Hatin’ on DRM (and other things)

So, in case you haven’t heard already, Ubisoft has decided to release the PC-version of the game “Prince of Persia” without any DRM whatsoever. Read this if you haven’t caught up to this news yet.

I applaud this move, and I went and bought it because of this. I hadn’t actually considered buying this game, because Ubisoft has had the reputation of releasing extremely unfinished games and having to be dragged kicking and screaming to finish it (”Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific” being a prime example), and of using StarForce. However, now that it’s being released without any DRM whatsoever (even though the back of the cover says “”NOTICE: This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some DVD-RW and virtual drives.”, which I guess is probably just due to the DRM being dropped as a last-minute decision after the covers went to press), I just had to go buy it. I’ve been a fan of the very first PoP games, wasn’t really that much of a fan of the last 2 (just “something” was off, can’t put my finger on it), but hope this one’s going to be great.

I fear, however, that this is more an experiment on Ubisoft’s part which will end up in them saying “See? We told you so, no DRM == tons of lost sales!” and then move over to the console in its entirety anyway. And this I feel would be a mistake for a few reasons. First of all, the controllers suck for a lot of games. The pad, while usable, just isn’t as good as a keyboard/mouse combination. It dumbs down the interface even further, and puts a heavy reliance on auto-aim, and anyone who’s been in star wars: the force unleashed will know what major pain autoaim can be if the people implementing it sucks. Even mass effect worked okay on the 360, but it was so much better on the PC because you could just snap to the person you wanted to shoot, instead of panning.

This isn’t because there’s a good technical reason for it either. There are keyboards for use in Live, there are custom controllers for horrible games such as guitar hero etc, so why oh why can’t they make or allow controllers for FPS and RTS games? It wouldn’t take much, a keypad of 10-20 keys and a mouse should suffice. That way the xbox wouldn’t “become more than a gaming machine”. Yes, yes, I know you can connect a normal keyboard to the 360, but last I checked you could only use that in text messaging, allowing support for keyboard+mouse were strictly forbidden by microsoft. And being able to install the game’s data to a disk (if there is one) would be nice too. It would’ve cut down on the elevator travel time and texture popping in Mass Effect, as well as DVD drive wear and tear.

Therefore, I sincerely hope that this is just a beginning of when the publishers start dialling it back a notch or two from where EA has taken things, because that’s just taking things too far. However, after reading http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html (excellent article, albeit a bit negative on piracy … for a good reason, if those numbers are correct) and UbiRazz’ negative expectations, I’m worrying that  we are still heading down the EA route in the future, in which case I will no longer be a gamer, or we’re moving to the consoles, in which case I will expect MS to cough up/allow some proper controllers for proper games. Like Supreme Commander, Command & Conquer, shooty FPSes where aiming skill actually matters instead of learning the quirks of the autoaim system, etc.

Us hardcore gamers need love too. We might even have monies.

I was reading a blog when I started thinking on the whole DRM issue. Initially it was just my irritation at having drivers installed in the system, and the fact that we’re being treated as criminals that bothered me, but it’s starting to become clear that it goes deeper than that.

Lately (i.e. last 3-5 years) a concept called “casual piracy” has been gathering pace. This is what the record labels calls copying CDs for or from your friends. In some circles, this is called “fair use”, as long as it isn’t taken too far. I should for example be able to make my own backup copy of music, but record labels are trying to stop us from doing that. Cue Sony’s failed attempt.

Likewise, in the gaming industry, there have been various ways of making sure the games are only played by the ones that buy them. Up until a year or two ago, however, even after Sony’s miserable failure where they got thrashed for installing software without authorization, things have deteriorated with the use of StarForce, SecuROM, etc etc etc, which all install drivers without your consent. This is something I would in normal terms called “trespassing”. Or it’s something I would associate with viruses, botnets, spam, etc, things which gets the author/cracker some quality time behind bars with Bubba the Friendly Giant.

And now they’re infringing on “fair use” as well, saying how we don’t own the games, we license it, and that they say what we can and cannot do with it (false, it flies straight in the face of “first-sale doctrine”), and how we can’t install a game on more than 3, 5, x computers. Same goes for music (see iTunes etc). This is going to end up alienating consumers more and more, and with today’s gaming being what it is, I see it as counter-productive.

