Running paralel to our disillusionment with the Game industry and DRM enforcement, is the movie industry.
Here are news detailing how SlySoft, makers of DRM-striping tools for DVD backup, cracked the strongest layer of BlueRay protection.
The CEO of the company states that he fails to understand why corporations don't "get it" that adding these layers of DRM only devalue the product, resulting in less sales. Always good to hear a CEO saying this. Here's the link:
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/10/30/blu-ray-bd-cracked
I MIGHT go back to Piracy...
Quote:Original post by RagharHuh? Countries with more software pirates have more creative populations? Got anything to back that up? Further, anything that demonstrates it's actually related?Quote:Original post by Yann LWhy unfortunately? Countries where quite a lot of people pirate, are also countries that have larger creativity of population.
A cultural thing, maybe. Over here, piracy is unfortunately considered largely legitimate by average people, who don't have the slightest problem pirating stuff in public, at the workplace, whereever.
Quote:Original post by Prozak
Under the new service you have a set time period where you can download your game, default seems to be 6 months, if you pay the extra 4$ you can up that to 2 years.
Wow. That is so wrong. I'm anticipating EA game CD/DVD's that self destruct in 6 months.
Quote:Original post by grizzlebee
Wow. That is so wrong. I'm anticipating EA game CD/DVD's that self destruct in 6 months.
That would be awesome. They should do that with the next 007 game...
Author
Well, here's an update to this unending saga that is trying to actually spend our hard earned money on games.
I'm a big fan of Supreme Commander, and play it regularly. As some of you might know, the expansion has just been released, SC: Forged Alliance.
So, here I am, trying to buy it, and I just can't. It's out today (the 23rd Nov) in Europe, but, for some reason, no stores have it yet here in Portugal, but I guess that isn't the Publisher fault (or is it?).
Having failed at buying it on a store, I go to Direct 2 Drive, where I'm sure I'll get my money's worth, but lo and behold, D2D denies my purchase, saying I come from an "Invalid Country" !
When will publishers/developers/distributors stop this zoning crap? I know there are logistical issues when releasing a game globally, but we're talking about the internet here, why limit online sales?
So again, we come to that cliché that is becoming established, people that pirate games not only get a superior product most of the time (no DRM), but also get it first than people willing to pay for it.
Go figure...
A revolution is in order!
I'm a big fan of Supreme Commander, and play it regularly. As some of you might know, the expansion has just been released, SC: Forged Alliance.
So, here I am, trying to buy it, and I just can't. It's out today (the 23rd Nov) in Europe, but, for some reason, no stores have it yet here in Portugal, but I guess that isn't the Publisher fault (or is it?).
Having failed at buying it on a store, I go to Direct 2 Drive, where I'm sure I'll get my money's worth, but lo and behold, D2D denies my purchase, saying I come from an "Invalid Country" !
When will publishers/developers/distributors stop this zoning crap? I know there are logistical issues when releasing a game globally, but we're talking about the internet here, why limit online sales?
So again, we come to that cliché that is becoming established, people that pirate games not only get a superior product most of the time (no DRM), but also get it first than people willing to pay for it.
Go figure...
A revolution is in order!
you know, I have some sympathy for the concept of DRM. IF I spent 5 years and $40million developing (for example) Half-life 2, I'd like to se some return on that. So I don't have a problem with Steam. Ok you need broadband to set it up, but once it's done you can always play SP offline. I don't even have a problem with them charging less in russia or thailand. Those economies simply will not support paying $50 us for a game. And frankly, I love the fact that I paid $50US (~$75-80 NZ) for the orange box when it retails for NZ$100 over here.
Which brings me to EA/Crysis. I was really looking forward to Crysis (demo was shiny and fun). I had a similar experience to Prozak: I went to EA's download page, I saw the ridiculous "extended download option" and it annoyed me, but it wasn't a game breaker. So I went to buy the game, only to be re-directed to EA's New Zealand website WHICH DOESN'T WORK!! so I figured I'd jump on their Aussie website, and lo-and-behold there's Crysis for $99 AU (~$70-80 US or ~$110NZ)!
