DRM and Piracy: The Vicious Circle

[tmeacham]

Article by Travis Meacham.

In this week's edition of Side-Quest Travis looks at the implications of the continuing battle between game publishers who support the use of DRM as an anti-piracy measure and the pirates who would thwart them.

http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2008/08/19/sidequest_drm_piracy/

 

[ram1009]

Only pirates object to EFFECTIVE DRM. (note emphasis on EFFECTIVE) What other objections could there be? Effective means it prevents piracy while not creating other problems for the end user. That may not be the state of the art today but I'm sure it's the publisher's goal. I couldn't care less if my game sortware is required to obtain validation every time it opens. As I said, only a pirate would object.

 

[Voodoo128]

I'm sorry, your opinion does not hold water for PC gamers. If this was a console, by all means do whatever you like DRM wise, for PCs, you are really punishing the Legit users, Pirates who will crack the DRM anyway will have a much better and hassle free experience than legit users.

Take the DRM EA is applying to their games. Mass Effect is a mess. You have 3 licenses for the game, and you have NO WAY OF REVOKING LICENSES. At least Bioshock provided a way by uninstalling the game, you can't do that with Mass Effect or Spore. EA is truly going to suffer from their arrogance by seeing a huge surge in the piracy of their games because people don't want to deal with their 3 license mumbo jumbo. If you are going to impose such limits at least give users the ability to get their licences back. Even the music industry which is far more uptight on protecting their IP is moving away from DRM simply because people will go elsewhere or use other means. DRM does not work.

As a PC Gamer, I reinstall my OS twice a year and upgrade my Hardware every year, with the restrictions EA puts on their game, I will run out of licences for my game within a year. And No, I should not have to call EA at my own cost for something I already paid for to see if they 'might' give me another license.

And for the record, I don't pirate games, I own over 300 PC games and over 50 Console Games, I don't advocate Piracy, but I also won't let a publisher bully me around. I refused to purchase Bioshock until they removed their activation limit, I continue to refuse to buy Mass Effect and as much as I want Spore, I won't purchase it with their limited licenses. EA can kiss my big fat wallet goodbye.

 

[Voodoo128]

Double Post due to a crappy login system on these forums.

 

[purplerat]

Well I've finally come to the conclusion that I'm in favor of DRM. I realized in debating the issues of Piracy and DRM in another thread that neither can really be stopped so I'm rooting for DRM. Piracy is here to stay, but obviously you can't just expect developers and publishers to just stand by and accept it. So DRM is inevitable also.
I firmly believe there is no other answer to Piracy. People try and come up with all different kinds of justifications for why Piracy happens and what else can be done to deter it. Really though there is only one reason - money. As long as people have the ability to get something for free they will. There's only two real deterrents to that. Either make it too risky or too difficult to do so. Since trying to go after Piracy from a legal/criminal standpoint is too troublesome itself DRM is the best answer - AND IT WORKS!!!
Cases were DRM works:
- Consoles are basically just big DRM boxes and always have been. People don't seem to care much and buy both hardware and software in droves.
- Low level DRM is highly successful. Just simply requiring a CD to be in the drive deters most users from Piracy.
- The most successful PC games use some of the most restrictive DRM. And I'm not talking about Bioshock or Mass Effect. WoW, along with most MMOs, and Steam games like The Orange Box and HL2 have the most restrictive DRM of all but they sell very well and have very low piracy rates. People bitch about the activations of SecuRom but these games require that you authenticate every single time you play. Even more restrictive is the fact that these games are tied to an account basically restricting use to the original owner only. I sold my first copy of Bioshock after one activation and the person I sold it to had no issues. But the second copy I bought on Steam is permanently tied to my account with all my other Steam games. Why don't people bitch about this more?
To be completely honest I've had my fair share of issues with the above listed forms of DRM. Every time a consoles of mine has bitten the dust all of the games become obsolete because newer consoles won't play them. Scratched or lost CDs have forced me to rebuy more than a few games. And MMOs and Steam games are always at the whim of my internet connection along with their servers. But none of this has every been such a huge hassle that it really bothered me, so I don't see why a little more will.

