For anyone who thinks online activations aren't a problem

[Anthropoid]

No argument with anything you say sapper-astro. But the question that gets at my core message remains:
 
Do you honestly believe that piracy is warranted?
 
Do you honestly believe that if there were no piracy (or lets just say it was 5% of what it is today) that companies would be bothering with these annoying security practices?

[Greybriar]

ORIGINAL: sapper_astro

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

So Perturabo, are you saying that you think piracy is warranted?

Or are you just arguing that: Piracy is not so significant that the companies are justified in treating the way they do? DRM in particular, but even the way Matrix treats us?

Believe me, I am definitey one to demand that consumer product manufacturers provide better service, and I can agree with you that, they will get away with what they perceive they can get away with.

Computers, general distribution software, cell phones, insurance . . . those industries are rife with unethical shady corporations that do all kinds of things to stab the consumer in the back. What is distinctive about computer-based strategy-games (and I'm not talking the full computer-game spectrum here, just the strategy segment) is that we are a small, close-knit, highly socially engaged, outspoken, intelligent, and demanding demographic. I think we do a pretty good job of pushing them to give us more overall, without lapsing into "piracy is justified" land.

Piracy is not being stopped by these latest idiotic DRM's. The pirates have crushed them within a day maximum. Meanwhile, the customer has to live with the rubbish and never really owns their own game. The pirates' copy meanwhile, will always be there, easy to install and never needing "Big Papa" to gain the net handshake that will allow an install/play the game. At least two people I know will buy a game, and then download the pirate copy to keep and play with. Others just download the pirate copy.

I myself have not bought at least 20 games that I can think of off the top of my head. This within a three year period, with more before then. They would have been sure buys. Once I learned of the DRM, be it Starforce (If anyone knows of a starforce free copy of Silent Hunter 3, let me know) or even worse, the back-to-base system, I immediately forgot about them. This started with HL2 and has progressed on to today.

DRM wastes company money, pisses of buying customers, and gives pirates enjoyment cracking each new system. It doesn't do anything positive, apart from lining the coffers of DRM producing companies. God only knows how they make companies believe their hopeless systems stop pirates. I am guessing the management in software companies are largely airheads when it comes to the items they produce and sell.

I have lost count of the games I refused to buy due to the DRM it used. It began with StarForce and continued on through Electonic Arts' DRMs & obnoxiousness to the recent lightening up by some PC game companies of the implementation of overly intrusive DRMs on their games.

But now what am I supposed to do with all the PC games I purchased before I was aware of the DRM used and which I never installed? I know what I'd like to do with them! [:@]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

No argument with anything you say sapper-astro. But the question that gets at my core message remains:

Do you honestly believe that piracy is warranted?

Do you honestly believe that if there were no piracy (or lets just say it was 5% of what it is today) that companies would be bothering with these annoying security practices?

And, no, Anthropoid, I do not believe that piracy is warranted, but then I do not consider using a pirated version of a game I purchased piracy. Nor do I feel that companies would be bothering with any security practices if piracy were a mere 5% of the PC games released. But no one knows what the actual numbers are, and estimates are exaggerated according to what I have read.

DRM is a lose-lose situation. PC game companies that use it lose customers and gamers that won't buy the games due to DRM lose out on playing some great games.

[Anthropoid]

You won't hear any argument from me that DRM is a "good policy" for game makers to follow. But as long as piracy continues to bug these companies some of them will continue to annoy us with these kinds of hassles.
 
Boycotting the companies that do it is certainly a good effort towards dissuading such nonsense. I don't buy such games myself.
 
Speaking out against piracy, expressing an intolerance for it, and never buying any game that might have been pirated are also good steps to take to help alleviate the annoyance of draconian security nonsense like DRM.
 
Because as long as piracy continues to annoy them, the companies, they will annoy us with games that we would like to play, but have to jump through hoops.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL:  Anthropoid

So Perturabo, are you saying that you think piracy is warranted?