So let me get this straight. I'm expected to pay 150% what a customer in the US is expected to pay despite the fact that I'm in a poorer economy (ok NZ and Australia aren't exactly 3rd world, but we still don't earn as much as US/Europe). I can appreciate that a retail box costs more (shipping, etc) but a download?? and one I can only download once? Sorry, EA, I'll save my money for the next release on Steam.
Which brings me to EA/Crysis. I was really looking forward to Crysis (demo was shiny and fun). I had a similar experience to Prozak: I went to EA's download page, I saw the ridiculous "extended download option" and it annoyed me, but it wasn't a game breaker. So I went to buy the game, only to be re-directed to EA's New Zealand website WHICH DOESN'T WORK!! so I figured I'd jump on their Aussie website, and lo-and-behold there's Crysis for $99 AU (~$70-80 US or ~$110NZ)!
So let me get this straight. I'm expected to pay 150% what a customer in the US is expected to pay despite the fact that I'm in a poorer economy (ok NZ and Australia aren't exactly 3rd world, but we still don't earn as much as US/Europe). I can appreciate that a retail box costs more (shipping, etc) but a download?? and one I can only download once? Sorry, EA, I'll save my money for the next release on Steam.
How about plain old CD checks? WHy do they still do that? It's so annoynig! People who pay for the game have to keep it around whenever they want to play it, and people who don't will have a crack anyway.
Quote:Original post by Prozak
Industry hear my plea, I have no problem spending my hard earned money in your products, but please do make it worthwhile for me, don't make it so people who are pirating your software are the ones having the superior experience!
I think that as long as publishers can get away with it they will continue to do so. Consumers need to put more preassure on them and just like when buying ecological food people need to start buy games that do have a good experience. If you buy a game and read its EULA and realize it goes against your ethics, if it says you should return the game then do return it.
I don't know if anyone of you followed it but there once was a campaign for cheaper games, The Fairplay Campaign. The method suggested there to get reduced game price was to boycott buying games some week or so when it would hurt the industry the most(nearby Christmas) to show they actually need the players, and of course that their prices are too high.
A funny example how weird it all is, is when I installed Neverwinter Nights2 the EULA told me that I was allowed to make 1 backup copy of the game if I was in a country where that was allowed by law. Still the game has copy-protection system so to actually make my allowed backup copy, I would have to get rid of the copy protection which is something the EULA forbids.
Quote:Original post by Ranor
A funny example how weird it all is, is when I installed Neverwinter Nights2 the EULA told me that I was allowed to make 1 backup copy of the game if I was in a country where that was allowed by law. Still the game has copy-protection system so to actually make my allowed backup copy, I would have to get rid of the copy protection which is something the EULA forbids.
In which case you should contact the distributor and demand an extra cd for the back-up copy. Legally they can't refuse.
Quote:Original post by Prozak
So, here I am, trying to buy it, and I just can't. It's out today (the 23rd Nov) in Europe, but, for some reason, no stores have it yet here in Portugal, but I guess that isn't the Publisher fault (or is it?).
Wait week or two. They might get it. It's actually fun to discover when they would get it available, if ever. People often download the game, and then buy it when it becomes available, if they are in your situation. (It could actually end in unopened box, while the player would play the pirated game. Thought there are often bonuses, so it might be interesting to actually check the box, when someone went through such effort to obtain it.)
Quote:Having failed at buying it on a store, I go to Direct 2 Drive, where I'm sure I'll get my money's worth, but lo and behold, D2D denies my purchase, saying I come from an "Invalid Country" !
I seen similar message from PayPal. Funny.
Exclusivity of movies when there is Internet is quite outdated behavior. What they did is similar, however they did it because they can. Force your country into MUCH less restrictive copyright laws, and things would be less problematic.
Quote:So again, we come to that cliché that is becoming established, people that pirate games not only get a superior product most of the time (no DRM), but also get it first than people willing to pay for it.
Yes laws that protecting restrictions on OS and computer usage without knowledge of user would make use of computers more difficult, and could result in something very similar as 24 hours monitoring of the user.
Actually people that are trying to get around restrictions to use theirs own software license (DRM) are forced to use properly updated antivirus. Common users "are not" forced into such inconvenience as antivirus. ~_%
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