 

[CannedTurkey]

I'll just throw my internet weight behind Voodoo128. I'm another PC gamer that was very interested in Mass Effect and Spore and won't be purchasing either due to this new licensing model.

 

[rtfm]

I'm sorry, your opinion does not hold water for PC gamers. If this was a console, by all means do whatever you like DRM wise, for PCs, you are really punishing the Legit users, Pirates who will crack the DRM anyway will have a much better and hassle free experience than legit users.

Totally agree, people who want to pirate games always will and the genuine users always suffer. I too refuse to buy games (and music) with this kind of nazi drm. For every piece of DRM invented by someone, there are many more enthusiastic people who enjoy the challenge of breaking it and it's those people that will ALWAYS win in the end.

Just look at DVDs for the best example - companies protect dvds so that even legitimate users can watch them on dvd (pc) players, hackers tear up the protection within moments. Every time the dvd protection is tweaked, so is the hack. DRM is an ultimately futile effort which in the end frustrates people into investigating more shady means to get their media as it is simply much less hassle than fighting with DRM all the time [/rant]

Though I do agree that some people will never buy anything if they can get away with it.

 

[CannedTurkey]

Purplerat, the reason consoles are so popular is because people like simple. They like to know that they can go to walmart, pickup a box that says XBox on the side, plug that into their box that says XBox, and it'll work. The same cannot be said for PC Games...
And perhaps it's not as easy to copy console games, but you hardly need to when you can just hand your friend your copy with the firm instructions to 'bring it back when you're done'.

 

[tmeacham]

And for the record, I don't pirate games, I own over 300 PC games and over 50 Console Games, I don't advocate Piracy, but I also won't let a publisher bully me around. I refused to purchase Bioshock until they removed their activation limit, I continue to refuse to buy Mass Effect and as much as I want Spore, I won't purchase it with their limited licenses. EA can kiss my big fat wallet goodbye.

That is exactly the right approach to take. If you disagree with DRM you don't buy the game. And if enough people do that you might see companies back down from DRM. The problem is when people opt to not buy the game AND to pirate it instead. That gives publishers ammo to pursue DRM.

The most successful PC games use some of the most restrictive DRM. And I'm not talking about Bioshock or Mass Effect. WoW, along with most MMOs, and Steam games like The Orange Box and HL2 have the most restrictive DRM of all but they sell very well and have very low piracy rates.

I originally mentioned MMOs in the article but I thought it was getting a bit too long. All the hysteria about Mass Effect's online authentication is nothing compared to what MMOs do. World of Warcraft requires you to authenticate with a username and password every time you play. And all the complaints about, "How will I play Mass Effect when they turn off the authentication server?" were just static to me. This has already happened in the MMO market. Break out your old copies of Earth & Beyond, Asheron's Call 2 and Auto Assault and try playing them. Where was the outrage then? Anyone who owns a copy of Earth & Beyond paid full price for a game with a monthly fee attached and was able to play it for less than two years.

Comparisons to the music industry don't necessarily hold up. We're talking about PC games here that exist alongside console games. The music industry does not have an alternative release channel with complete control over hardware and the operating system with a much lower rate of piracy. Game publishers have that with the consoles. If piracy continues to grow on the PC and we continue to "punish" publishers for employing DRM by pirating their products, they are only going to develop games for the consoles where they can control distrubution better.

Consoles are basically just big DRM boxes and always have been.

That's exactly right. A console is just a big DRM machine. Don't think so? Try dropping a PS3 game into an Xbox 360 and see how far you get.

 

[CannedTurkey]

Try dropping a PS3 game into an Xbox 360 and see how far you get.

Consoles are not DRM. They in no way inhibit you from handing your content to a friend. They are vendor lock-in, but that's different. My VHS recorder wouldn't play Beta tapes either.

MMO's are also different, just as any subscription service is different. I can buy a DVD (like a game) and take it home and enjoy it, or I can have a cable subscription that provides me with more content for a monthly cost.

Quit trying to shoe-horn obviously different things into your argument.

