DRM == WTF

[Codey2098]

There's one major thing that publishers and developers don't understand about DRM, especially the sony one, when it comes to the primary purpose for which they use it, which ofcourse is copy protection:

 

IT DOES NOT WORK!!

 

It gets cracked within hours of game release, and ofcourse we have updates of the schemes used continuously, and.... it STILL gets cracked and bypassed.

 

But that isn't why I'm writing this message in the first place, regardless of the above point:

 

DRM MAKES PC PLAYERS PISSED OFF!!

 

I fork out my $50 bucks in good faith for this game, I install it on my XP partitiion, it has play problems, so I give it a try on my vista partition....

Guess what? yes DRM will not allow me to run the game!!!

 

So what is EASIEST for me to do? mess around adnorisum with this BS DRM system you enforce on your honest paying customer base, or just go out and get a DRM free version?

The answer is pretty clear if I wasn't an honest type person, and in using DRM, your doing your best to alienate people like me.

 

And ofcourse this is only a minor example, you can easily do your own research on the pain it's caused virtually every pc gamer who has come in contact with it, and the snowball bad press that the game/company/DRM gets as a result of it.

 

So some timely advice before you alienate more of your honest customer base.

 

GET RID OF DRM AND NEVER USE IT AGAIN

 

It's only hurting your company and the pc industry as a whole, there's much more intelligent ways to minimise piracy, look into it plz.

 

 

[JeddyH]

I love DRM

[CharmingCharlie]

How strange I have now installed it 3 times on two PC's and not encountered any problem with the DRM. I have it installed twice on my quad because I have a dual boot with vista and win7 on. So I am not sure why you would encounter a problem like this.

 

It is pretty obvious why they put protection on games, they do it for the same reason we all lock our doors when we leave our house. Sure it would be wonderful if we could have games with no protection but that isn't realistic since there are too many people willing to steal rather than pay for the product.

 

Now you may argue that protection doesn't stop the game being cracked but then I could equally argue if someone was going to burgle your house then a simple lock won't stop them, yet I bet you still lock your damn house up when you leave.

[Codey2098]

 

How strange I have now installed it 3 times on two PC's and not encountered any problem with the DRM.  I have it installed twice on my quad because I have a dual boot with vista and win7 on.  So I am not sure why you would encounter a problem like this. 

Some don't have problems with it, alot of people do.

 

 

It is pretty obvious why they put protection on games, they do it for the same reason we all lock our doors when we leave our house.  Sure it would be wonderful if we could have games with no protection but that isn't realistic since there are too many people willing to steal rather than pay for the product.

As I said in my post, it's not a quesiton of protecting their product, but since DRM doesn't protect their product, then the point is moot.

 

 

Now you may argue that protection doesn't stop the game being cracked but then I could equally argue if someone was going to burgle your house then a simple lock won't stop them, yet I bet you still lock your damn house up when you leave.

These are vastly different things, breaking copy protection on a game using the metaphore you used would be like a theif breaking the locks on my house, stealing all my family's identity information and then broadcasting that on the world news so every dishonest person in the world can now steal all my family member's identities, money, posessions and everything else.

 

In the end, the company needs to take appropriate measures to minimise piracy and maximise profits, sony's implementation of DRM is clearly not accomplishing that objective and causing more problems along the way.

 

[CharmingCharlie]

Again matter of opinion I think they got it just about right, they managed to protect their product up to a point even today we still see people coming in asking for help because their stolen version doesn't work properly. At the same time as protecting their product it has not prevented me doing what I normally do with my games, ie install it on both my pc's and operating systems.

 

I am not a big fan of copy protection but then I would do exactly the same thing if I was releasing software I had spent years developing and invested over 100 million dollars in.

[copperwire93]

DRM is troblesome, i make it simple,

if developer put DRM, pirate will find a way to crack the protection, while the DRM will trouble us legitimate user.

 

if developer doesn't put DRM, pirate still do their job, and we legitimate user say Hooray!

 

There's no way they can beat piracy, well at least for now...

[Codey2098]

 

I am not a big fan of copy protection but then I would do exactly the same thing if I was releasing software I had spent years developing and invested over 100 million dollars in.

