[Rocky]

Yesterday Gabe Newell brought DRM out into the bright lights of mass media courtesy of the 2010 Game Developers Choice Award ceremony where he was recognised with the respected GDC Pioneer Award.

The introduction to the award will be of interest to gamers, and Gabe's acceptance speech is equally interesting if you want to know where gaming tech is headed, you'll not want to miss his speech.

Where the first round of applause came however, was when Gabe addressed games publishers referring to DRM has a negative influence

Quote

"DRM makes ... your entertainment products worth less"

There were actually only two rounds of spontaneous applause during Gabe's interesting speech, one for the DRM put down, and one when his auto-prompter failed.

Watch the speech here, (60 minutes in).

[Bota:16]

Companies should spend the money/resources on shutting down the website that make their IP available instead of screwing over their paying customers with stupid DRM. If it means they have to file 100 lawsuits in a week, then so be it. They will never completely rid the internet of piracy but if they make it such a hassle then people will eventually stop doing it. But companies have this "fix it now" mentality and it hasn't been working.

[WhiteKnight77]

Quote

One thing that you hear us talked a lot about is that entertainment is a service. It's an attitude that says "What have I done for my customers today?"

This is Business 101. Certain companies (OK at least one company) are not doing this and is alienating their entire customer base. How does using DRM make good business sense amongst the other things that said company does? Other companies have found that DRM hinders game sales and gamer backlash. One would think that if Apple and EA can make decisions to stop using DRM, one would think that other companies would not even entertain using restrictive DRM for their products.

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,,,create a richer broader expericence.

Do not hinder how a game is played, especially if a previous version of it offers more features.

[=warcloud=]

One of the earliest prominent uses of online-based DRM technology in a AAA title was the result of Valve's decision to bind half life 2 to the steam platform. This was met with considerable protest from the gaming community and a number of legal challenges were submitted, including consumer groups.

At least with steam (aka trojan horse ) you can play sp offline

[Sgt. Atoa]

I think HE is full of you know what, He trying to make STEAM looks good compared to UBI DRM scheme
and trying to convice people like me to spend my $$$$ on STEAM or Publishers to use STEAM delivery system for a small fee.

On the positive side Valve supports their games..I just reinstalled HL1 and the last patch for the game was released in 2008 this game was released when??? 1998-99??? that's 10 years ago

[WhiteKnight77]

Sgt. Atoa, on Mar 12 2010, 06:56 PM, said:

On the positive side Valve supports their games..I just reinstalled HL1 and the last patch for the game was released in 2008 this game was released when??? 1998-99??? that's 10 years ago

And Ubi stops patching a game when? Some 6 months or so past it's original release date?

[thales100]

He is wrong imo, "DRM makes ... your entertainment products worth more", i can finally play a game, that i paid for, without 2547899 other guys playing the same game, even before me, paying 0 bucks for it.
Yes my 60 dollars worth 60 dollars.

This post has been edited by thales100: 13 March 2010 - 11:04 AM

[WhiteKnight77]

Will your $60 feel the same when the servers are down for what ever reason and you cannot play the game especially if it is an SP game?

[thales100]

No problems here so far, and my $60,00 may not feel the same but certainly not like $0,00 as before.

[Sgt. Atoa]

Your $60.00 will be $20.00 in 2 or 3 months and guess what even at $20.00 if by some reason a crack does appear the game is going to be more or less by the same group of people because they are not paying custumers anyway most of this pirates live in 3rd world country where is hard to sell software, HELL even in federal U.S. installations in IRAQ piracy is rampant because most of the soldiers don't have access to Internet to shop AROUND and when they do have internet those soldiers spend their 30 min that are allowed to write home.

This post has been edited by Sgt. Atoa: 13 March 2010 - 02:00 PM

[NoQuarter]

thales100, on Mar 13 2010, 05:00 AM, said:

Yes my 60 dollars worth 60 dollars.

What will your $60.00 game be worth when and if you tire of it and decide that you want to pass it on to someone else?
And what about the 2,547,899 (?) other guys who take a pass on that title -either on principal or because of the new conditions of the EULA ...how much interest on continued support, upgrades, expansions or follow-ons do you think Ubi will show on it...after looking at the diminished actual returns -and their bottom line?
____
Ubisofts' head in the sand denial of the obvious seems to be catching.

[=warcloud=]

NoQuarter, on Mar 13 2010, 02:18 PM, said:

thales100, on Mar 13 2010, 05:00 AM, said:

Yes my 60 dollars worth 60 dollars.

What will your $60.00 game be worth when and if you tire of it and decide that you want to pass it on to someone else?.

I should imagine by the time anyone would want to pass a pc game on it'd be worth nothing in monetary terms anyway. For me personaly it's about keeping the original case manual and disc, i still have the original splinter cell fold out case and discs and the first ghost recon + ds + it in their original package. You can't sell steam purchased games unless you sell on the account attached to it, which would mean for every game purchased you'd have to make a specific account for that game.

Sgt. Atoa, on Mar 13 2010, 01:55 PM, said:

Your $60.00 will be $20.00 in 2 or 3 months.

There is depreciation in just about anything purchased unless its an antique . The point is i think thales100 has had a much higher return value of his purchase of said game. And when he's played a few rounds or more, he can return at a later date to play through again, so no loss there imho, infact it could be money well spent.

[Harelip]

Am I really wrong or are you, thales100, saying that you would enjoy a game more if less people bought it? Because that's how I understood your posts.

You would rather see game developers bring out these Draconian, obtrusive methods of protecting their product that potentially demolish their sales thus cutting the support period and reducing whatever community the game might have to nothing? You wouldn't see any modifications, either, because the very same copy protection you so feverishly support prevents you from modifying the game files.

Think of what you end up with. A game with no replayability, a short-lived and small fanbase which is reduced to a "members help members" tech support, talking about whatever silly achievement tags they have acquired and wishlists for the sequel.

Do Mr. Newell's words start to ring more true to your ears? If you continue to support this kind of development, you end up with less. Look at Ghost Recon and how long it has lasted thanks to the fans and the modifications they have done. Now, think how it would have ended up if the game had had Starforce or this constant Internet connection-requiring DRM.

Or relate this system to real-life.

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, "If we restrict liberty to attain security we will lose them both."


Edit: typos, grammar

This post has been edited by Harelip: 14 March 2010 - 07:47 PM

[Tinker]

Quote

Am I really wrong or are you, thales100, saying that you would enjoy a game more if less people bought it? Because that's how I understood your posts.

He`s enjoying it more knowing that there is not 1000`s of people enjoying it for free (pirating)

[Harelip]

How does the fact that others may illegally download and play a game take away from the enjoyment of someone, who bought it? Rather than feel angry, take pride in knowing you supported a game developer, enjoy the game and urge others to buy it.

There's no point in demanding and supporting copy protection methods that treat a legitimate customer like scum of the earth and then saying they make your game feel like it's worth more. You're advocating some kind of clique-mentality which is just plain silly.

My original point still stands, being that these over-zealous methods of copy protection shorten a game's life, reduce it's sales and shrink the community around. Thus leading to a lesser experience.