 

[CannedTurkey]

Comparisons to the music industry don't necessarily hold up. We're talking about PC games here that exist alongside console games. The music industry does not have an alternative release channel with complete control over hardware and the operating system with a much lower rate of piracy.

Satellite radio?

 

[EVILNOD]

lets put it this way.. DRM is bad for everyone. if you put DRM in music or movie, i dont really care as long as it work. if DRM stop my DVD movie from playing, guess what?? i return it.

now for PC, computer aren't only gaming machine, they also hosting alot other data such as business document, person email, password and possible banking information. it didnt matter if DRM not sending those data across internet or not. the fact that DRM will create a security hole alone would stop buying any game that whoever publisher offer. is that little 50$ game worth of security risk of countless nightmare? i love play game, but not enuff for me to put DRM in my pc. that is one major reason i shift to PS3

also, if you reading tomshardware most likely you build your own PC, i like control every hardware and software this pc of my what it can and can't do. DRM is unwelcome piece of software that i dont plan to ever put it on my computer.

i like the idea of copy protection, but DRM is wrong way to go for pc market. if pc only for gaming then so be it, but when it hosting important infomation such as bank account and such? i would risk on it.

ohh.. what i talk about is sony DRM that happen some time ago.. they recall every DRM music CD but the damage is already done. read the sony DRM story and tell me you welling to put DRM in to you computer!

 

[Aragorn]

I have never purchased a game I did not get to play first. Many times that means download, sometimes I have played on a freinds machine. There are many titles I wanted to try but haven't because I can't try them first. Too many games have been a huge disapointment for me to shell out $50 or more on one I haven't tried!

Edit:

I should mention that I have purchased many games and I don't continue playing games past a few minutes that I am not buying.

 

[ovaltineplease]

That is exactly the right approach to take. If you disagree with DRM you don't buy the game. And if enough people do that you might see companies back down from DRM. The problem is when people opt to not buy the game AND to pirate it instead. That gives publishers ammo to pursue DRM.

The problem is that most of these "vehement opposers" of DRM do just that - they pirate the games anyways.

This problem would not even EXIST if people weren't blatantly pirating software (not just games) en masse; as then companies could have a realistic market share for their product instead of playing pure guess work all the time.

Piracy does very little more than ensure that less and less games get to PC - if the market isn't lucrative and viable, then why bother? Hence the developers flock to consoles and PC is just an afterthought if the game can/is worthwhile to port to the PC.

 

[purplerat]

In all the threads on this topic I don't ever recall seeing a post where somebody actually claimed to have one of these horrible DRM catastrophes happen to them. Seriously where are all the claims that games have been rendered useless or security breaches. Seems like more hysteria than anything.
I also think a lot of people have a poor understanding of what DRM is. Thinking a subscription service like cable or a console gaming systems are not DRM is being completely misinformed. Both are actually pure DRM, maybe so much so that you can not even notice, but the truth is they are. Just because they allow you some liberties that only means it's part of the management of their content to allow you to do so. For the most part almost all digital content is controlled by some sort of DRM so get over it.
For those of you who really hate DRM though I hope you've never bought a Steam game.

 

[kyzarvs]

I haven't pirated a game since the early '90s (god bless Amigas!) - I wouldn't pirate a game now (whats the point when nearly every game is played online?), but some DRM is a royal pain in the ass. I would love there to be a way that games could be legally stored on the hard drive without having to go through the archaic copy protection of inserting a DVD every time I want to play - it's not as through 4.7 / 9gb is a lot to store on a hard drive any more - oh wait, there's STEAM. I can download my games legitimately on my laptop and my desktop. I can only play on one at once, the DRM is intact, I can't lose my games, it's a great model. If only I could transfer my STA-SA license to a steam version now it's out on that system so I wouldn't have to find the disc for it each time I want to play...

My perfect condition CnC Kanes Wrath DVD regularly fails it's copy protection, in either of my DVD drives - I shudder to think how bad it must be for people that don't look after their discs as religiously as me...