In today’s gaming environment, the focus is shifting towards more and more casual games, where you pick it up for 30 minutes of fluffy fun for relaxation. I.e. you have less mental investment in the game, and the game naturally lends itself more and more to being lent to other people so they can have their 30 minutes of fluffy fun. Or you can bring the game along to a party for a collective 30 minutes of fluffy fun.

Now, however, games publishers mean that’s not something you can do, at least those who utilize SecuROM on their titles seem to mean that exact thing. They’d rather everyone bought a copy, since of course that means more money for them. In and of itself this isn’t a bad thing, since by buying it you would support the developer and publisher etc, which is a good thing. They’ve spent years on making a product, and you enjoy it, it’s only fair that you give a little back to them. But they should not infringe on fair use, i.e. deny me from taking my game over to another computer and play from there, sell it to someone else, or even lend it to someone else. Hell, what they’re going to end up doing is singlehandedly kill off the videogame rental market. I shudder to think when they’ll kill off the DVD/bluray rental market as well.

I wish all the entertainment industries would stop infringing on copyright laws themselves to “protect their property”, the only thing they’re doing is making it worse. The stricter they make it, the further away from the copyright laws they get. Both in letter and in spirit.

Another blogger wrote this in 2005, and basically is saying the same thing, except for music. Apparently this wasn’t enough of a warning for them that some things you just don’t do because it’s against the law etc, but oh well. Yes, pirates are a problem, but that does not give publishers license to act like assholes themselves. I hope EA loses badly in their lawsuit. Since apparently Sony wasn’t enough of a warning, maybe EA can be.

Inevitably, not everyone understands why some (or a lot of) people get their knickers in a twist over the current batch of DRM which is being used by EA. Check out this blog for an example of someone who doesn’t see the reasons.

I agree on a few points, mainly that it isn’t a problem for me, now, to live with the activation, or even having to authenticate the game every 10 days. The problems pile up when I think ahead, however, and when I think about how I’m being treated. Basically, what keeps cropping up is how I’m not being trusted as a customer, and how I just know that I will not be able to play the game in a few years, after EA tires of maintaining their key activation servers. Not to mention the fact that if I try to contact EA in 5 years and ask them for an extra install permission key, they’ll all go “huh?” or laugh at me.

I also can’t help but feel like it’s not just there to limit piracy, but also to limit second-hand sales, or even games renting, both of which inevitably will have an impact on the bottom line of a game.

Basically, what EA is doing is transferring ownership of a game from the consumer (i.e. you), to the producer/publisher (i.e. them), and you are now playing at THEIR behest. They can (or at least could while the game was checking its status every 10 days) revoke your right to play the game at any time. Actually, I think they still might, as I believe Spore authenticates itself every time you connect to the online content.

This is what most people are getting so pissed over.

Then there are people like me who get pissed over having drivers installed into the OS without my knowledge or authorization, which is just plain rude and borders on being illegal. That’s personal property they’re messing with there.

DRM might very well have its place, but Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civilization II etc have shown that if a game doesn’t suck, people will buy it, regardless of whether or not there is DRM on it.

It might also be that galciv2 and soase are aiming at a more mature audience which is more willing to pay for games, unlike teenagers which just want instant gratification NOW, no matter what they must do to get it..

I love it when some developers talk absolute sense. Like stardock’s developer does in the following post:

http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/303512/Piracy_PC_Gaming

Now I’m not going to say that having absolutely no DRM is the way forward, although that would be a very welcome change of pace. What I am saying, however, is that the current trend of treating my property (my computer) as their own playground, where they install whatever they like and use the excuse “oh but pirates force us to do this”, screw up the stability of my property, and just generally treating me like a no-good thieving pirate until I prove otherwise by running through hoops … has to stop.

Peg it back a few notches to the point where you protect the first few days of sale, and you’re golden.

Or hell, stop making games which are way too high on the blitz factor but short on content/playtime, and start catering to the tastes of people who might actually want to buy your games. Don’t like how a game sells? Look at who’s playing the game, and how likely they are to buy it if they can just wait a while and get it for free (which they will after a very short while, no matter what you try). You might find that if you f.ex aim for a bit older market, you might find people who are that much more willing to pay for a game, because they might be in a bit more of a mature and honest mindset.

