they are very competent programmers and hackers.

DRM to a Games Publisher is an easy way to rest their minds about the piracy level of their games. But it doesn't work. So what does work? - My advice to games publishers is this:

In each game, include a Serial Code. And then include a Multiplayer online aspect to your game. If people want to play that online component they have to login through your servers and have their Serial authorized by your authentication servers otherwise they won't be able to join any online games that are in progress.

Give the Pirates the Single-Player for free, but make them pay to play online. So many people want to play online and the pirated copies of good games with strong online components simply cannot compete with a retailed purchased version. I'm sure most people here are aware of 'Counter Strike: Source' its an Online FPS game with Team based action. It has been pirated so that people can play it online. However Due to the nature of the way the Developer kept updating the games online component with new features and improved authentication schemes the Pirated versions became unusable.

The game started off with the first pirate copy. Then within a year the group that originally put that copy on the Internet had to release over 29 separate updates so that pirates who downloaded their copy could keep playing the game. That sort of aggravation is what breaks the pirates resolve and makes them pay out. DRM does the opposite, it creates frustration for people who ARE paying for the game and makes THEM pirate. Don't make it easy for the Pirates, make it easy for your Customers.

That's all I have to say. Rant over.

[Saracen]

A very comprehensive and cogent analysis, Vice. I can't disagree with any of it.

And some interesting ideas, too.

Gunbuster raises a good point too. There are people that are going to use pirated games no matter what. There are also, I imagine, a good number of people with pirated versions of games, and for that matter all sorts of other software too, that never would have bought the game so it was pirate version or nothing. The publishers can't do much about these people, other than perhaps bringing the price down to the point where it would not have been viable anyway. They just have to accept that, whether that category end up pirating or not, they are not lost sales because they weren't potential buyers to begin with. Stopping piracy completely won't increase sales by the amount of pirate copies they stop. How much will it increase sales by though? I have no idea, and I wonder if publishers do either?

The publishers need to try to evaluate two things - how many people that, but for piracy, would have bought the game, and how many people would have bought the game but for over-enthusiastic DRM.

I mean, the publishers of Mass Effect lost me as a buyer because of the DRM. That's a direct loss of both a customer and revenue to them, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. But how many people that would have pirated the game bought it because of the DRM? There's a line in there somewhere where the publishers are actually doing themselves a disservice with DRM that's too obnoxious because they'll end up with less sales than they would have with either no DRM or something less obnoxious, and just accepting that that implies a level of piracy.

As I've said before, if they can stop piracy stone dead without jerking legit customers around too much, great. I have no problem with that. But some companies are jerking legit customers around in their attempts to combat piracy and I wonder just how effective those measures actually are, because they are definitely losing some legit sales because of it. I'm certainly not paying them my hard-earned in order to be jerked about because of it.

[Vice]

I agree with you completely Saracen. There will always be people who won't buy the game and always pirate. The games companies don't seem to understand that those Pirate downloads do not equate sales. At-least not 1:1. Your analysis of the situation is completely on point with regards to that. I'm a developer myself (Application, not Game) and people do pirate my software so I have a keen insight in to what other developers are going through.

They just need to wake up and realize DRM is the wrong way to stop Piracy. (I don't really think there is / will ever be a right way)

[Gunbuster]

For my sins I studied marketing at University (I am thankfully out of it now). One of the key things they taught me early on is that the negative experience of one person generally spreads to about 12 people through personal contacts. This means if I buy say Mass Effect and have first hand troubles with it's DRM I am likely to disuade 12 others with my isolated single issue.

I have a worry that blind fear of piracy is doing further damage to the industry. Please bare in mind the people that make your favourite games are usually not the publishers. So perfectly good developers are being penalised by the mad panic of their publishers and the deluded notion that you can defeat all piracy.

I think some people need to take a realism pill and realise that sales are lost from piracy, but that not every pirated game is a sale lost.

[dkmech]

Thing is - some of the people working in publishing are just doing their job. Now that may be "combatting piracy". If they want to keep a job they may need to claim that every pirate copy is a directly lost sale at the RRP (which it most certainly wouldn't be).

If I want to keep a job "combatting piracy" it makes things more worthwhile to claim £15,000,000 lost through piracy based on several hundred thousand pirated copies. Whereas in reality 100k of those would never buy the game coz they don't think it's good enough or the type they like. 100k would buy it in a years time at 50%RRP as their hardware won't let them fully enjoy it at the moment (you'd endure sluggish crysis for free but wouldn't pay £35 for it) and another 100k would have waited till it's in the bargain bin.

I also think that although a lot of adults play games a lot of kids do too. And kids do have limited funds and unlimited thirst for games. It's just basic physics! Some of those publishing executives don't realise how much of a commitment £30 quid can be for someone who is 14.

So as long as it is in someones personal interest to push DRM it will be pushed - it would take a very brave person with a lot of power to do otherwise.

In the music industry some bands have been giving away music or selling it at a voluntary price - this would be harder for big games due to the ever higher production values though.

[kalniel]

I think some people need to take a realism pill and realise that sales are lost from piracy, but that not every pirated game is a sale lost.

I think some people need to take a realism pill and realise that no publisher is saying that every pirated game is a sale lost.

Fear of piracy is doing nothing to the industry compared to the damage actual piracy is doing.

[directhex]

who would actually pay retail for dream pinball 3d?

i wouldn't pay a quid for a pinball game. i don't know anyone who would.

yet the creators of that are the main ones suing people right now. perhaps because they'll make more profit from a single £16k default judgement than from people buying their actual product?

[Saracen]

I think some people need to take a realism pill and realise that no publisher is saying that every pirated game is a sale lost.

Fear of piracy is doing nothing to the industry compared to the damage actual piracy is doing.

Maybe, but how much damage are overly restrictive DRM doing? Because one thing is a dead cert - they are doing damage. How it nets out against gains is hard to quantify, but they're damaging not just sales but customer relations too.

[Vice]

I always buy the games I play, so when Bioshock hit the scene I was excited to play it, but its DRM was way to instrusive and repressive for my taste so I made the tough decision not to buy the game (or pirate it) and I've yet to play the game at all due to its DRM so that is 1 lost sale as a direct link to bundled DRM, and I'm sure that I'm not alone when it comes to that game specifically. The re-installation debacle was a real turn off.

Had that game not had such bad DRM I would have bought it no question.

[Gunbuster]

Would you guys be open to a thread on Securom and other DRM alternatives list?
By that I mean games of a similar ilk that do not contain DRM that can be bought for the PC?

For example System Shock 2 from GOG (Good old games) instead of Bio Shock. Not an amazing example, but you get the idea. I am pretty behind on PC games these days so any suggestions would be helpful.