 

[ram1009]

Well folks, if piracy is indeed unstoppable (or at least reducible to acceptable levels) then we might as well all go out and buy a console or two. I've been in the business world too long to believe that any business is going to invest time and money without a reasonable expectation of a significant return on that investment. Would you? Pirates are their own worst enemy. They want something for nothing (who doesn't) but aren't smart enough to see the handwriting on the wall.

 

[Voodoo128]

In all the threads on this topic I don't ever recall seeing a post where somebody actually claimed to have one of these horrible DRM catastrophes happen to them. Seriously where are all the claims that games have been rendered useless or security breaches. Seems like more hysteria than anything.
I also think a lot of people have a poor understanding of what DRM is. Thinking a subscription service like cable or a console gaming systems are not DRM is being completely misinformed. Both are actually pure DRM, maybe so much so that you can not even notice, but the truth is they are. Just because they allow you some liberties that only means it's part of the management of their content to allow you to do so. For the most part almost all digital content is controlled by some sort of DRM so get over it.
For those of you who really hate DRM though I hope you've never bought a Steam game.

You should go read the Mass Effect Forums then. Lots of people who ran into problems with licensing issues. Additionally, the same thing started happening to people who bought the Spore Creature Creator.

 

[infornography42]

Ok, lets see if we can clear up a bit of the muddying going on here. The objections of most are not against DRM in general, it is certain types of DRM in specific.

Consoles ARE DRM machines, but they do so in ways that are acceptable. They require the media in the drive and they lock you out of great online features if you try to hack it. This is completely justified and very effective.

MMOs have logins so that you can access the character you have on their server. The DRM here is required not just to protect the content provider but also the player. If you have ever had your character hacked you know what I am talking about. The repeated activations are accepted because you are accessing their servers for more than just activation. As for the MMOs that die. They die because they suck and are very unpopular. Don't delude yourself into thinking there was no outrage, just that the outrage was contained to a very small number of people.

Steam is acceptable DRM for several reasons. 1, it is effective, very effective. I am perfectly willing to accept DRM if it bloody well works. But when it is proven to not work it is frustration for no reason. ALSO it allows you to play the games offline for quite a while with no preparation or extra fees. ALSO it provides a very valuable online service that you lose access to when you crack it.

Impulse (Stardock) contrary to popular belief IS DRM. It is just very very customer oriented DRM. And it works. Again it works by requiring you to register in order to access patches and updates and it provides once again a very valuable service that you lose access to when you pirate it.

Notice a trend? A pattern perhaps? In all instances where DRM is widely accepted it is both effective and provides a valuable service. THIS IS THE SOLUTION! Is it 100% effective? No. But it does work wonders. Many people who pirated Sins ended up buying it because they couldn't get the patches that provided many interface enhancements and such otherwise.

Now, for the DRM that neither is effective, nor provides a valuable service. See Securom and Starforce. These are the ones that get gamer ire. They are no more effective than a basic CD check and they greatly restrict the legitimate user without inconveniencing the pirate or providing anything to the legitimate user in return.

If you don't believe me just ask Blizzard, Valve, and Stardock. They would pretty much agree with everything I have said here and in fact have said about the same thing at various points. Supporting incompetent DRM is not the solution to the problem. Supporting effective DRM is. That is why I continue to support Impulse (Stardock) and Steam.

 

[Voodoo128]

Ok, lets see if we can clear up a bit of the muddying going on here. The objections of most are not against DRM in general, it is certain types of DRM in specific.

Consoles ARE DRM machines, but they do so in ways that are acceptable. They require the media in the drive and they lock you out of great online features if you try to hack it. This is completely justified and very effective.

MMOs have logins so that you can access the character you have on their server. The DRM here is required not just to protect the content provider but also the player. If you have ever had your character hacked you know what I am talking about. The repeated activations are accepted because you are accessing their servers for more than just activation. As for the MMOs that die. They die because they suck and are very unpopular. Don't delude yourself into thinking there was no outrage, just that the outrage was contained to a very small number of people.

Steam is acceptable DRM for several reasons. 1, it is effective, very effective. I am perfectly willing to accept DRM if it bloody well works. But when it is proven to not work it is frustration for no reason. ALSO it allows you to play the games offline for quite a while with no preparation or extra fees. ALSO it provides a very valuable online service that you lose access to when you crack it.

