A competent, unbiased look at PC game piracy and DRM.

[Syl]

Tweakguides has 10 pages of information on PC piracy and DRM (http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html)

There is a lot of information here, but it's well worth reading all 10 pages.

In actual point of fact there are many recent examples where copy protection and DRM has worked extremely well in reducing not only casual piracy, but also preventing hardcore piracy.
Finally, on the contentious topic of DRM, aside from Spore whose audience may well have fallen victim to DRM-induced hysteria, the presence of intrusive DRM appears not to increase piracy of a game. For example Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed and Crysis all have no intrusive DRM whatsoever: they all use basic SafeDisc copy protection with no install limits, no online activation, and no major reports of protection-related issues. Yet all were pirated heavily enough to have the dubious distinction of being in the Top 10 downloaded games list. But strangely absent from the list are several popular games which do use more intrusive DRM: BioShock, Crysis Warhead, and Mass Effect. This indicates quite clearly that intrusive DRM is not the main reason why some games are pirated more heavily than others.

This is the heart of the issue: people with no real knowledge of SecuROM are deliberately and systematically creating and then perpetuating absolutely unverifiable, often patently false claims against such protection systems, more to debase and undermine the protection system's credibility in the eyes of the public than anything else. Even a quick check of Wikipedia's SecuROM article shows that the entire article is flagged with the heading: 'The neutrality of this article is disputed' and 'This article may contain original research or unverified claims.' Facts are taking a back seat to hysteria and a clear agenda to demonize SecuROM.

The article goes into depth about the sales of PC vs console, the amount of piracy on all systems (past and present) The "evils" of Securom, Starforce, Steam and other DRM types. What copyrights actually entitle, and what might happen if you actually read the EULA that you always click past. It's an absolutely lovely piece of editorial work and I know that most people on this website will hate it because it proves you wrong.

[Zenko]

I remember a story where a dude who always reads the EULA found a note inside it saying to e-mail the company and when he did he found out that he won 10 grand. How crazy is that? That is a great article though. I don't mind DRM for the most part, just when it's taken to an extreme.

[Panthera]

I appreciate all the data, but unbiased this isn't remotely.

[Syl]

I appreciate all the data, but unbiased this isn't remotely.
The only part of it that I felt was biased was the part based on steam, but that's mainly because i'm biased TOWARDS steam. Everything else seemed to be using objective evidence.

[Panthera]

The evidence was fairly objective, but not the conclusions drawn from them. As well, he vastly misrepresented and in some cases directly insulted the general opinion.

I'm not going to get into another debate on this topic, though, because it's been done to death.

[NonSoft]

The only part of it that I felt was biased was the part based on steam, but that's mainly because i'm biased TOWARDS steam. Everything else seemed to be using objective evidence.

How could you possibly call this article unbiased? Even the quotes that you posted indiciate a severe bias.

I love when someone finds an article that they agree with, and then tout it as indisputable evidence that they are correct. You even go so far as to throw it in the faces of those that disagree with you:


It's an absolutely lovely piece of editorial work and I know that most people on this website will hate it because it proves you wrong.


It's only biased if you don't agree with it, right?

[Wyrm]

What I don't understand is why demonizing the copy protection is a bad thing. If enough people get upset about it, they will have to change things.

If only people were so vehement about protecting constitutional rights and keeping our country out of the hands of greedy politicians.

And, regardless of how many actual pirates that copy protection is stopping, if even one legitimate customer is negatively affected by it, it has failed to do its job.

Copy protection, in theory, is a great thing. But the regular software buyers who are affected most by it are not the ones they're trying to stop. They're trying hardest to get rid of the casual pirates. Because they have to know that no matter what, the game will end up cracked and leaked only a few days after release (and sometimes, weeks before).

So they've entered a very strange middle ground. On one side, you have the hardcore who know what ISOs and torrents are, and know where to get any game they want. On the other, you have the average consumer who buys the software from the store and expects that he will always be able to access that software whenever he wants. These two groups should not overlap, but the people in charge of these decisions see the overlap as this hulking thing. They believe there is this enormous, magical number of software pirates out there simply waiting for them to release a new game so that they can pilfer it and share it with all their pirate buddies.