Treat us like shit, and you’ll find that the same people who were mature and honest enough to buy it to begin with, are old enough to have plenty of other things to spend their time on instead of buying the latest glitzy new game for the console which has a playtime of, oh I dunno, 10 hours?

Take me for example, I’ve got quite a few games detailed here on this blog already which I probably would’ve bought and played if the copy protection would’ve stopped at just requiring the disk be in the drive. But no, EA has to go beyond that, so what do I do? I play Eve Online instead. I don’t lose any sleep over not seeing the lush graphics of farcry 2’s steppes, but EA lost $50, and the games developer lost $whatever_they_get_from_publisher.

EA apparently still firmly believes that its DRM will mean more sales. I don’t think they get just how much their latest DRM policy angers legitimate gamers. The interviews where they mention this is here:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081015-eas-drm-ceo-arrogance-may-cause-gamers-to-skip-good-titles.html

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20655

EA’s Riccitiello claims he “hates DRM”, and has this to say about the whole DRM debacle: “‘I’m guessing that half of them were pirates, and the other half were people caught up in something that they didn’t understand,” he says. “If I’d had a chance to have a conversation with them, they’d have gotten it”. He may be able to sweet-talk a lot of potential customers, but I definitely will not back down from my position on DRM. No online activation, no drivers, and no hindrance on me selling the game on if I so desire.

EA keep saying that the games are good, and that most people voted with their wallets when buying Spore. I doubt that the majority of spore’s buyers knew just how limiting the DRM is. I’ve seen plenty of people complaining about being a legitimate owner of Spore because they hit the limits, or they didn’t like getting the restrictions which the game had (and they hadn’t been informed of/read up on beforehand). And that’s before EA’s shut off the activation servers.

And all this does not stop pirates one bit. Oh, it may stop them from accessing online content in the form of creatures from sporepedia, which is fair enough, but it doesn’t stop them from getting and playing the basic game.

This just shows what happens when customers get pissed on in this fashion, and even with the game being downloaded 500000+ times since september 2nd, it still sold 2 million copies. A fair few of those downloads are probably due to people wanting to give EA a virtual punch in the face, but that’d probably still be a fair bit of additional copies sold. Compare that to crysis, which is apparently one of the best-selling PC games according to the article I referred to, which has been pirated 470000+ times since november 2007.

Another article which mentions the same thing I’m mentioning is:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/14/AR2008091400885.html

I’ve said time and time again that I will not be buying their games as long as they insist on having this kind of draconic DRM that the latest versions of SecuROM means. Most people are against online activations and limited number of activations. I’m probably going further than most people, since I’m indignant about the device driver that they also insist on installing, but I hope most people will see just how much of an overtramp this also is.

I can understand it if they don’t see this, however, because doing so requires getting a technical understanding of just what this means for them, whereas most people just never even notice.

Yet.

I’ve come across a pretty good writeup on another site which is fairly close to what I’ve got in my open letter to the gaming industry:

http://talkjack.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/is-drm-killing-pc-games-part-1/
http://talkjack.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/is-drm-killing-pc-games-part-2/
http://talkjack.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/is-drm-killing-pc-games-part-3/

Dear gaming industry,

I’ve been an avid player the last 20 years, but lately the frustrations of being a legal gamer are starting to exceed the pleasures of gaming itself. So much so I’ve even resorted to writing “open letters” about it.

This whole thing began as silly and easily circumvented things such as manual checks (i.e. I had to look things up in the manual, which could be circumvented by making a copy of the manual), to requiring the CD (and later the DVD) disc be in the drive, to start doing things like bad sectors etc, in an ever escalating war against pirates. It started out innocuously enough, but it is starting to go very badly wrong. Some people haven’t been able to use the games they bought because the copy protection was physically incompatible with their drive, for example. I haven’t been one of those, thankfully, but if I had, I would be back in the shops, claiming a refund, be denied one because I’d opened the packaging, swearing, going back home, downloading a crack, and finally play what I’ve paid good money for. And obviously swearing to never buy another game with the same protection system on it.

