Video Game Without DRM Has Piracy Rates About The Same As DRM'd Games
from the so-why-bother? dept
Reader SteveD sent in this story a week ago, but I just got around to looking at the details. Apparently the makers of the video game World of Goo, which (as mentioned) was released without DRM, have roughly calculated the rate of piracy on the game to be about 90%. The calculation is certainly a rough one, and people can quibble with the number, but the basic reasoning seems sound. A lot of folks focused on that 90% number, but didn't pay as much attention to the more important comparison: how this compared to a DRM'd game. The game makers noted that it had almost no difference compared to another game released with DRM, showing that adding the DRM did absolutely nothing to prevent piracy. So why do video game companies keep insisting they need DRM?Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: drm, piracy, world of goo
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All of which are lousy, and not worth having.
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Name one that is as secure as promised, does not get in the way of a good consumer experience, and does not cause technical support problems.
I'm easy; I will accept any two of the three as a challenge met.
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Well played, sir. Hilarious.
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Yes, there are lots of different types of DRM. However, all types of DRM are fundamentally broken. In fact, it is provably impossible to implement an "unbreakable" DRM scheme, based on a simple fact:
You can encode the data all you want, but in order for a 'legitimate' user to be able to view the data they have to have way to decode the data. This means on any disc, you must provide encoded data along with a key to decode that data. There is no way to provide the key in a way such that someone who wants to make illegitimate copies can't access it. You can make it a little bit harder, but see all versions of "unbreakable" DRM get broken in a few months.
DRM is fundamentally broken, from a cryptographic point of view. A complete waste of time, money, and the goodwill of your customers.
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It could be that they are not just ignorant, but down right malicious and are doing it on purpose to try to stifle the second hand market. Stupidly anti-customer, or purposefully anti-customer.
The short answer of my first post for why they keep doing it, one way or the other: Money. I did not mean in any way to state that the stupid anti-customer reason was the specific reason Mike "knew". There are many possibilities, but it all boils down to money.
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Out of all the DRMs I've seen, Steam is by far the best. You don't need to pay for the packaging, the purchase is instant and you can download the games within an hour and be playing. They also did a few studies by dropping the prices of their most popular games a dramatic amount. Counter-Strike: Source is probably one of the most recognizable names of a PC game that's still played today, and they lowered the price 70%. In that one day, they sold more than 7 times the number of copies they sold during the first 2 weeks it came out when it was $20, making more than 2x the money in a fourteenth of the time.
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Because
I have been reading the blog long enough to know you know the answer, but to state it as I see it:
Because the people selling DRM are like "Look it will increase profits because our product can stop piracy!".
And the game makers simply see increased profits and pour money at them to add as much DRM as they want, consequences be damned.
Meanwhile plenty of legitimate buyers are hurt and tech support ends up temporarily flooded with people upset over why their game won't work when they just bought it.
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DRM encourages piracy
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Re: DRM encourages piracy
The server been offline for a week and i couldnt play. 60$ F. useless bucks.
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OTOH
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DRM encourages piracy
I guess if you want to be honest these days, you pay for the product, throw the disk away and download and use the improved pirated version.
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piracy is too easy
I'm not sure what could happen, but something needs to happen to show the people who are choosing to develop DRM that DRM isn't making a difference, and it never will.
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Re: piracy is too easy
Sure this one case in isolation does not prove anything, but as more come to light then together they can prove something statically significant.
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Stop the pirating
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Re: Stop the pirating
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Re: Stop the pirating
WOW is pay to play because it's an MMORPG where you are connecting to their servers. You can play it for free on other servers. Is Blizzard going after them? No, because the so called piracy helps WOW by getting people interested in the game.
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Arrr Matey!
I have reason to believe this is actually being engineered, maybe by the MPAA/RIAA.
How nuts can they get?
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Re: Arrr Matey!
When Bush says he "watched the issue all day on TV", I want to know who was in the room with him.
The freaking Auto Industry is melting down and he's interested in pirates?
Again, how nuts can these people get?
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Re: Re: Arrr Matey!
Your ability to link things together is amazing. I'll keep an eye on it, and having recently moved, I send a letter to my current and former congressional leadership.