The truth is far more simple: there are software pirates, there are casual software pirates, and there are regular people who buy software. There are people who will always pirate software, because it can never be fully protected without serial keys and online verifications. Even then, the smart crackers can get in and make it free. So they accept that there is this lost sales demographic and move on to the next level up.

What about those people who don't know much about computers but who don't like to or can't pay for software? In other words, the poor college student. Maybe a friend explains the process to him and he tries it out by downloading Crysis. He wouldn't have bought Crysis, because his computer can't run it anyway, but since it's free, he decides to give it a shot. When it doesn't work, he deletes it and gives up, because he perceives that the process is too difficult.

I'm of the opinion that the majority of piracy is in that category. Sure, there are the hardcore, but they've always been there.

Then, there's the regular consumer. The one who paid for the software. The one who has to put up with calling tech support because the online verification servers aren't responding. Or put up with getting a new license for the program because his computer got a virus and he had to reinstall windows. This is the largest majority of consumers.

Most people do not pirate software, not because they lack the desire, but because they do not know how. The reason the music industry is having trouble is because of the trend Napster started all those years ago. Napster made sharing music easy. In fact, it made it so easy, the music industry has never recovered. And when it fell, it was inevitable that other programs would pop up to take its place.

The point boils down to this: All of these businesses, music industry included, must find new ways to get people to pay for their products. The current business model is a thing of the past, and sticking to draconian DRM because you believe piracy is the sole cause of a game's shitty sales record, is quite simply, lunacy.

Hey executives, how about this? Why not make games that people want to play? Why not give them incentives, like great, free online play which requires a one-time use CD key (Battle.net), or free game add-ons (Epic) to keep them coming back? Treat your customers like what they are: your bottom line. Because without them, you would be nothing. Your hulking corporation would be a bunch of guys in a building pushing paper into the land of dreams. It's our money, and we want to choose how we spend it. We don't want to spend it on games with two hours of content. We don't want to spend it on games that aren't fun to play. And we especially don't want to spend it on games that you might not even let us play.

[AversionFX]

You've got to have some brass balls to call that piece of work "unbiased." Jesus, fuck.

I'm going to contend (yet again), that the piracy of PC games will see a significant decline only after a few things happen.

1. Consumers need to be assured of a game's quality. Console gamers are (so it seems) much less demanding of a game's quality, period. A game like Mercenaries 2, for example, is all fine and dandy on consoles, but it was such a shoddy, obvious port on the PC, taking advantage of absolutely nothing that PCs are built for. Had I not been so entirely excited for the game, and had I known it was just a copy/paste of a console game, I would have pirated it. Period.

2. The cost of production has to come down, thus bringing down the price of entry. You have got to seriously be incredibly shrewd, or downright fucking retarded to expect a person to pay 50 or 60 dollars for a game that will provide entertainment for anything less than 10 hours. And if it's going to last less than 10 hours, it had better be one of the best games ever.

3. The quality of games needs to improve. I bet this year alone, there's at least 3 games you bought new, that you ended up saying, "What a complete waste of my time and money." The shift in video gaming has largely gone from quality mechanics, story, etc, to presentation. Just look at Crysis or Doom 3. Lackluster shooters whose only saving grace was how good the games looked.

[Johan]

It's an absolutely lovely piece of editorial work and I know that most people on this website will hate it because it proves you wrong.

DAMN do I love a mouthful of stupid in the evening. Very few calories, but so tasty! You, sir, win a cookie! :D

An "editorial" that "proves" something. Wow. That's pretty damn funny.

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

DAMN do I love a mouthful of stupid in the evening. You, sir, win a cookie! :D

An "editorial" that "proves" something. Wow. That's pretty damn funny.

Ha I didn't catch that part he mentioned at the end, hilarious!

[Jotoco]

3. The quality of games needs to improve. I bet this year alone, there's at least 3 games you bought new, that you ended up saying, "What a complete waste of my time and money." The shift in video gaming has largely gone from quality mechanics, story, etc, to presentation. Just look at Crysis or Doom 3. Lackluster shooters whose only saving grace was how good the games looked.

