23 réponses à ce sujet

[Blackzio]

This has been probably told here a thousand times, but i just wanted to share my experience.

 

Story time:

 

I played a copy of a good friend of mine Peter Baywood (a nickname, he is from baywood NY), but i found the game so interesting that i bought the copy myself, and i even bought the digital deluxe version, it's a first for me.  when i could just as easily played my friends version for free, DRM didn't stop that.

 

So, instead of spending money on ridiculous complex DRM like Denuvo that get's old pretty soon, why don't you use it for other things? Spend it on game developing, or hey, even marketing, you guys want more money, want to sell more copies, we get it, just saying there are smarter ways to use said money.

 

That's more to EA than bioware i guess, but still, you get my point, take it up to your boss. You can even to the math on how much is spent on DRM, and the sales you get before said DRM is just a useless piece of nothing, and see if it's really worth it, and also, you get a LOT of cred with the vocal gaming community and that's always a win right? 

 

Watch closely for Witcher 3 sales, that will prove my point. 

[AlanC9]

That won't prove anything. TW3's sales without DRM say nothing at all about the sales of a hypothetical TW3 with DRM

[AlexMBrennan]

when i could just as easily played my friends version for free

I'm sure EA has people working on ways to prevent this.

So, instead of spending money on ridiculous complex DRM like Denuvo that get's old pretty soon, why don't you use it for other things?

Simple: Because some suit will look at the numbers, and notice that X million people downloaded an illegal copy of, say, Dreamweaver. They then multiply that number by the retail price to deduce that they'd get a bazillion dollars if only they could get everyone to buy a copy instead. As long as the DRM costs less than a bazillion dollars, it "makes business sense" to pay for it.

This is of course nonsense - realistically speaking, for most of these people the choice is between illegally downloading Dreamweaver and not using it at all, so even if you could prevent them from using it illegally you wouldn't gain any extra sales. The only purpose DRM can possibly have is to keep honest people honest (which the old fashioned product keys managed fairly well - I can't install my friend's version on my computer, so I have to go buy another copy instead)

But since the bazillion dollar number is so tempting businesses keep chasing the philosopher's stone that is DRM...

[Blackzio]

I'm sure EA has people working on ways to prevent this. 

 

 

 

Simple: Because some suit will look at the numbers, and notice that X million people downloaded an illegal copy of, say, Dreamweaver. They then multiply that number by the retail price to deduce that they'd get a bazillion dollars if only they could get everyone to buy a copy instead.

 

This is of course nonsense - realistically speaking, for most of these people the choice is between illegally downloading Dreamweaver and not using it at all, so even if you could prevent them from using it illegally you wouldn't gain any extra sales. The only purpose DRM can possibly have is to keep honest people honest (which the old fashioned product keys managed fairly well - I can't install my friend's version on my computer, so I have to go buy another copy instead)

 

But since the bazillion dollar number is so tempting businesses keep chasing the philosopher's stone that is DRM... 

i understand the way they think. But DRM is like war on drugs, you know that's not going to work, stats have proven that over and over it's still just as easy to get your illegal stuff as it was before, but now you are harming people that don't have anything to do with that.

 

As for my friend PB (wink wink), was exactly what they were trying to do with DRM, it just doesn't work, have i not liked this game, i would have stopped playing it, i liked it so i bought, almost didn't because of DRM and EA's policy, but bioware really deserved some credit. 

 

Chasing that perfect DRM is stupid, pretty much every single game is cracked, why bother with the money on this? It's exactly my point, they are delusional if they think they will find something unhackable. Use that money in a wiser way, this isn't even consumer vs publisher, it's a business decision, that the "suits" should really think logically about, and you get free marketing with that. 

[Blackzio]

That won't prove anything. TW3's sales without DRM say nothing at all about the sales of a hypothetical TW3 with DRM

If it outsells some AAA games, it might be enough to shed some light on the executives that make those decisions. 

[AlanC9]

If it outsells some AAA games, it might be enough to shed some light on the executives that make those decisions.

No, that would just prove it was a popular game.