Lately, however, things have gone from bad to worse. The first I’ve noticed of this was when StarForce got its 15 minutes of fame, and this outraged me by installing a driver in Ring0. It was the first time I’d met a game that actually required I reboot to play after installation, and it wasn’t just limited to full games, oh no. Demos were apparently something you had to protect as well. That just rubs me the wrong way. This made me check with gaming clerks whether or not any games I were considering buying had StarForce on it, and leaving it there if it did.

Apparently after a loud outcry against StarForce, this was replaced by Tages, which also installs a driver, so now I had 2 DRM systems to avoid. And now even SafeDisc and SecuROM (which I previously thought was on-disc protection only) have joined the driver-in-ring0 game.

I believe those 4 represent the vast majority of games released today, and they’re all broken/cracked/whatever within hours or days of release, sometimes even sooner than that. This means that pirates or legal users who are breaking the EULA or just plain stealing, are getting a much better product than legal customers. This is intolerable, and I am hereby announcing that as of today I will not be buying any game with those copy protection systems on it, or any other systems which insist on treating me like a criminal, when I’m being an honest customer. If that means I will not be buying any games for the next 5 years, so be it. This is basically my line in the sand, where I’m saying “this far, but no longer”.

If you absolutely must have some sort of verification that I have actually bought your games, limit it to disc checks. Do not mess with my OS or enforce draconian DRM like online activation and a maximum number of activations pr copy. If I want to play it while offline, it’s my prerogative. If I want to sell the game on after I’m done, it’s my prerogative. It’s my copy, I do what I want with it.

So basically, what StarForce and Spore did (well, in my case, anyway) was trigger a chain reaction which means I will not be buying all the games listed in the following post:

Linky!

And I am not alone. Below is a link to a collection of links which basically say the same as I am, that things have gone too far:

Linky!

Baslically, I don’t represent a lost sale due to piracy, I am a lot worse than that. I represent a lot of lost sales simply because you have pissed me off by treating me worse when I buy your games, than if I had just pirated or cracked your games instead. And you have none other than yourselves to thank for it.

Yours annoyedly,
Jan Martin Mathiassen
Annoyed Ex-Gamebuyer.

This post will be updated continuously as I add more and more articles.

General articles:

• Is DRM killing PC games?
• EA’s new copy protection
• A history of Copy Protection
• The Gamer’s Bill of Rights

Spore uses SecuROM, and requires an internet connection when you install it. It also has an install limit of 3 or 5, depending on when you bought your copy. You may be able to beg your way to another install, but be prepared to be assumed a pirate.

The severity of the copy protection has prompted it to become one of the most pirated games the last few years, simply because it had the DRM it had.

I was going to buy the game, but I’m currently rather glad I didn’t. I will not stand for being treated as a criminal-in-the-making which must be monitored at all times to make sure I don’t use the software in a manner which They ™ don’t approve of.

I’m not alone in being pissed, though. There’s an ongoing lawsuit, for one. I hope they win through, so that maybe EA and other publishing companies can stop infringing on and ruining our computers.

EA is one of those who seem to have invested most heavily in the new version of SecuROM, or at least the most draconic version of it. Games such as Spore have received a lot of favorable reviews for the game itself, but the copy protection’s limits have made people get up in arms and boycotting it.

Basically, it installs a driver in ring 0, and requires that you be online when you do the install. It also has a limit on how many times you can install the game. This was initially 3, but after the major backlash they upped it to 5. And before that, they were talking about requiring you authenticate your copy online every 10 days, or it would stop working. You can get new activations by calling EA, but they will assume you are a pirate.

This is going to be fun in a few years when EA decides to pull down the authentication servers, or you decided to install the game while at a cabin in the mountains, or you’ve had to reinstall your OS 3 or 5 times.

http://doublebuffered.com/2008/05/07/eas-new-copy-protection/

The common working theory these days is that this isn’t implemented to cut down on piracy (since everyone knows that doesn’t work anyway), but to cut down on second-hand sales. I.e. if I buy a game, people will be less inclined to buy the used games from me after I’m done at a reduced price.