Exactly.

I know I did just that. Bought something and regretted it immensely.

And people should know that not EVERY game has to be the same price. If you spent 1mil making a game, why the hell do you want people to pay 60bucks for it? Now, if you spent a large sum of money, you should be able to price your game accordingly.

Let's say again, NOT EVERY GAME NEEDS TO BE THE SAME PRICE. If people knew that I would buy so much more games... There are games that are 10 bucks content, period. Not 60 bucks.

And 6 months from now, when the price drops to 10, I won't even remember your game. Don't blame piracy where it is not due.

Of course there IS a lot to blame in piracy, but I think they didn't understand it quite yet.

[Zurik]

Hey executives, how about this? Why not make games that people want to play? Why not give them incentives, like great, free online play which requires a one-time use CD key (Battle.net), or free game add-ons (Epic) to keep them coming back? Treat your customers like what they are: your bottom line. Because without them, you would be nothing. Your hulking corporation would be a bunch of guys in a building pushing paper into the land of dreams. It's our money, and we want to choose how we spend it. We don't want to spend it on games with two hours of content. We don't want to spend it on games that aren't fun to play. And we especially don't want to spend it on games that you might not even let us play.

Did you see the pirate numbers for Fallout 3 PC, where there is pretty much no copy protection, just one cd check. Can't we just understand that people don't want to pay for something if its really easy to get it for free?

[Syl]

Did you see the pirate numbers for Fallout 3 PC, where there is pretty much no copy protection, just one cd check. Can't we just understand that people don't want to pay for something if its really easy to get it for free?
No, they didn't bother reading the attached article and, as usual, assume they know exactly everything about everything.

[Jotoco]

No, they didn't bother reading the attached article and, as usual, assume they know exactly everything about everything.

I will assume that I'm not included in "THEY" because I'm not, really.

Just because I disagree doesn't mean I didn't read.

I do agree that they need to protect and everything, I agree that a game having bad DRM will probably be an incentive to some, but not most. A lot of people will pirate because they were never ever really thinking of buying, DRM or no DRM.

And about Fallout 3, a great title, with suck renown will get pirated if for anything just to see what is it all about.

On the subject of seeing what it is all about I know about 20 people who downloaded Crysis, none of then played it for more than 30 minutes.

[Wyrm]

No, they didn't bother reading the attached article and, as usual, assume they know exactly everything about everything.

I did say it was my opinion. And I did read the article. I just don't buy his conclusions. So I'm not allowed to disagree with you now?

[Syl]

I did say it was my opinion. And I did read the article. I just don't buy his conclusions. So I'm not allowed to disagree with you now?

Something being your "opinion" doesn't mean that you can immediately refute the facts.

The article had multiple examples that proved your argument inaccurate. It's a shame that it didn't have more examples for the past couple of years, but actual numbers of Epic Games sold on PC has been abysmal for this entire generation. (Admittedly, UT3 kinda sucked; and Gears of War PC was far too late ~ and I did buy both of them).


Copy protection, in theory, is a great thing. But the regular software buyers who are affected most by it are not the ones they're trying to stop. They're trying hardest to get rid of the casual pirates. Because they have to know that no matter what, the game will end up cracked and leaked only a few days after release (and sometimes, weeks before).
And yet the author finds multiple situations where the DRM wasn't cracked for months or even a YEAR after the game was released. Sure, current securom isn't the best example. (I haven't had a problem with it.) But I feel that entirely disregarding DRM isn't going to persuade anyone to BUY your game that otherwise wouldn't.

What I don't understand is why demonizing the copy protection is a bad thing. If enough people get upset about it, they will have to change things.
The article never stated that demonizing copy protection was a "bad thing", it stated that using absolute bullshit to try and argue that it's a "bad thing" is the problem.

I have starforce on my computer, i have securom, TAGES, STEAM, Impulse, and probably other DRM protections from ages past all over my machine. None of these copy protection systems have caused me any problems. (Aside from the well known process explorer/securom issue) Now, i'm only one person who pays exquisite attention to my computer to make sure it runs flawlessly.