Or are you just arguing that: Piracy is not so significant that the companies are justified in treating the way they do? DRM in partic, but even the way Matrix treats us?

I don't think that there's such a thing as "piracy significant enough to justify how companies treat their products and their customers".
Actually, doing such things to the people who choose to buy the game instead of playing for free kinda makes it even worse.

Simply, piracy is irrelevant to most of the problems with gaming business.
Actually, sometimes gaming business acts like piracy doesn't exist to carry out their misdeeds - for example the justification of not accepting returns of software in a lot of places is that someone could copy a disk and then return it.
It ignores the existence of piracy, because if someone would want to play the game for free, one would simply download a pirate copy.

Also, lack of piracy won't remove executive meddling, mainstreamisation, mismanagement, incompetence and other things that killed highly successful series like Fallout, Ultima and X-Com.

All these series have deviated from their successful formula by people who thought that shooters will sell better as action games and died.
To add insult to injury, Fallout was revived as an action-RPG and was a financial success, proving that making certain games will always be much more profitable than making other games and thus these games are "inherently superior" and the other ones "belong to the past". So much for diversity.

ORIGINAL:  Anthropoid

Believe me, I am definitey one to demand that consumer product manufacturers provide better service, and I can agree with you that, they will get away with what they perceive they can get away with.

Yes. Then, there are some questions:
What quality enforcement tools are available to players besides not buying games at all? What when you can't even play a demo and company doesn't accept returns? When reviewers can't be really trusted?
Boycotting games with no demo or without a short term satisfaction guarantee? (actually, I have a policy of not buying games without demos unless it's a bargain since a few years.)
Any ideas?

ORIGINAL:  Anthropoid

Computers, general distribution software, cell phones, insurance . . . those industries are rife with unethical shady corporations that do all kinds of things to stab the consumer in the back.

And bikes. My mother bought a HP multi-function xero/printer/scanner device in a media hyper-store some time ago. It turned out that it didn't function correctly. They have sent three new devices and it turned out that every one of them was faulty[X(].
They didn't want to give her money back and she had to go to lawyer and threaten to sue them. It turned out that the store she bought it in, usually takes leftovers from the west and there are a lot of trouble with them.
I remember having similar problems with a bike when I was a kid.

So, avoiding responsibility for quality of products isn't a sole domain of gaming companies - the main difference is that software companies are simply much better at lobbying against consumer rights. After all, if one copy of a game is a faulty product, probably all the others are.

ORIGINAL:  Anthropoid

What is distinctive about computer-based strategy-games (and I'm not talking the full computer-game spectrum here, just the strategy segment) is that we are a small, close-knit, highly socially engaged, outspoken, intelligent, and demanding demographic. I think we do a pretty good job of pushing them to give us more overall, without lapsing into "piracy is justified" land.

Well, you have to be prepared with talking to people like this one:
http://www.closecombatseries.net/CCS/mo ... c&start=36
Yeah, that's one of the Simtek/S3T guys.
In this case it's not pirates that are responsible - the worst enemy is the "whiner".

[Anthropoid]

Perturbado, you and I are both speculating wildly: me that piracy is actually hurting some of them and that is why they do this. You that piracy doesn't actually hurt them, they just do it to fark with us and be bastiges.
 
Now stop and think for just a second here.
 
The guy that cuts your hair, he's a 'business man' right? His role as your patron is to cut your hair, and make you look reasonable. For that you pay him what he charges, and maybe even give him a little tip if you're a decent kinda fellow, who has a reasonable sense of how reciprocity works, and calculates that: tip = he will remember me, and maybe even do a little _better_ job cutting my hair next time.
 
Now, is there any reason that this guy would want to fark with you just on the face of it? No. He stands to gain nothing by farking with you. Indeed, he stands to lose money, and potentially even have his business seriously hurt.
 