 

Then it seems I haven't gotten the point I was trying to make across, and ofcourse people's opinions are only based on what they can observe for themselves.

 

what I have seen and from personal experience is that the sony DRM is an inneffective copy protection since it can be broken very quickly AND there's a large percentage of the customers who have alot of problems with it.

 

So in the end it hurts sales, alienates a large percentage of the honest people who buy the game and then have problems with the DRM component, and hurts the PC industry as a whole because of it's current competative position against console based systems.

 

There are much better systems out there than sony's DRM solution, and I just wish companies would be more aware of the factors involved.

[GoreMaster]

There's one major thing that publishers and developers don't understand about DRM, especially the sony one, when it comes to the primary purpose for which they use it, which ofcourse is copy protection:

 

IT DOES NOT WORK!!

 

It gets cracked within hours of game release, and ofcourse we have updates of the schemes used continuously, and.... it STILL gets cracked and bypassed.

 

But that isn't why I'm writing this message in the first place, regardless of the above point:

 

DRM MAKES PC PLAYERS PISSED OFF!!

 

I fork out my $50 bucks in good faith for this game, I install it on my XP partitiion, it has play problems, so I give it a try on my vista partition....

Guess what? yes DRM will not allow me to run the game!!!

 

So what is EASIEST for me to do? mess around adnorisum with this BS DRM system you enforce on your honest paying customer base, or just go out and get a DRM free version?

The answer is pretty clear if I wasn't an honest type person, and in using DRM, your doing your best to alienate people like me.

 

And ofcourse this is only a minor example, you can easily do your own research on the pain it's caused virtually every pc gamer who has come in contact with it, and the snowball bad press that the game/company/DRM gets as a result of it.

 

So some timely advice before you alienate more of your honest customer base.

 

GET RID OF DRM AND NEVER USE IT AGAIN

 

It's only hurting your company and the pc industry as a whole, there's much more intelligent ways to minimise piracy, look into it plz.

I love DRM to... So whose this crowd of DRM haters?

 

Stop complaining this game is great and it installed just great on my XP. Vista sucks.

 

 

[CharmingCharlie]

From what I have seen the copy protection seems very effective since it was nearly a week AFTER the release of the game before a working crack was out there and even then that crack didn't really work all that well because they didn't remove all the triggers. To this day we are still getting people coming in here and the irc trying to get the pirated version working properly. So I would say it was pretty damn effective if you ask me.

 

Meanwhile it hasn't caused too much trouble to the end user, in the hundred odd hours i have logged playing GTA 4 on my two PC's I have not ONCE been restricted by the copy protection whatsoever. So I have to really wonder why these "boo hoo copy protection is bad mmmkay" posts have some ulterior motive.

 

In my experience the protection prevented a pirate release for well over a week, is still causing problems for thieves over a month later and has had NO impact on a legitimate user like me. I really don't see the problem here.

[Aquaphonic]

My R6 Vegas refused to play due to DRM issues so I had to use a 3rd party crack. Same with Fallout 3, although the cracked exe was provided by Bethesda once they had recognised the issue. Only trouble with GTA IV that might be DRM related is thatthat it refuses to launch sometimes. No other probs though.

[copperwire93]

Don't really work eh CHarming Charlie? Ever read the news where Ubisoft use REL ED crack to fix their own games?

[Codey2098]

 

Meanwhile it hasn't caused too much trouble to the end user, in the hundred odd hours i have logged playing GTA 4 on my two PC's I have not ONCE been restricted by the copy protection whatsoever.  So I have to really wonder why these "boo hoo copy protection is bad mmmkay" posts have some ulterior motive.

 

Well maybe if your interested in the subject, try doing a search for sony DRM related problems on the net. I'd be interested to see if you changed your opinion after that.

 

p.s. At no time have I said anything like "copy protection is bad", quite the opposite.

[ZaCkOX]

 

How strange I have now installed it 3 times on two PC's and not encountered any problem with the DRM.  I have it installed twice on my quad because I have a dual boot with vista and win7 on.  So I am not sure why you would encounter a problem like this. 

