DRM Nays...

Tales of Nay...

By WarlokLord on December 5, 2008 9:29:58 PM from

NAY

Dead Space

EA sees fit to run a disc security check at certain doors as you go to open them. The pause is profound and jarring, not to mention somewhat insulting. If they were trying to mask the processes within the gameplay, they failed.

Battlefield series

EA compels you to successfully log in to their master servers before you even set options. What if those servers are down? What if any link in the interlag chain is down? Besides, we should not be beholden to others for the opportunity to play our games.

Any Starforce Malware

A no-brainer - any DRM that embeds itself and corrupts either my associated software and/or hardware, or that has the potential to do so, is an absolute negative.

+18 Karma | 13 Replies

It would have simply been easier to say EA = No way!

That is my motto - for gaming at least.

Its a reasonable motto. I`m just trying to enunciate the *whys* behind the error of ways, as I can recall them; EA just happens to be the unfortunate enough purveyor of both my specific recollections thus far.

If anybody else can cite other instances of bad DRM schemes and explain precisely why they are so, feel free. Perhaps in making such a list there will be some potential for service to educate folks who might venture to research the subject and read such, especially when they are not or have not been privvy to the ramifications of DRM themselves. I suspect for example that a small number of developers generally do not game (treating the endeavours as simply another job), and therefore do not come face-to-face with their own spawn.

You should have included GTA IV:

Serial-key, cd-checks, one time internet activation, have to install "rockstar social club" (or whatever it is called) and "games for windows live". And Securom of course. That's really the way to reward your paying customers...

Edit: I don't have the game myself. Just read lots of angry forum posts about how much can go wrong with this game. Plus it has higher system requirements than crysis... Good way to reduce the amount of people who can run, and therefore buy, it.

Quoting SveNitoR,

reply 3

You should have included GTA IV:

Serial-key, cd-checks, one time internet activation, have to install "rockstar social club" (or whatever it is called) and "games for windows live". And Securom of course. That's really the way to reward your paying customers...

Edit: I don't have the game myself. Just read lots of angry forum posts about how much can go wrong with this game. Plus it has higher system requirements than crysis... Good way to reduce the amount of people who can run, and therefore buy, it.

Didn't you get the official memo? The lack of sales isn't because anyone can't play it, it's piracy.

Whenever a game fails, it's piracy. Seriously, how could you miss this?

Hehe, yes how could I forget such a thing.

Especially since every pirated copy can be directly transformed into a lost sale

Yep, GTAIV really makes a strong case for piracy, especially when Rockstar never really needed to go down the DRM route... I don`t recall any reports of outlandish copy activities with that *best-selling* series.

Aahh yes, Games For Windows LIVE. That reminds me of...

Gears Of War

You could play the PC version, but unless you logged in to LIVE everytime you played, you could not access the savepoint feature.

Quoting Luckmann,

reply 4

Didn't you get the official memo? The lack of sales isn't because anyone can't play it, it's piracy. Whenever a game fails, it's piracy. Seriously, how could you miss this?

Also dont forget that each secondhand sale also equals a lost sale to piracy.

I have now had to download and employ hacks for _two_ total war games I have _legitimately purchased_ in order to get them to work.

The first was the gold edition of RTW - it never worked out of the box despite buying the DVD edition and waiting two weeks for my legit DVD to turn up (when pirating would have had the game working on my drive within 2 hours of looking for it)

The second was Medieval2 Total War. I reinstalled windows and it refused to work with my key anymore. I submitted a tech support ticket for a new key and it took them over 24 hours to get back to me with one - by which time naturally I'd been online and downloaded a crack.

Contrast with stardock products... I've never had a problem and have no hesitation buying them. Not that this is really a coherent argument against DRM, just stupid DRM that doesn't work, really.

I always found the original Shogun: Total War to be a little squirrely once I changed OS`s (98 to XP) - I had to re-purchase a new version with the Mongol expansion included in order to run it anymore. Some of the sound & video support was always wonky too. Not DRM oriented, I know.

the only reason for publisher and devs to turn over to the dark side of the gaming industry (DRM) is the fact, that they know, that their products lack of quality and with such methods they try to force those frustrated ex-customers to buy the game instead of just downloading it for testing.

i am actualy a person which doenst buy a car before driving it. and i handle it with computer games the same. before i couldnt play it i wont pay for it, because i cant give it back, if it sux. the argument " the game is bugged and lacks of quality" does not interest the guy at saturn, media market or on the amazon hotline. i decided to buy it, the rest is my problem. so i am not interested in hearing anything about legal or ilegal copys of a game.

if they always would throw a good demo on the market, like it was 5-10 years ago, so that i could test it before, i would definately buy more games... actually i lend them from some friends or in a rent-a-video store (dont know the word for it ^^) and use a crack (actually i know a lot of games which got massive problems with the cd-test, working much better after using a crack)...

as i heard demigod wont have some DRM shit i even pre-ordered it... that was now ca. 9 months ago. long time before gamestar or so on reported about it...

the reason? if a publisher says "hey we dont need a DRM, so we dont use one" what means for me something like "hey copy the game and give it to your friends, thats the best publicity we can get for the customers-only modus called multiplayer, we dont fear piracy, cuz we make quality, and we work for our customers, not for the DRM-developer" i trust in his words. EDIT: this doesnt mean that i would create countless copys of the game and give them away, it just says, that i dont need to fear to give my game to a friend for testing it, because of just 3 possible activations and such stuff...

or in other words:

in a restaurant where the cook lets people look in his kitchen, is a restaurant where you can entrust that you will eat good and fresh stuff and no shit.

If you are going to play an EA game, its best to do so on a Console. Their DRM is bad on PC's.

I don't buy EA products anymore. EA = Bad customer service.

If they want me as a customer they will change their way or I just won't buy from them.

I did preorder spore. That was the last EA game I will buy for the next couple of years. Annoying copy protection there (not to mention it was a dull game ).

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DRM Nays...

Tales of Nay...