While it is true that bigger business entities like game-making companies that sell their products online, or through retailers stand several steps removed from you, the consumer-=-=-unlike the barber who runs the risk of you storming back into his shop a day later when you realize he shaved a big peace-sign on the back of your head [cuz he jus felt lahk farkin' witja, heh, heh, heh]-=-=-they nonetheless face the same basic balanced-reciprocal calculations that any producer of consumer products faces:
 
Render satisfaction to customers = business is more likely to grow, prosperity is like to increase. Piss them off =  they complain, whine, terrorize your online forums, hassle your tech support guys, and just generally ruin your business.
 
Now this does not mean that all these guys are brilliant business strategists. Indeed, many of these companies seem to be run by idiots who make very stupid decisions of the sort you label "executive meddling, mainstreamisation, mismanagement, incompetence and other things that killed highly successful series like Fallout, Ultima and X-Com."
 
We all know that these things happen. We all know some of these companies make stupid decisions. DRM was a stupid decision I am not here to defend it.
 
But the stupid decision to embark on DRM would NEVER have been done had someone not perceived his bottom-line as being in danger as a consequence of piracy. It follows then, that it behooves us, to root piracy out of our ranks. Even if it is only a _small_ problem in reality, the smaller we can make it over the years, the better chance that DRM-like hassles will fade into oblivion.
 
It is really quite a simple principle. It does not really matter whether piracy is a huge, moderate, small, or miniscule problem, it IS the reason these guys spent the time, money, and effort [and took the risks] to employ things like DRM. Piracy serves no ones interest but the social cheaters who engage in it, it does not serve my interest, it does not serve your interests, it does not serve Graybriars, or any of us honest gamers who always pay for our games, nor does it serve the game makers. We need to squash it, it harms us because it is part of the social equation that leads to us spending time on message boards complaining about annoying nonsense like DRM.
 
That doesn't mean that you guys should stop raging 'gainst the machine. Go right ahead and give those corporate fat-cat scumbags the roughest scare you can give through your posts to message boards, phone calls to lackey tech support guys, blogs, letters, whatever. But you might also stop and consider that you might also be able to make a difference by standing up against piracy in an explicit, and demonstrable way.
 
Come on! _All_ you'ze guys! Stand up around the bonfire here with me! Now come on! Lets all join together in a rousing Fight Clubesque team shout out at the Pirate cheater scumbags, whereever they may be . . .
 
PIRACY SUCKS! Pirates are losers! Stop pirating our games! You're cheating those of us who actually pay for them, and we hates you'ze fer it! [:@] Grrrr
 
Now would be a good time to pop off a few bursts of hollow point 9mm into their midst(s) Der Feuhrer.

[Perturabo]

Sorry, I have no intention on fighting some of my fellow gamers, just because you don't like them[:)].

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

Sorry, I have no intention on fighting some of my fellow gamers, just because you don't like them[:)].

I hate to say it P, but therein lies the ultimate problem.

If they are pirates, they are not your friend. They steal from YOU, the guy who actually always pays for his games.

This is exactly what I'm getting at. It is this kind of implicit acceptance of piracy as 'okay' that is at the root of why we are bothered with stuff like DRM. I realize I'm probably not going to convince you on this point; but maybe I am at least making you and others reading think about it. And thinking about a problem is the first step toward breaking down the wall of denial.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

I hate to say it P, but therein lies the ultimate problem.

That I'm not an extremist?

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

If they are pirates, they are not your friend. They steal from YOU, the guy who actually always pays for his games.

Well, at least I don't have to borrow my games to people to be able to talk with them about them. Sometimes (for example when changing school) getting them back may be impossible.

Anyway, to me, the worst enemy is non-gamer. In my eyes being non gamer is much worse than being a pirate.
I don't like non-gamers - when I talk to them, I sense their alieness, their incompleteness. And the worst thing is that you can never know if they aren't the enemies of gaming. If they don't plot behind your back to destroy our Culture.
For, example, when I was on studies, they were two non-gamer girls - they seemed to be nice, but it turned out that they are censorship lovers. Oh... how I hated them[:@] ...