However, i know many people whom never had a problem with multiple games running at all until they found out, months after having the game installed, that it used securom or similar. Because they were mislead into thinking that these simple DRM programs were somehow bad for their system and did horrible things. None of which I've ever actually seen happen. Yet again, personal experience isn't really anything to judge the whole by.

I don't see activation limits as that big of an issue. Nor do I see online activation as any sort of problem. Maybe it's because i've never had a problem with either of them working (well, aside from HL2 launch ~ years ago). Likewise, i'm a single person with a single computer. So I can't imagine getting over those 5 installs too fast. I simply don't see why people think they're the end of the world. That's a slippery slope argument that I can't exactly fathom where the uproar comes from.

The only thing I *can* understand is how some people are against losing their resale rights; sometimes a game doesn't work, sometimes people sell their games after they're done. The question is if losing disk-checks is more important to you than being able to possibly sell your game later.

[donkeydrop]

Here's a couple of real corkers from the original article:

In online gaming for example, the use of serial numbers for verification of ownership has been very successful in reducing the incentive to pirate them. This is one of the secrets behind World of Warcraft's success

Ahahahhahaaha. No, it couldnt be anything to do with having to play the game on a server controlled by the publisher, for which you have to pay a monthly fee. No, no, it must be the serial thats stopping the pirates.


Interestingly enough, there's very little in the way of actual evidence that StarForce does anything harmful.

No, no evidence at all. Oh, there was the odd game journalist or 3 who had his system hosed. You know the ones who were so pro-publisher that they never really believed the stories until it happened to them. The ones whose killed the use of Starforce so that every major publisher cancelled their contracts with the company who made it.

The author just accepts factoid after factoid put out by the industry and adds nothing to the discussion. Fact: except for a few Starforce games every major release is hugely pirated. Fact: DRM doesnt stop pirates. Fact: DRM does annoy paying customers. So dont make some silly argument that marginally DRM is good.

[Dirty Harry]

This is very enjoyable I am glad i put this to be posted in the PC forum.

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/2741/25wi5.gif

[Orphiuchus]

GTA 4, which I just attempted to install and play is loaded with all sorts of horrid DRM. The end result? I cant fucking play it, its to bloated and full of bugs which appear to have been a lower priority than preventing piracy. (And I'm one of the 4 people who actually have a system that can run it!)

But guess what? I checked that site, you know the one I mean, and there it was. All cracked and ready for anyone who wants to download 14 gigs of non-working game to download.

So congrats, your game cant be played. Good show.

[Limech]

I just finished reading the article and I liked it. Pretty much agree with all that is said as well. As far as unbiased, well, I guess it on the side of anti-piracy mainly so if you pirate games you'll find it biased. It does mention that DRM can give problems to legitimate buyers but I'm sure that's a minority of people that are having problems.
For example, I'm sure the percentage of Red Rings of Death is much higher.

That's why I buy all my games. To put things in perspective, I do download music and movies. Why the discrepancy? Well, of course I could go around and make excuses for myself that don't change the legality of it but I will anyway. :)

First of all, I find the amount of entertainment I get out of a $50 game is usually worth that much.
However, music and movies producers have been taking advantage of the consumer forever.
Selling us the same thing in different formats over and over again. Now, I guess that's fair. If I bought The Abyss on VHS and wanted it on Laserdisc, then I have to pay again. Put why did I have to pay more for the laserdisc version than the VHS version when the laserdisc version is cheaper to produce? How about DVD? Again, more expensive. And now Blu-ray where I see movies at $35 at my local store. Inflation? Doubt it, that increase should have been negated by the lower cost of production.
Movies cost more to create? Then charge proportionate to that.
I.e. Sisterhood of the traveling pants or whatever should be $8 while Ironman should be $22.

Or how about still charging $35 for a Disney movie that's 20 years old? Oh, cause you know that my kid just wants to see it and will beg me forever until I buy it.

Sorry, tired of getting abused so I'm abusing back. Release a movie on the net for download on the same day it's in the theaters (without viewing limits) for $8 and I'll pay you. Ask me to go to a theater where a medium drink and popcorn costs $13 to go see your movie only once and I'll just download it instead.

