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Original post by Dalimyr
Since Blizzard merged with Activision, that's not a surprise :p:
Ubisoft tend to be completely idiotic with their DRM methods as well. There are still some titles of theirs which have that stupid 'Must be connected to the internet at all times even when playing single-player' DRM. Although it was patched out of some games (notably their biggest titles such as Assassin's Creed 2 and Splinter Cell: Conviction), it hasn't been removed from all games. This is hands-down the most idiotic ****ing DRM ever conceived and anyone with any common sense agrees that it actually encourages piracy rather than preventing it because pirated copies can be played even if your internet connection's a bit dodgy or (as happened in March last year) Ubisoft's authentication servers crash :rolleyes:


Yeah, just noticed I missed Ubisoft, some of their is dreadful too. Activision used to be ok, but they got their heads in the clouds with the success of COD, and are now swiftly going the way of EA. (and lets be honest, EA is a bit of a shadow of its former self)
I've not heard of THQ making any horrid DRM.

Ubisoft's DRM servers crashed the day Assassin's Creed came out (it was either AC2 or brotherhood) and I think it cost them a lot of sales (certainly it was easy to get "pre-owned" copies the next day!) because no one could actually register and use their game. Theirs was an always-online DRM.

Didn't stop the pirates though! I know of someone who was playing a pirated copy that first day, when none of the legitimate buyers could!


anyway, I'm not buying Diablo3 now. I wanted it a lot, loved the Diablo series, but that DRM has literally been enough to make me decide not to. There are enough clones now anyway, I'll just get Torchlight2 instead.

Indie games never have horrid DRM, maybe it's because they're not afraid of anyone putting in the effort to pirate them, or maybe it's that small games companies are appreciative of every fan they have. I've really grown to love the indie market over the last year or so, I get far more hours out of indie games than AAA titles and for much less cost!




It is so trivially obvious to anyone who's studied economics though; the demand for an expensive, legitimate game will be reduced by the market presence of a free, pirated game that is in fact a better product!

The only weapon developers have against pirating is brand loyalty, the willingness of players to buy the real article because they like the company. Fascist DRM demolishes brand loyalty!


Edit: So, watched threads is telling me that one of my posts was removed and recycle-binned, but I can't seem to find which one.
(edited 12 years ago)
Original post by The Mr Z
It is so trivially obvious to anyone who's studied economics though; the demand for an expensive, legitimate game will be reduced by the market presence of a free, pirated game that is in fact a better product!


You don't need to have studied economics for that to be obvious! :tongue:
Original post by Tathrim
Shogun. Do it. :biggrin:




Was kinda expecting that. ;p The demo seemed sorta decent but I can't imagine I'd like the full thing enough to play it more than Medieval 2/Rome, because those two are just ****ing better (especially if you include some of the mods for them) than the rest. I do kinda wanna find my disc of the original Shogun though.



WARRIOR MONKS AIN'T NOTHING TO **** WITH.


> : Z
Reply 143
Original post by concubine
Was kinda expecting that. ;p The demo seemed sorta decent but I can't imagine I'd like the full thing enough to play it more than Medieval 2/Rome, because those two are just ****ing better (especially if you include some of the mods for them) than the rest. I do kinda wanna find my disc of the original Shogun though.



WARRIOR MONKS AIN'T NOTHING TO **** WITH.


> : Z


Note the absence of a number 2. I meant the first title. :smile:

In other genres, what about Bastion? It's.... different.
Original post by Dalimyr

Original post by Dalimyr
But that doesn't mean they're perfect. Far from it, I think the best anti-piracy measures are ones that cause deliberate bugs in the game that break the game for the pirates while people who got the game legitimately play it in peace.


DRM is the absolute worst way to try and combat piracy. Companies should be trying to reward people who legitimately purchase their products, not punish those who don't.
Original post by Jace Falco
You don't need to have studied economics for that to be obvious! :tongue:


Actually, true that! :biggrin:

Original post by Phalanges
DRM is the absolute worst way to try and combat piracy. Companies should be trying to reward people who legitimately purchase their products, not punish those who don't.


Well, either of those. Just not punish those who do legitimately purchase and reward those who don't! Which is what DRM does.
Original post by The Mr Z

Original post by The Mr Z
Well, either of those.


I disagree, they shouldn't be viewed as the same. If you only have time to focus on one as a company (and are in all likelihood never going to eradicate piracy anyway), then you should damn well focus on making the people who are giving you money have the best possible experience from your product.
Original post by Phalanges
I disagree, they shouldn't be viewed as the same. If you only have time to focus on one as a company (and are in all likelihood never going to eradicate piracy anyway), then you should damn well focus on making the people who are giving you money have the best possible experience from your product.