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

This is exactly what I'm getting at. It is this kind of implicit acceptance of piracy as 'okay' that is at the root of why we are bothered with stuff like DRM. I realize I'm probably not going to convince you on this point; but maybe I am at least making you and others reading think about it. And thinking about a problem is the first step toward breaking down the wall of denial.

As for the pirates - I hate two kinds of them - the rich "why should I pay for games if I can have them for free" assholes - i.e. the guys who can afford games, but pirate them anyway and beta leakers. I usually express my hatred for these two kinds.

[sapper_astro]

Anthropoid, I will answer your question from a another direction.

Do I believe Piracy is the cause of the DRM? To a certain degree. I actually believe there is a greater reason behind it. Reselling.

It is known that many companies hate this. If you go and buy the game for a bargain off somebody else, the company does not get a cash hit themselves. Why else would many of these DRM's have a certain amount of reinstalls? How does this stop piracy? Other DRM's seem to create massive headaches when switching computers, very strange. And look at steam. It forces you to make an account, and links the game to this account. Pirated copies of HL2 have been around since the game was released, so the only thing this system is enforcing is not allowing people to resell their games, or at best, making it necessary to leap through the hoops in order to do so.

I believe the hatred of DRM's (especially the lawsuit over the Spore incident) is leading to companies retreating, for now, on these types of DRM's. The battle is still in the balance however, as companies want to stamp out reselling if they can. One thing that still annoys me too, is the complete fiasco over the right to make a single personal copy for archiving. How most people are able to do this now is beyond me, and nobody has bothered making software companies liable for breaching this right.

[Perturabo]

Good point.

Reselling and borrowing. I remember that before torrents, it was be normal to borrow games to other gamers, even between people who barely known each other.

When I started playing on PC, one guy from my school borrowed me Primal Rage, Mortal Kombat II, Warcraft II, Entomorph and some other games. Similarly, I borrowed games to some people.

ORIGINAL: sapper_astro

One thing that still annoys me too, is the complete fiasco over the right to make a single personal copy for archiving. How most people are able to do this now is beyond me, and nobody has bothered making software companies liable for breaching this right.

Yeah, I remember that it was one of the things that bugged me when the advanced copy protection systems started to appear.
Backing up CDs is very important - some of my old games/music CDs look like an ice rink.

[Anthropoid]

Well, I'm just the type of guy who tells his students to "not sell your textbooks back to those parasites" at the end of the semester, so I guess I just have an unusual perspective. To me, intellectual property, books, games, music, the stuff that gets pirated, or 'resold'-=-=-which admittedly is in a definite gray area that tends to favor the right of the buyer to resell in some instances-=-=-is the most important kind of property, and I think it is a shame how lightly we all take infringement of the producer/publisher legal rights. When you consider how much a part of our modern lives all these things are, it seems hypocritical to me that we are so blase about piracy.

[sapper_astro]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

Well, I'm just the type of guy who tells his students to "not sell your textbooks back to those parasites" at the end of the semester, so I guess I just have an unusual perspective. To me, intellectual property, books, games, music, the stuff that gets pirated, or 'resold'-=-=-which admittedly is in a definite gray area that tends to favor the right of the buyer to resell in some instances-=-=-is the most important kind of property, and I think it is a shame how lightly we all take infringement of the producer/publisher legal rights. When you consider how much a part of our modern lives all these things are, it seems hypocritical to me that we are so blase about piracy.

I take it that you have never bought a second hand book/game/cd in your life then?

[JudgeDredd]

In my case, I wouldn't say I'm blase about pirating. In fact, I am very, very strongly against it.

What I am annoyed with is how they seem to take very little account of how it will affect individual users and individual rights. Personally, if you're going to trample all over my rights as a consumer, then you reap what you sow.
 