Impulse (Stardock) contrary to popular belief IS DRM. It is just very very customer oriented DRM. And it works. Again it works by requiring you to register in order to access patches and updates and it provides once again a very valuable service that you lose access to when you pirate it.

Notice a trend? A pattern perhaps? In all instances where DRM is widely accepted it is both effective and provides a valuable service. THIS IS THE SOLUTION! Is it 100% effective? No. But it does work wonders. Many people who pirated Sins ended up buying it because they couldn't get the patches that provided many interface enhancements and such otherwise.

Now, for the DRM that neither is effective, nor provides a valuable service. See Securom and Starforce. These are the ones that get gamer ire. They are no more effective than a basic CD check and they greatly restrict the legitimate user without inconveniencing the pirate or providing anything to the legitimate user in return.

If you don't believe me just ask Blizzard, Valve, and Stardock. They would pretty much agree with everything I have said here and in fact have said about the same thing at various points. Supporting incompetent DRM is not the solution to the problem. Supporting effective DRM is. That is why I continue to support Impulse (Stardock) and Steam.

Here Here.... very well put. I buy tons of games on steam, even some that I've never thought of picking up because it's convenient, I will never loose my CD, never require a CD Check, and I don't have to deal with LICENSING! I can install it on as many computers I want, but I can only play it on one at the same time. I don't mind the hassle of having to log into steam to play my games, and steam takes it a step further by allowing you to play games offline as well. If all games were distributed through steam, PC Gaming would be in a better place.

 

[infornography42]

In all the threads on this topic I don't ever recall seeing a post where somebody actually claimed to have one of these horrible DRM catastrophes happen to them. Seriously where are all the claims that games have been rendered useless or security breaches. Seems like more hysteria than anything.
I also think a lot of people have a poor understanding of what DRM is. Thinking a subscription service like cable or a console gaming systems are not DRM is being completely misinformed. Both are actually pure DRM, maybe so much so that you can not even notice, but the truth is they are. Just because they allow you some liberties that only means it's part of the management of their content to allow you to do so. For the most part almost all digital content is controlled by some sort of DRM so get over it.
For those of you who really hate DRM though I hope you've never bought a Steam game.

Umm... there have been plenty of reports of DRM related problems. I have bought several games that simply would not work until I cracked them and I should not have to crack a game just to play it. As mentioned in this very article there are plenty of people who lost access to MMOs that went belly up. There are all the people who lost their music when various DRM'd music servers went away, there are tons of people who experienced massive difficulties with the Securom in Bioshock and Mass Effect. If you haven't seen the complaints about these problems then you must type with your head stuck in the ground.

 

[asgallant]

To effectively combat piracy, games need to either a) be distributed in a form that cannot be copied, b) require secure authentication to run, c) use a cloud-computing (or traditional server-based) subscription model with an online log in to authenticate, or d) have free distribution with advertisement or sponsor-based revenue model (with a strong system in place to prevent ads being bypassed or blocked by end-users).

Option (a) is used by consoles rather effectively, but in the PC games market, it is next-to-impossible to implement.

Option (b) is regularly and continuously slammed by the anti-DRM community as oppressive. Whether this is because no developers have found a non-intrusive system that cannot be easily bypassed or not, I don't know. I have yet to find a system like this "oppressive," though I admit many are trivial to circumvent.

Option (c) is employed most (if not all) online games, and I don't hear much complaining about that, but when Mass Effect wants to check with a server, the anti-DRM crowd gets in an uproar.

BTW: the only difference between the DRM in Mass Effect and the DRM in Windows XP/Vista is that MS allows you to authenticate offline, whereas EA doesn't. Mass Effect is actually less restrictive, as it allows you to install on multiple systems at the same time - but I don't hear an uproar over Microsoft's DRM.

Option (d) is used in browser-based games, and, I think, in a few PC games, though I couldn't name any. I'm guessing that the potential revenues are too small to make it worthwhile and/or the games were hacked to remove the ads - leaving this as an undesirable model for developers.

