Why is DRM so bad?

ballybay_eh

I gave up on PC gaming a good few years ago since I couldn't keep up with the necessary upgrading of your PC to keep up with the games.

Because of this, something that has largely passed me by is DRM.

I was reading the Series you gave up on? thread and came across this remark:

Naikon wrote: »

Steam is a hack, never liked the authentication required to unlock/play games.

DRM at it's finest : \

And that got me wondering, why is DRM viewed as being so terrible?

My understanding of it is similar to when you're half listening to a conversation:
You have a vague idea about what's going on but you're definitely not getting the full story.

Is it a case of a couple bad implementations giving it a bad name? I remember hearing that Spore was a particularly bad implementation.

Or is it more a case of them trying to stop piracy and how this conflicts with the modern internet-induced mentality that it's somehow unfair that a company should try to protect its investment and derive profit from it?

Or are there other reasons? As I said, I've been out of the PC gaming loop for a while now but I'd love to know.

Stephen

I steam. I can install it on any computer and download all my steam games again if I want.

Limited activation DRM systems like the one Spore used are ones I steer well clear of. It doesn't do sh1t to stop piracy as cracks are usually available very quickly, giving the pirate a better user experience than the legit punter.

Stev_o

Things like Secrum and Starforce actually compromise your PC creating a back door for hackers. For people who like to have secure PC's you ll see them pirate the game without the DRM rather then buying the game with the dangerous DRM.

Venom

DRM systems such as limited installs, CD/DVDs needed in drive or over the top crap like Starforce not only punish the people who buy the software but does nothing to stop software pirates in any way. In far to many cases the pirated software is better due to less hassle allround.

cherryghost

Venom wrote: »

DRM systems such as limited installs, CD/DVDs needed in drive or over the top crap like Starforce not only punish the people who buy the software but does nothing to stop software pirates in any way. In far to many cases the pirated software is better due to less hassle allround.

Yeah but companies now see errors in their way and are fixing some of those issues us nagging hoes had about it.

RobertFoster

At best, DRM imposes unfair restrictions on the average Joe who actually purchased the game. At worst, it can physically damage your computer (optical drives, security etc.). It ends up punishing legitimate users, while pirates can get a crack before release, if not soon after.

Incentives (e.g. online play) rather than threats should be provided with the purchase of anything. It's similar to DVDs shouting "DON'T PIRATE THIS!" instead of "Thank You for not pirating this!".

Azza

I'd strongly recommend you and anyone else who has beenn passing an opinion on the internet about DRM or who has interest in DRM and how it relates to their hobby to read this article on PC game piracy over at tweakguides. It has a section on the various forms of DRM, issues with them and the logic behind their implementation.
http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

Its a very complicated debate, and most people who post here will by and large be in the anti-drm camp.

The idea of DRM is not to stop piracy totally but to try and slow it down and minimize it, its primary target is day zero piracy. Its success rate is variable, some games are cracked on or before release or shortly after while others can remained uncracked for considerably longer (Splinter Cell Chaos Theory where not cracked for over 1 year using Starforce). To say its totally ineffective is not true.

Myself I don't like the idea of limited activations (note not installs which people like Vemon either accidently or deliberately confuse) and thankfully most developers are moving away from that (even though most removed activation limits after a short peroid of time). Once the activations limit where being implemented a few months ago alot of inaccurate information was released to make the situation look worse than it really was. Up till this point no one really had an issue with SecuRom but suddenly it became a dangerous piece of software that can potentially damage your PC or compromise your security.
Part of the problem with internet discussions is that people pass on the sensationalist arguement without doing any real research. Like for example the totally unproven allegations that RobertFoster and Stev_o posted above. Unproven but a common preception among the gaming community. In fairness alot of people don't have time to go looking for additional information, they have lives outside the internet and all, so its always a good idea to double check the information from several sources.
The article I linked above debunks alot of the myths about certain DRM breaking PC's or compromising there security.

I've had 37 games with SecuROM and maybe 4 or 5 with Starforce and I never had an issue with any of the games. According to EA's own figures only less than 0.5% of users on average with limited activation games have issues with running out of activations. A friend of mine online on the other hand had issues with both in Stalker: SOC (starforce) and Stalker Clear Sky(securom) or at least he believes they are to blame for the discs not being read.

I'd be confident in saying there is genuine issues with most DRM, but at the same time I'd take my freinds word at face value, but there is no more issues in terms of compatability or security with it than other software in my opinion. On the other hand the principal of limited activations alone is annoying to me but not a major issue for me personally. As I previously said developers seem to be moving away from it which is a good thing.

marco_polo

I am firmly in the anti-piracy camp and to be honest probaly have at least one foot in the anti-drm camp as well. Certainly I am not a big fan of DRM solutions that do not allow any second hand game trading. So from that point of view I wonder what the real motivation behind DRM is at times. Now having said all that I have no idea how on earth such a scheme could be implemented by a DRM solution anyway, but that is another story.