I'm all for people protecting their business. Absolutely 100% for it. But I do not want to sit and work out what the hell has gone wrong with my computer...uninstalling software, performing restores, rebuilding my computer and discarding a drive, only to find out the whole issue was down to a particular game I had installed months before with a DRM system which made Windows "think" the drive wasn't working properly, meaning Windows slowly reduced the drive speed repeatedly until it seemed slower than a bloody floppy drive. No - when business do that to me, they can go under. I really couldn't care less.
 
Computer gaming is my hobby. It's fun and I enjoy it. But if they continue down this route of treating me like a criminal whilst the real criminals get away, then I would rather it disappeared. I can get a new hobby. The wife might even be pleased (or that could work the other way).
 
Point is, of my original post, I have bought a game from a company and 2 years down the road, I cannot use it. It's that simple. They have now lost me as a customer until they change their ways. It probably won't bother them financially. But I feel better letting them know why they moved me on.
 
What I would like to see is a dedicated website where people could post their lgitimate DRM issues, naming and shaming companies with sub-par support and intrusive DRM. Problem would be that it would be a nightmare to monitor and would leave anyone open to a law suit

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: sapper_astro

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

Well, I'm just the type of guy who tells his students to "not sell your textbooks back to those parasites" at the end of the semester, so I guess I just have an unusual perspective. To me, intellectual property, books, games, music, the stuff that gets pirated, or 'resold'-=-=-which admittedly is in a definite gray area that tends to favor the right of the buyer to resell in some instances-=-=-is the most important kind of property, and I think it is a shame how lightly we all take infringement of the producer/publisher legal rights. When you consider how much a part of our modern lives all these things are, it seems hypocritical to me that we are so blase about piracy.

I take it that you have never bought a second hand book/game/cd in your life then?

The whole reselling and second-hand thing is a grey area I think . . . I dunno, not being a copyright law theorist, I don't have a firm concept of where the ethical boundaries are honestly.

Yes, I did sell back some of my college books (and later regretted it deeply), I have bought CDs at a used CD shop, I've even bought some games off the cheap rack at stores that I know deal in used games, and have bought a few second hand books. But not selling your college texts back to those parasites is just more about keeping your hands on your knoweldge I guess.

It seems to me that selling a game CD or software to someone else is a bit more ethically questionable than any of these other media though, (with the possible exception of music) for the simple reason that games can be copied?

@Judge: In response to your post just before this one: I agree 100% with everything you say there.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid
The whole reselling and second-hand thing is a grey area I think . . . I dunno, not being a copyright law theorist, I don't have a firm concept of where the ethical boundaries are honestly.

I don't think the law has much to do with ethics!

The whole IP deal are some legal measures to artificially jack up the price of certain products to better reward those who create them, ie knowledge and creative workers. There isn't anything 'natural' about that, though it's quite a justified market intervention by the government.

But of course any knowledge worker has a very vested interest in firmly defending IP laws, as those are those same laws that jack up the value of his skills.

The only stuff I ever pirate game-wise is the usual No-CD crack, which is practically a requirement to avoid headaches. Given I've already paid for the game that doesn't bother my conscience at all.

[Anthropoid]

don't think the law has much to do with ethics!

 
At worst that is cynical, and at best it seems defeatist. I certainly agree there is too much corporatization, too much litigiousness . . . but what should we expect on a planet like ours? Home to nearly 7 billion large-brained, self-interested apes? Moreover, our societies keep changing so fast, how are cumbersome, inefficient, slow-changing institutions like law or trade practices supposed to keep up? Are selfish individuals culplable? Yes. But the lawyers, and the publishers, and the CEOs are not the only selfish individuals in the equation. WE the consumers, the workers, the gamers are ALSO culpable in our selfishness by degrees. I've heard some people (as in the Economist) argue that it was largely the Unions greed that drove GM into the ground over the years. Now granted, we peons may not have the power or the capacity to beguile that some of those other elements have, but in the grand scheme of things, the consumer eventually wins. I will still go along with any of those old jokes, like "what is 1000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean . . . a good start" but the honest fact is, no matter how loophole ridden, and flawed with pork-barrel, nepotistic, special-interest-favoring, big money promoting crap "the law" may be, societies with transparent due-process and justice are at this point the pinnacle. Would we prefer a Soviet or Chinese or Iranian style of social order? Or perhaps go back to the good old days of witch hunts? A prof I had made one of those off-hand comments once that just sticks with you "Ethnographic record indicates there is a negative correlation b/w witchcraft and written jurisprudence, i.e., lawyering." You could take the view that "lawyers are nothing but witches in sheeps clothing" or you could take the view that, "the evolution of Western law is a damn improvement on what it replaced/is replacing."
 