It seems the simple answer may be to limit any legislation to crimes performed on WATER, and this should be written into any pending legislation.
Thanks for the heads up!
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Re: Re: Arrr Matey!
Your ability to link things together is amazing. I'll keep an eye on it, and having recently moved, I'll send a letter to my current and former congressional leadership.
It seems the simple answer may be to limit any legislation to crimes performed on WATER, and this should be written into any pending legislation.
Thanks for the heads up!
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Re: Re: Re: Arrr Matey!
This may seem obvious to some, but it nonetheless made me laugh.. Until I searched for the PIRATE act of 2004.
Oh boy. Writing Congress now.
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Re: Arrr Matey!
DRM has nothing to do with fighting piracy i'ts just another attempt to squeeze every last penny out of a product that honest people purchase.
Frankly, I'm more likely to play a pirated DRM game that I would have purchased had it been equiped with standard copy protection.
I'm tired of being milked, I want some value added services, and the companies that offer it to me are the ones that will get my money, even if it mean I have to bypass the lasted EA game.
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DRM doesn't increase marketshare. Just Control.
But as knowledge of these DRM systems are disseminated, and human capital costs plummet, more people will find time to explore and learn about systems for fun if nothing else.
As long as the system is generated by humans, humans will be able to subvert it. There will always be a way around DRM.
Perhaps the only value DRM provides is that of the short-lived gymnastism provided by the Streisand Effect (No offense, Mike, but I like to call it an attention "Bubble")
Ergo, as more systems and games implement DRM and it becomes mainstream, games, media and the like may depend on DRM for the unintended Streisand Effect. But, understand this attention quickly fades for those that truly focus on innovation as their core competency. EA had 7 years of dev work into Spore. Great job, btw.
But at the end of the day, as properly described by Mike and SteveD in the article, the game will ultimately be judged on it's merits and playability factors. With or without DRM.
As I watch these marionettes- (EA, Sega, and the like) Play with DRM, I either have to congratulate EA's Marketing team for their use of the Streisand Effect and one-shot chance for throwing questionably into the entire gaming industry's implementation of DRM, or disown them as a company who makes poor management decisions on the back of their pursuit for 3-5% market share increase.
On another tangent, why are we not talking about the new Zune strategy these days? When you sign up for their upcoming service, you get 10 MP3s per month... I think Microsoft finally gets it, in one way or another. GREAT JOB, MICROSOFT!
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Yeah, some of them work..... just not sure which ones. I think the 'pirates' just see it as a challenge as it gives them something to do.
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Yah, no they don't.
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Because they are fucking STUPID!
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Bioshock 2 DRM discussion thread
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Re: Bioshock 2 DRM discussion thread
headkase wrote:
There is nothing to discuss, and it is irrelevant whether they are "listening" or not. DRM doesn't work. Nothing will change that fact. You don't negotiate with market forces; your only choices are 1) annoy your customers and drive yourself out of business; 2) try to find some way of accommodating your customers and staying in business; 3) go find some other business to be in.
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Re: Re: Bioshock 2 DRM discussion thread
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Re: Re: Bioshock 2 DRM discussion thread
There is nothing to discuss, and it is irrelevant whether they are "listening" or not. DRM doesn't work. Nothing will change that fact. You don't negotiate with market forces; your only choices are 1) annoy your customers and drive yourself out of business; 2) try to find some way of accommodating your customers and staying in business; 3) go find some other business to be in.
headkase responds:
As I wrote in the get off your butt and post some comments reply which I forgot to put my name in for, instead of being indignant about it and expecting the world to come around to your personal viewpoint just because its the right thing to do why don't you join 2K's forum write some rational and persuasive posts filled with - you know: reasoning, and be part of the market forces you seem to hold in such high esteem? Hmm?
The market is patient. I'm not. So I started a thread. Please join me.
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Fixed link.
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24507
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82%
There are a whole lot of things 2D Boy did right in launching this game, focusing on the reasons they could give customers to pay for their products rather then ways of forcing them too, lessons any publisher should be learning from.
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DRM is bad
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