I will admit that steam is a commendable effort and a step in the right direction, and I have bought some golden oldies off it like Deus Ex and Far Cry but this second hand issue is a real negative for me (As well as the Euro pricing). For example my brother gave me his copy of Half Life 2 which I was looking forward to playing for the first time in ages which thanks to steam it's only use is as a coaster now.

Another annoying "feature" is that I cannot buy games when abroad through the steam client on my laptop (I work in the UK a fair bit) but because my card is Irish, computer says no? :mad:

* EDIT - Very interesting article, some food for thought.

Otacon

As a theory its good.

As a practice, it punishes the people who actually buy the software (limited installs etc.) and doesn't actually stop people pirating the software. Simple as.

Azza

Otacon wrote:

(limited installs etc.) and doesn't actually stop people pirating the software. Simple as.

Incorrect and not simple as!

Maximilian

I thought one of the major reasons for limited installing was to kill off the 2nd hand games market, which the games industry people hate for obvious reasons.

Also, I'm pretty sure Starforce screwed up both my old dvd-drives. They stopped working after that vile piece of crap got installed.

The Steam method seems best to me. It gives the publishers DRM and provides a benefit to consumers. It puzzles me why some hate it so much.

Stev_o

Maximilian wrote: »

I thought one of the major reasons for limited installing was to kill off the 2nd hand games market, which the games industry people hate for obvious reasons.

Also, I'm pretty sure Starforce screwed up both my old dvd-drives. They stopped working after that vile piece of crap got installed.

The Steam method seems best to me. It gives the publishers DRM and provides a benefit to consumers. It puzzles me why some hate it so much.

For a start i love steam but i know the major argument against it was this.

Say Valve went bankrupt tomorrow, Steam would be shut down and you'd loose all your games you'v purchased on their since they are not physical entities.

But then again that looks highly unlikely unless Valve decide to play roulette on old stock market.

Azza

Not really, there has been no second hand PC market at retail for the last 2 years at least. Most retailers refuse to take PC games second hand as they can't be sured the user hasn't kept the CD key or have the key tied to an online account.

Of course you can still sell privately and by and large limited activations (for the third time not installs) has no effect on this. By the time your selling it second hand you will probably not have gone through all your activations and even if you did chances are their is a revoke tool out for it and the activations can be reclaimed.

I think one of the main logic of limited activations was to reduced casual piracy. As in you buy and the game and give the hardcopy it to several of your friends on loan.

Bit weird Max that you prefer Steam when you can't sell your steam games second hand either.

Asides from this for years its actually been against your EULA to sell your games on second hand, but since they have no way to enforce it no one bothers with it.

As for your issues you had with your optical drives you don't have conclusive proof that it was Starforce that caused them to
fail?

A class action lawsuit was brought against Ubisoft by a man in the States that claimed starforce ruined his system (the case was apparantly dropped). Ubisoft countered this by showing a survey it conducted of end-users with Starforce games. Out of a total of 12,000 samples not one user reported similar issues.

Starforce themsleves offered a prize of €1,000 if anyone could prove to them that their software caused damage to optical drives. Not a single person took up the challenge.

I remember a few years back I had issues with several games not working any more, it was about a week or two after installing a Starforce game, so longing onto the web forums I was advised it had to be Starforce as it was well known for being troublesome or so I was told and thats what I believed for ages with actually bothering (in some cases you can't) verify it was the actual cause.

coughlan08

which game hmmm

Maximilian

Stev_o wrote: »

Say Valve went bankrupt tomorrow, Steam would be shut down and you'd loose all your games you'v purchased on their since they are not physical entities.

But then again that looks highly unlikely unless Valve decide to play roulette on old stock market.

I think I read an interview with Gabe Newell once where he was asked this and he said if it ever came to that they would disable the DRM.

Azza wrote: »

Bit weird Max that you prefer Steam when you can't sell your steam games second hand either.

As for your issues you had with your optical drives you don't have conclusive proof that it was Starforce that caused them to
fail?

Starforce themsleves offered a prize of €1,000 if anyone could prove to them that their software caused damage to optical drives. Not a single person took up the challenge.

I've never sold a game in my life so that's not an issue. I hoard them. Even the crap ones.

Can't obviously prove Starforce broke them but I just don't believe in conincidences like that.

Anyway, it's not used anymore thank God.

Azza

Yeah I think thats true that if Steam ever went bang Gabe Newell was recorded as saying they would remove the DRM.

As for Starforce not many of us have the technically know how to prove an issue like this one way or another, we make assumptions on the advice we see on internet forums and the like.

For you it may be highly suspicious that your drives stopped working on a PC with Starforce on it when so many people online claim it cause problems with optical drives. Had you not heard of this complaints you may of thought you where just unlucky with general hardware faults. But surely so many people can't be all wrong.