Music industry found out the hard way. Just now they are starting to sell DRM free music on Amazon and can't wait for that to be available in my country. If the movie industry doesn't wake up, it will be the same way. People are sick of being abused and thus feel no remorse whatsoever when downloading the latest album or flick.

As for the gaming industry, it has always tried to entertain me in a fair way as I don't like DRM either but can't blame them for trying.
Asking them to simply 'give up' isn't very smart.

I agree as well about Steam. I like it and own many games on Steam but a part of me is scared of them shutting down. I guess most people put their fate into it such that the odds of them going under will be smaller. Just like if I was to pay for music, I guess iTunes would be the way to do it. I doubt that one will close anytime soon. Only problem for me is I found iTunes to be the worst coded piece of software ever imagined. I'm actually missing out on the iPod craze simply because I don't want to install it on my PC.

Again, great article. For the sake of PC gaming, please buy your games. Thank you. :)

[Syl]

GTA 4, which I just attempted to install and play is loaded with all sorts of horrid DRM. The end result? I cant fucking play it, its to bloated and full of bugs which appear to have been a lower priority than preventing piracy. (And I'm one of the 4 people who actually have a system that can run it!)
Why do you think the problem has to do with the DRM? The problem has to do far more with it being poorly coded and bug-filled.

All the DRM would have done would have made it impossible to INSTALL the game. Possibly make it unable to work online. That's all DRM does, if the game is running at all, then the DRM phase had passed and the problems are something entirely unrelated.

[Xed]

Bullshit. You are obviously not familiar with how a lot of the more intricate DRM schemes operate. GTA IV is a great example for this: The first cracks that were released failed to disable some of the additional triggers hidden in the game code, leading to the game always behaving as if Nico was drunk.
Maybe instead of constantly trying to justify the incredibly invasive crap a lot of companies are trying to push on their customers (and only on their legitimate, paying customers) you could spend some time getting familiar with the crashes and stability problems that have been attributed to various other copy protection schemes, as well.

[Syl]

I honestly haven't tried to play GTA4 yet because I heard there were all sorts of problems for the PC version. I was going to wait for a few patches and maybe a price drop before I picked it up.

[Xed]

IMHO, it's quite doubtful wether we'll ever see "a few patches", or even a second one. The first one has left plenty of issues unresolved and has introduced some new ones, as well.
GTA IV isn't worth picking up for the PC until the price drops to like 10 bucks. The port really is that shitty.

[sgtslappy]

I agree as well about Steam. I like it and own many games on Steam but a part of me is scared of them shutting down. I guess most people put their fate into it such that the odds of them going under will be smaller. Just like if I was to pay for music, I guess iTunes would be the way to do it. I doubt that one will close anytime soon. Only problem for me is I found iTunes to be the worst coded piece of software ever imagined. I'm actually missing out on the iPod craze simply because I don't want to install it on my PC.

Again, great article. For the sake of PC gaming, please buy your games. Thank you. :)

A bit off topic, sorry, but you don't need iTunes for your iPod. Use Media Monkey to sync your music. Works just as good.

[Syl]

IMHO, it's quite doubtful wether we'll ever see "a few patches", or even a second one. The first one has left plenty of issues unresolved and has introduced some new ones, as well.
GTA IV isn't worth picking up for the PC until the price drops to like 10 bucks. The port really is that shitty.
Hey, one of the upsides of the PC platform is that if the developers are too lazy to patch it, other people eventually might.

See: Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.

[Xed]

True, but there are two key differences here which, imho, make fan patches for the issues with GTA IV rather unlikely. Number one is that Bloodlines used Valve's Source engine, the inner workings and data formats and the like of which are, AFAIK, quite well known, while GTA IV uses RAGE, which isn't nearly as common.
Number two is probably the bigger issue: The fan patches for Bloodlines dealt IIRC mostly with minor bugs, plotholes and the like and restored some content that was cut from the final release. Stuff like that is pretty far down on the list of problems with GTA IV, and I don't see any fan patches ever fixing the mess Rockstar created.