Oh no, I agree, I just meant that either approach would be an improvement on DRM that punishes those who purchase legitimately and rewards those who pirate. Baby steps.

Or, of course, just make them all adopt the steam model.
Any good free fps games?
Original post by blueray
Any good free fps games?

Quake Live, Battlefield Heroes (although it's 3rd person), Combat Arms, Battlefield Play4Free.

Although I'd recommend just coming up with a few quid and buying Team Fortress 2. It's more than worth it.
Original post by The Mr Z

Original post by The Mr Z
Oh no, I agree, I just meant that either approach would be an improvement on DRM that punishes those who purchase legitimately and rewards those who pirate. Baby steps.

Or, of course, just make them all adopt the steam model.


Look on the bright side, at least currently you don't have to sit through an unskippable anti-piracy advert every time you load up a game, unlike DVDs. That remains one of the most patronising and frustrating anti-piracy methods I have ever seen, literally no justification to buy something if I'm then going to lectured and threatened about something I haven't done. It would be like a waiter in a restaurant putting down your main courses and saying "By the way, if you dine and dash I will cut you!"
Original post by Phalanges
Look on the bright side, at least currently you don't have to sit through an unskippable anti-piracy advert every time you load up a game, unlike DVDs. That remains one of the most patronising and frustrating anti-piracy methods I have ever seen, literally no justification to buy something if I'm then going to lectured and threatened about something I haven't done. It would be like a waiter in a restaurant putting down your main courses and saying "By the way, if you dine and dash I will cut you!"


more like paying the bill and him then saying that.

DVDs are dreadful, but on some of them you can actually get around it by going to the root menu.

DRM is worse than those however, at least I can simply ignore those patronising things by reading a the newspaper for a second, or switching over to the TV, DRM requires you to go jump through their hoops!
Original post by Phalanges
I disagree, they shouldn't be viewed as the same. If you only have time to focus on one as a company (and are in all likelihood never going to eradicate piracy anyway), then you should damn well focus on making the people who are giving you money have the best possible experience from your product.


I agree. What BioWare did with Mass Effect 2, providing a code to those who paid for the game which gave access to free DLC and the Cerberus store to be able to get the future DLC was a small step in this direction. Not a great one, but at least better than the Ubisoft approach.
Original post by Jace Falco
I agree. What BioWare did with Mass Effect 2, providing a code to those who paid for the game which gave access to free DLC and the Cerberus store to be able to get the future DLC was a small step in this direction. Not a great one, but at least better than the Ubisoft approach.


That was never intended as an anti-piracy measure, that was anti-second hand games. Cerberus network, aka EA's "project $10", was designed to squeeze more money out of second-hand buyers for the fact that EA don't get money from second hand purchasers. They do it with almost all their games now.

I bought ME2 first hand, so it doesn't bother me, but we shouldn't be pretending that was free DLC or anything.
All of the extra content for ME2 was created before release, and all the DLC was in part already on the game-disk. All the assets were already there, EA was withholding a substantial part of our game from us.
In other games the unlocks are entirely contained within the disk, whole modes are greyed out unless you fork out that extra money.

and frankly, second-hand resale is a completely legitimate form of purchase.
Reply 154
Been playing Bulletstorm... That game is so much fun :yep:

The dick jokes get really annoying though...
Original post by Spiderman
Hey guys,

I've recently had Red Faction: Guerilla bought for me, but having installed it have found that it's far too laggy to play reasonably. I figured it'd be no problem as I could trade it in if I had to, but have found that I'm not able to do that because the anti-piracy thing it has prevents it from ever being installed on more than one computer!

My question is this: Is there literally nothing I can do with this game now except either throw it away or keep it for years incase I eventually upgrade?


You could try trading it in digitally on Green Man Gaming, and receive pittance. Or just upgrade your ****.
Original post by blueray
Any good free fps games?


Team Fortress 2 is now free, but is it really that hard for you to cough up a couple of quid for **** like BF2, CSS and Day of Defeat? (Which happen to be like the best online FPS games ever)
Original post by Rishabh95
EA trying to advertise for their own shop. ORIGIN.

Personally I think Steam is better. never tried Origin TBH.


Are you trolling or did you just actually admit to not trying both but just saying one is better.
Original post by JohnFarrell
Are you trolling or did you just actually admit to not trying both but just saying one is better.


It's EA, you can easily assume Steam is better
Original post by JohnFarrell
Are you trolling or did you just actually admit to not trying both but just saying one is better.


To be fair, it's going to be very hard for anyone to do a better job with a digital content delivery platform than Valve has with Steam, and even if Origin does turn out to be good, people won't switch to it because they have too much invested in Steam - because Valve has done such a good job with it.

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