I guess what I'm blathering on about here is: it is easy to blame "the big guy" or the "sleazy corporate lawyer guy" or the bureacrat or whomever. It is a lot harder to get in there and roll your sleeves up and do something about it.
 
One small example of rolling up the sleeves and at least trying to do something about it is to excoriate pirates, something I don't see us do too often.

[sapper_astro]

What exactly do you suggest we do about pirates? Apart from not pirating ourselves, there isn't much else we can do. What have you done so far?

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: sapper_astro

What exactly do you suggest we do about pirates? Apart from not pirating ourselves, there isn't much else we can do. What have you done so far?

What should we do? First off, dont' do it, EVER. Second off, speak out against it clearly, and whenever appropriate.

What have I done? Speak out explicitly against piracy in this thread!

Dont' blow it off. If some guy is making statements that border on implicit sanctioning for piracy, or convey the idea that piracy is not a big deal, step up and confront it. Query what the person is saying, and when you can pin down what it is they mean, if what they mean is blase about piracy, then state a tough anti-piracy position.

I'll be quite frank with you guys: any of you who engage in piracy of games, I consider to be major _insert dirtiest derogatory label you can imagine here that conveys dishonesty, selfishness, petty self-importance, and shortsighted ignorance_. That is honestly how I feel if you are a pirate. You are not "one of us," you are not my friend, and you are not "okay." You're a cheating little punk who steals from me and my friends, the guys who ALWAYS pay for their games. If you are a pirate, you should be ashamed of yourself, not because you are hurting a big company, but because you are hurting your fellow gamers.

There, I did it again. I spoke out quite explicitly and forcefully AGAINST piracy of computer games.

If even 10% of you join me in this, cumulatively, gradually, it will change things. Why? Because probably some people reading this ARE pirates, or were leaning toward thinking it was "okay." Maybe I've just now made them feel antagonized, or self-conscious, maybe even ashamed or guilty. Maybe they just won't log on t Matrix again, but what if they eventually encounter the same anti-piracy rant someplace else?

[LarryP]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

I'll be quite frank with you guys: any of you who engage in piracy of games, I consider to be major _insert dirtiest derogatory label you can imagine here that conveys dishonesty, selfishness, petty self-importance, and shortsighted ignorance_. That is honestly how I feel if you are a pirate. You are not "one of us," you are not my friend, and you are not "okay." You're a cheating little punk who steals from me and my friends, the guys who ALWAYS pay for their games. If you are a pirate, you should be ashamed of yourself, not because you are hurting a big company, but because you are hurting your fellow gamers.

There, I did it again. I spoke out quite explicitly and forcefully AGAINST piracy of computer games.

I agree 100%! Well said.[;)] It's just plain stealing. I like what you said about it being selfish.

[SireChaos]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid
But I think it must be pointed out that, no rational business man would choose to do something *snip*

That, my friend, is precisely the point.

You implicitly assume that businesses - the gaming industry in this case - act rationally.

If I were in a less forgiving mood today I would ask you if you have slept through the last several hundred years of economic history, because that´s what it would take for you to confidently assume rational behavior in all market participants.

As it is, I´ll simply chuckle softly at your assumption. [;)]