Since (a) and (d) are effectively off the table, we can either have games with a strong authentication system, or we can have server/cloud-computing based games on the PC. Furthermore, since the authentication systems developed so far have been proven easily vulnerable to cracking, the server/cloud-computing based model makes the greatest amount of sense from the standpoint of protecting the games from piracy. Games like World of Warcraft have demonstrated that gamers as a whole really don't mind needing to log in to a server to play their games. Operating under the assumption that all users have internet access at all times, this would be the optimal solution in my opinion.

Recognizing, however, that assuming that all users have internet access at all times is unrealistic, I am forced to relax the assumption to a safer level. Assume, instead, that all users have internet access at least 1 day in every X days. Users purchase subscriptions to games, and must log in at the beginning of each game session. Login credentials are validated for the following X days, so if the client cannot connect to the server, the credentials for the previous login are assumed to be valid if it is within X days of the last valid login. There are no limits on the number of concurrent installs, simply on the number of concurrent uses of the account.

That's just my suggestion - I know it probably will earn me a bunch of flames, but it is my belief that this represents a reasonable compromise between preventing piracy and minimal intrusiveness.

I don't believe that there is such a thing as an uninvasive, effective DRM system, but there are reasonable, effective solutions (see WoW). In the battle between developers and pirates, PC gamers cannot afford to let the pirates win, but also should not submit to unreasonably invasive DRM - even if it does eliminate piracy. If the pirates win, PC gamers lose, as developers move their titles exclusively to consoles. PC gamers should be working with game developers to devise a system that reasonably protects the rights of developers and doesn't unreasonably interfere with or cause trouble for gamers.

I'm not married to my idea, so if you've got a better one, speak up!

 

[axelf86]

I have to say that for me, the main reason I don't like DRM, is the hassle. I have sworn off any steam games because I hate it!! I bought HL2 and it came on 5 cds. I go through the install and then have to connect to steam and wait till it decrypts game files (as if the install wasn't long enough). On top of that I'm not sure if there was an update to steam or HL2 but I can no longer play HL2 in offline mode. That's B.S. that I have to connect to there servers to play a game I went to the store, bought and installed. I really don't mind having a one time online activation of the product, but no more than that. Plus if I choose not to keep a game any longer for any reason. As long as I uninstall it from my hard drive, I should be able to sell it or give it away if I choose. Not only that, but what if the game is buggy as hell or just doesn't work? Good luck taking the game back to the store for a refund! You may be able to ship it off at your expense to the company but seriously?!?! This is what's wrong with DRM, it makes it more of a hassle for honest paying customers.
Something I would like to know personally. Is how do authors, local newspapers and national magazine companies do it? I mean I can't believe that a library pays for thousands of copies of People magazine so that people can come in and read it or check it out? How can an author have a book be put in a library where thousands of people can read it for FREE without going bankrupt?

 

[purplerat]

I'm not saying there's never been issues, but I just don't see them in the catastrophic proportions that people make them out to be. I actually pointed out that I've experienced plenty of issues related to DRM over the years and it's not the end of the world. I have a whole pile of NES, Sega and N64 cartridges along with PS1, Dreamcast and Xbox CDs which are of no use. It's really not a huge deal and it doesn't stop me from buying a game today because I might not be able to play it in 3 years.

 

[infornography42]

I'm not saying there's never been issues, but I just don't see them in the catastrophic proportions that people make them out to be. I actually pointed out that I've experienced plenty of issues related to DRM over the years and it's not the end of the world. I have a whole pile of NES, Sega and N64 cartridges along with PS1, Dreamcast and Xbox CDs which are of no use. It's really not a huge deal and it doesn't stop me from buying a game today because I might not be able to play it in 3 years.

So, you are saying that it is completely acceptable that several games were unable to run without a crack? You are saying that bypassing the EULA being required for legitimate use is just fine with you? You are saying that losing access to something that you legitimately purchased is no big thing?

So if I broke into your house and stole a few of your belongings that were 3+ years old you wouldn't mind in the least? Wow, generous.