[Blackzio]

No, that would just prove it was a popular game.

exactly, that a game can be popular, be good and sell well with no drm.

[C0uncil0rTev0s]

exactly, that a game can be popular, be good and sell well with no drm.

Selling a game with complicated DRM greatly limits the number of players. I wouldn't buy DA:I if i knew the state it is in before buying.

[Mirrman70]

exactly, that a game can be popular, be good and sell well with no drm.

 

I don't think you are grasping what is being said. The sales of the witcher 3 without DRM are separate from what they would be with DRM. Thus to say that The Witcher 3 sells better because of a lack of DRM is simply using a lack of evidence as actual evidence. "The absence of evidence does not equal the evidence of absence"

[DragonKingReborn]

Or put another way, "correlation does not imply causation".

[DanteYoda]

I think what he is saying is a part of why the Witcher series is so popular and sold so well is because it has no DRM attached to it.

 

Which is partially true, its also because they are amazingly great games.. the developers are always up front with fixes and the DLC are always free, this builds a friendly relationship between developer and customer, so they are less likely to pirate their games.

 

While partially true its not completely true.

[mesmerizedish]

Denuvo isn't DRM. People need to do research before they make threads like this.

The only DRM DAI uses is Origin.

[atlantico]

Denuvo isn't DRM. People need to do research before they make threads like this.

The only DRM DAI uses is Origin.

 

Need they? 

 

The point the OP made is unchanged by your fine skills at pedantry. So, while you may or may not be correct, it doesn't matter in this context.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Need they?

It depends what their objectives are. And Origin is a lot more than just DRM. But the other aspects wouldn't work if it were optional. So that it is mandatory DRM achieves multiple goals for EA.

[Wargaron]

After reading this post i started a google search and in 15 minutes i found a crack for dai (i didn't try it but many people commented it works) so probably it really was just waste of money on ea's part. Also CD projekt red understand that here in eastern europe games are much more expensive* than in the US beacuse they are a Polish company and they want to get their games to as many people as possible.

 

*When games are shipped to europe they just convert the price from dollars to euros (so a 70usd game is a 70euro game here) even though 1 dollar is about 0.8 euro. Also people are having much smaller saleries here at the eastern parts. The price of one game is about the 17% of the money most people earn in a month.

[Blackzio]

I don't think you are grasping what is being said. The sales of the witcher 3 without DRM are separate from what they would be with DRM. Thus to say that The Witcher 3 sells better because of a lack of DRM is simply using a lack of evidence as actual evidence. "The absence of evidence does not equal the evidence of absence"

i understand what you are saying, we would need to have another universe that witcher 3 had drm to compare in a perfect way, but we don't, so in business making you need to make certain assumptions. When we make prediction sales, risk management, etc... we are all wrong, we are just trying to be less wrong. 

And this IS the sort of data that companies keep track. 

 

And i'm not saying witcher 3 sells better without DRM, i'm saying if it sells good, it comes to show you don't need DRM to be a hit. Most of gaming companies need a complete overhaul on their executives with the old thinking. 

[Blackzio]

Denuvo isn't DRM. People need to do research before they make threads like this.

The only DRM DAI uses is Origin.

Ok, im stretching the term DRM here to pretty much any "security measure". 

 

I don't like origin, really, if they could just make peace with valve, and go all steam i'd be popping out the champagne. But i get why origin exists, it's their platform to release games. But you can release games in your market (in this case EA/Origin) and still have not DRM. Look at how many games on steam don't have drm..

[Realmzmaster]

A game can only be considered a financial hit if it covers its development costs. If 2 million people buy Witcher 3, but there are 5 millions copies out there what does that tell CDProjectK especially if the 2 million barely cover the development costs?

[Rhaine]

We should stop blaming game companies for including drm and start blaming people stealing via piracy.

[Blackzio]

After reading this post i started a google search and in 15 minutes i found a crack for dai (i didn't try it but many people commented it works) so probably it really was just waste of money on ea's part. Also CD projekt red understand that here in eastern europe games are much more expensive* than in the US beacuse they are a Polish company and they want to get their games to as many people as possible.

