I’m no fan of DRM, nor are many consumers. That said, we don’t always have a choice in the matter. So far I have completely avoided purchasing any DRM crippled enabled MP3’s. Just think if I’d bought into the whole PlaysForSure fiasco and now looking at MSN Music shutting down. I never bought DRM’d music from iTunes nor the Zune Marketplace nor Amazon MP3. I did buy a handful of DRM’d eBooks back when I was heavily into the eBook thing on my old iPaq a few years ago. All said and done, Palm’s DRM seemed the least of the evils in the eBook market so I went that route.
Games… sure piracy has always been around. I remember going to computer clubs or conventions (I can’t recall what they called them at the time) where the overall point of the entire meeting was distributing pirated software. Is it as damaging as the high-dollar publishers and developers say? Or, more likely, are we consumers just tired of paying top-dollar for crap like we do in the pre-iTunes music industry? Why should I pay $15 (for that matter, why do CD’s still cost $15?) for a CD when it turns out there’s only one song on the entire album I want to listen to? Was piracy really the reason Iron Lore shut down, or was it simply the fact that Titan Quest was a steaming pile and word-of-mouth defeated marketing hype?
My former brother-in-law is in the gaming industry and he says even within the industry itself, piracy runs rampant. Not the “we’re passing out free copies of the software to our competitors as a professional courtesy” but outright piracy just like we see at home. So it seems like a shot of hypocrisy if a dev team is whining about pirating their game while they pirate everyone else’s. I’m just sayin’…
SecuRom is beyond what I am willing to put up with on my computer. I just recently got my Xbox 360 back from the whole RROD thing several months ago and was on the fence whether to get Mass Effect for 360 or wait for the PC version. The SecuRom announcement made the decision for me. But wait! EA/Bioware witnessed the consumer uproar and backed down! (Who says whining doesn’t work?) Mmm… it sounds like SecuRom will still be utilized, they’re just dropping the “phone home” aspect. Either way, I don’t want SecuRom on my system, period. The PC version won’t be a “better” Mass Effect, it’s just Mass Effect with higher resolution graphics (duh) and a new PC-friendly interface. It just doesn’t strike me as the type of game I want to be huddled up at my desk in front of a monitor for, so I now own Mass Effect on the 360. If (huge if) I ever decide to get Bioshock, I will also get the 360 version purely to avoid SecuRom.
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I’m am really torn on the issue. On one hand I completely agree. I was really upset with Metallica for having a fit that people were sharing their music for free. I thought it was silly a big corporate cash machine like that had become was wanting to squeeze every dime they could out of people. To this day, I avoid any Metallica music.
Garth Brooks even tried to get a law passed stopping people from re selling CD’s because musicians only get royalties off the first sale and didn’t get anything if a used CD shop sold it. I’m thinking, if he’s worth all that much money, he should give his band some of what he’s getting off the first sale. A bunch of Greedy people is all it amounted too.
Now, when it comes to games, I kind of agree with the DRM. People mod consoles to play torrent files of games or burned copies. Its very rampant. This problem is different in my view to music. It think sharing music only gets people to like the artists more and drives them to purchase more CD’s in the long run and concert tickets. When I find a band I like thru a free download or rip, then I will probably go buy the cd myself, because the CD music is better than a compressed MP3 and i want to support the Artist. They did a good job, then I’m all for buying a cd. But if the free song sucks, then I’ve done my taste test and i won’t be getting anymore music free or otherwise from that Artist.
But does the gaming company get any fan base from a copied or pirated game? I can’t see how. so the potential for them to make money in the future off a person ripping them off is pretty nil. I think DRM for some stuff is ok. Why should it be a huge problem? I run Bio Shock and Orange box on my machine and I don’t have any hassles. So, I can’t move the game to multiple systems, why would I need too. So, Bob can’t borrow it and play it on his machine, so what, Bob needs to get his ass a job and buy his own games, like I do. lol
Anyway, as I said, I’m conflicted in my thought process over DRM.
Bottom line: I’m tired of being treated like a criminal.
Go buy a CD or DVD and they’re in these plastic cages, vacuum-sealed plastic wrap, three adhesive labels then the magnetic strip inside.
Buy some earbuds or a mouse or whatever that’s hanging on the racks. Those plastic packages are so damned difficult to open, and I’ve sustained more than a few nasty cuts because of the unwieldy plastic. Can I sue over my injuries due to their stupid anti-theft packaging? Doubtful. But then again, I can sue because my coffee was hot and I’m a klutz…
Remember software that came with dongles? HA! There’s anti-piracy gone wrong. At least with Steam’s system, I don’t feel violated, and I feel like I have some semblance of control. I don’t even notice it at all, and I can play offline too. SecuRom just goes a step or few too far over my personal line to where I won’t have it. Now… even though I said *if* I’d get Bioshock on 360 to avoid SecuRom (truthfully, Bioshock just seems like the type of shooter I’d rather do on the console than the pc… yes, there’s such a beast) if I were to get Bioshock from Steam it doesn’t come with SecuRom since Valve has their own better system in place. And I’d buy from Steam anyway. One less box cluttering my closet is a good thing.
I agree, the way that DRM is done now is pretty rough. I think that there needs to be some kind of protection, with out making the consumer feel like they are the bad guys or to punish them for buying their product.
But piracy is pretty rampant and there needs to be some way to stop it. As a friend of mine said yesterday, the annoyance to the consumer is hurting the concept of DRM. I think if they made it more invisible and made it less trouble some, like the CD check always seem to be, then they might have an answer. Also, not everyone has an internet connection, so making the game check online for keys isn’t a good idea either, but you don’t have to worry about having to find the CD every time you want to play or worry about scratching it. I actually had to buy a new version of Diablo 2 cause the CD the game checks got scratched, hard lesson to learn.
I don’t know what the over all solution is, but I think that DRM is here to stay, they just need to find a better way to put it out there without making the consumer feel like they just robbed a 7-11.