 

It is pretty obvious why they put protection on games, they do it for the same reason we all lock our doors when we leave our house.  Sure it would be wonderful if we could have games with no protection but that isn't realistic since there are too many people willing to steal rather than pay for the product.

 

Now you may argue that protection doesn't stop the game being cracked but then I could equally argue if someone was going to burgle your house then a simple lock won't stop them, yet I bet you still lock your damn house up when you leave.

I have had DRM issues on multiple games. And yes I honestly believe all these others. I doubt they are lying to any degree. DRM is much like malicious code.

 

I'm sorry for ya Codey, I don't distrust your having problems with DRM.

Edited January 16, 2009 by ZaCkOX

[ZaCkOX]

Don't really work eh CHarming Charlie? Ever read the news where Ubisoft use REL ED crack to fix their own games?

Ubisoft had DRM issues. Anyone else buy all those splinter cell series?

[copperwire93]

Don't really work eh CHarming Charlie? Ever read the news where Ubisoft use REL ED crack to fix their own games?

Ubisoft had DRM issues. Anyone else buy all those splinter cell series?

I do, i love the game but i always use no-cd fix, the drm once scratch my dvd

[pLaTaNo]

I DRM

[Aquaphonic]

One thing that pisses me off about DRM is that it can often dictate what programs you are allowed to have on your system. For example, it will not let you play a game if you have certain disc imaging tools installed, even if they are being used for legitimate purposes. Who the hell are they to say what I'm allowed to install on my computer!?

[copperwire93]

One thing that pisses me off about DRM is that it can often dictate what programs you are allowed to have on your system. For example, it will not let you play a game if you have certain disc imaging tools installed, even if they are being used for legitimate purposes. Who the hell are they to say what I'm allowed to install on my computer!?

Yeah it's my PC so i'm the boss

[ZaCkOX]

One thing that pisses me off about DRM is that it can often dictate what programs you are allowed to have on your system. For example, it will not let you play a game if you have certain disc imaging tools installed, even if they are being used for legitimate purposes. Who the hell are they to say what I'm allowed to install on my computer!?

Like I said, it has malicious code.

[creat3d22]

My main peeve with DRM in GTA4 is that they allegedly spent 200 000$ on it... if that's true, that's 200 000$ they could've spent on the game rather than a scheme that got cracked in days.

[Ardbug]

DRM only effects the legit customers, pirates never even see the DRM, those guys developing the DRM schemes must laugh their arsles off when they go to the bank, its like trying to sell sand in sahara, only in this case the companies are actually buying, ridiculous, and no I dont own a single pirated copy of any game, Im the consumer who have to put up with this malware everytime ........

Edited January 16, 2009 by Ardbug

[ZaCkOX]

 

My main peeve with DRM in GTA4 is that they allegedly spent 200 000$ on it... if that's true, that's 200 000$ they could've spent on the game rather than a scheme that got cracked in days.

Well I think they have no idea how easy it is to crack anything. They were better off spending the money on something else.

Edited January 16, 2009 by ZaCkOX

[ZaCkOX]

DRM only effects the legit customers, pirates never even see the DRM, those guys developing the DRM schemes must laugh their arsles off when they go to the bank, its like trying to sell sand in sahara, only in this case the companies are actually buying, ridiculous, and no I dont own a single pirated copy of any game, Im the consumer who have to put up with this malware everytime ........

Yea exactly, reminds me of the mcafee scheme going around now. Anyone know what I mean?

[shivanandrs]

 

Again matter of opinion I think they got it just about right, they managed to protect their product up to a point even today we still see people coming in asking for help because their stolen version doesn't work properly.  At the same time as protecting their product it has not prevented me doing what I normally do with my games, ie install it on both my pc's and operating systems.

 

I am not a big fan of copy protection but then I would do exactly the same thing if I was releasing software I had spent years developing and invested over 100 million dollars in.

I agree with you fully.

 

I have never tried installing GTA IV on another computer or even reinstalling on my current system, but i do hope i never run in to any problems. In my entire gaming life so far i never experienced any problems with DRM or any type of copy protection.

 

Since GTA IV was released i even managed to convince some of my freeloading friends to buy it instead of downloading by explaining R* anti-piracy bugs .lol