Problem is that many of the people passing on information about DRM want reasons to justify piracy (not saying your a Pirate Max). These people reason they are sticking it to the man for him attempting to walk all over the little guy.
The reason there was so much hatred for Starforce at the time was purely because the games using it where difficult to crack. Many of them took months to crack and as I said before Splinter Cell Chaos Theroy took over a year. Then people who don't pirate game but have issues with there games, software and hardware go and look online for help and read all this negative stuff about DRM and believe it without being 100% if its the actual cause. So they start passing this information on to.

Also as for Starforce not being used anymore, its still widely used in Russia and the company is planing on making a comeback into the western market shortly according to a recent interview.

grizzly

Stev_o wrote: »

For a start i love steam but i know the major argument against it was this.

Say Valve went bankrupt tomorrow, Steam would be shut down and you'd loose all your games you'v purchased on their since they are not physical entities.

But then again that looks highly unlikely unless Valve decide to play roulette on old stock market.

I was just thinking the same "what if" yesterday while looking at my long list of steams games (damn you weekend deals!). Or what if Valve merged with another company and the terms and conditions changed e.g. purchased games have a licence of 3 years.

Retr0gamer

Everyone forgotten about 3D Realms download service that went bust leaving people with no way of playing the copy of Prey they purchased over it?

MOH

Azza wrote: »

Not really, there has been no second hand PC market at retail for the last 2 years at least. Most retailers refuse to take PC games second hand as they can't be sured the user hasn't kept the CD key or have the key tied to an online account.

Of course you can still sell privately and by and large limited activations (for the third time not installs) has no effect on this. By the time your selling it second hand you will probably not have gone through all your activations and even if you did chances are their is a revoke tool out for it and the activations can be reclaimed.

Problem is that if you're buying a DRM-protected game second hand you've no idea whether you'll be able to play it or not, and you've no comeback if you can't.


I'm convinced Starforce killed one of my optical drives a few years ago - as you said, it's very difficult to prove. But it worked fine before, and stopped working afterwards, so ...


My big beefs with DRM are that regardless of how much of the hysteria is true, everyone accepts that there have been occasions where it's prevented legitimate customers playing the game; and that (many implementations) silently install something on your machine which can affect existing installed software which has legitimate uses, and which can be very difficult to uninstall.

BigEejit

I had a game where my computer refused outright to see/detect the disk, turns out it was the dvdrom. Played everything else except that one disk. Thats the kind of shite drm that i hate.

Azza

MOH DRM still doesn't make that much of a difference to the second hand market. If you buying private you can always ask the person your buying from is there still activiations lefts. Most games that use the limited activation system have activation revoke tools or are updated with patches some time after release to automatically restore activations on uninstallation. Of course the person could lie about remaining activations but at the same time he could lie about a CD code not being tied to an account. Worse comes to shove you could always use a no cd crack if the activations are used up.

MOH wrote:

I'm convinced Starforce killed one of my optical drives a few years ago - as you said, it's very difficult to prove. But it worked fine before, and stopped working afterwards, so ...

May I ask about this in abit more detail. What happened exactly, did the drive instantly stop working once you had a Starforce installed, or stop working over time some time after your had Starforce on your machine, how much use did the game disc that was Stareforced protected get used in your drive. Did the disc drive just stop reading certain discs or all, did the drive work later on. Did you have emulation software running, if you did did try disabling and un-installing the emulation software?

MOH wrote:

everyone accepts that there have been occasions where it's prevented legitimate customers playing the game; and that (many implementations) silently install something on your machine which can affect existing installed software which has legitimate uses, and which can be very difficult to uninstall.

I'd agree with the first part of that statement. There certainly has been occasions where a very small minority of legimate customers have had issues running games caused by DRM. There is some hardware compability problems with certain optical drivers and SecuROM (note the games just don't work not that they break the drives) and people have run out of activations as well and for them yes unfortantly DRM causes them problems. But at the same time everytime you install a new piece of software, hardware or system driver there is always the same risk of there being some compability issue or some insability occuring.

However I don't think DRM should be slammed on the grounds of installing drivers when many other programs and tools install drivers to the same location. The reason Starforce installed driver with ring 0 access (note its not been proven that SecuROM does) was to counter the popular emulator software that did the same thing. Granted drivers used in Starforce 3.0 where not removed when the game using Starforce wasun-installed, but a tool was released by Starforce to manually remove these drivers and newer versions of Starforce remove these drivers when un-installing. SecuROM always un-uninstalled the software, it merely left behind some registry files containing licensing information which can be removed by a tool provided by SecuROM and have no effect on performance what so ever.

The main trouble with DRM is when its installed on machines with emulation software. Emulation software like Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120% have legit puposes but the majority of users of these tools will be using them for piracy even if they are also using them for legit purposes as well. When a problem occurs between the DRM and emulation tools its always the DRM software that gets blamed. Its there for a legit reason too and it by and large plays by the same rule book. Emulation tools even though they install ring 0 drivers never get accussed of being rootkit or spyware or being the cause for any system insability or opening up security vunrabilities. Usually when a problem occurs between DRM and emualtion tools you can get around it by disabling or un-insalling the emulation tools. When your done you could always re-enable re-install them anyway.