 

*When games are shipped to europe they just convert the price from dollars to euros (so a 70usd game is a 70euro game here) even though 1 dollar is about 0.8 euro. Also people are having much smaller saleries here at the eastern parts. The price of one game is about the 17% of the money most people earn in a month.

The crack was released 2 weeks after the game launched and it works, that's what i'm saying.

And yea, that europe pricing is so bullshit, they should at least do like 60 usd, 50 eur, 40 pounds. that would make pricing a little bit more fair. 

[mesmerizedish]

But you can release games in your market (in this case EA/Origin) and still have not DRM. Look at how many games on steam don't have drm..

Steam is DRM.

The sole purpose of Denuvo is to prevent tampering with the executable at runtime in multiplayer. It's like Punkbuster.

As far as DRM goes, the game requires that you run it through Origin, same as any Steam game requires that you run it through Steam. It's far from an expensive or complicated DRM scheme and generally consists of nothing more than a wrapper for the executable.

I absolutely undetstand that people don't even like that much DRM, and don't mean to defend it, only to state what is and isn't actually going on with the DRM in DAI.

[Blackzio]

We should stop blaming game companies for including drm and start blaming people stealing via piracy.

They won't stop, it's a war you cannot win. Lets say you live in India, guess what, you can't play DAI. Live in australia? Holy crap, you can't play a LOT of games. Here in Brazil they tried to banned Counter Strike for a while (before noticing no one had stop playing because of it.) 

 

Have to say Steam saved me from piracy life, i can even get games that aren't available in my country. (and origin almost makes me want to go back). Now i only do it to test the games before i buy (did that with lot's of games that don't have demo, don't play more then 1 hour of most, if i liked it, i'll buy it, if i don't, i delete). Piracy won't go away, trying to prevent that is just money down the drain that could have been used to something better, something the company would profit more.

 

It's not consumer vs corporations anymore, it's just stupid executive decision. 

 

Yes, pirates are a danger to the gaming industries, to movies, music, and whatever. And yet, despite their basic protections they don't really spend money anymore developing this securities in movies or music, they mostly do services like netflix or spotify, because they saw it's best this way, instead of engaging a war, just do a better service. Gaming industry need to understand that just like movie and music did. 

[Blackzio]

Steam is DRM.

The sole purpose of Denuvo is to prevent tampering with the executable at runtime in multiplayer. It's like Punkbuster.

As far as DRM goes, the game requires that you run it through Origin, same as any Steam game requires that you run it through Steam. It's far from an expensive or complicated DRM scheme and generally consists of nothing more than a wrapper for the executable.

I absolutely undetstand that people don't even like that much DRM, and don't mean to defend it, only to state what is and isn't actually going on with the DRM in DAI.

Steam is also, and more importantly, a service of gaming distribution (yes, origins is one as well) if you buy it in there, it will have DRM, and your game will be locked to that account. But do you know how many of those games you can just download off the internet instead of going to steam? Pretty much all indie games, that sell like crazy on steam, have no DRM, people are choosing steam because it's a great service, i have fps counter, big picture, family share, in-game browser, workshop, market, and the features go on and on.

 

If you provide a service that is good, the game itself doesn't need DRM, people will opt to buy your game with DRM (steam, origin, uplay, etc) if they see the advantages of that.

 

Forgive me if im using the term loosely, but i hope you understand my point. Punkbuster was focused on multiplayer, Denuvo actually said they were trying to keep the game without any sort of piracy. (And people found multiplayer cheats already, at least what i saw when i joined a party, might just be another bug.) While it might not be DRM itself, it's a shield for DRM. 

 

An expensive and unnecessary shield. 

[Blackzio]

A game can only be considered a financial hit if it covers its development costs. If 2 million people buy Witcher 3, but there are 5 millions copies out there what does that tell CDProjectK especially if the 2 million barely cover the development costs?

if witcher 3 is a flop, i must say we are going to go on a bad route for gaming. If i see one person pirating witcher 3 i'll give him a slap in throat.