Quote:Original post by Kwizatz
PS: I am pretty sure the StarForce "driver" fried a DVDR drive of mine, I think it came with XIII.

Yep, XIII originally came with starforce until it was patched out later on.

Quote:Original post by Kwizatz
Except I do think it works to complain and boycott, DRM is not as bad in XP as it was planned to be, and I think it isn't as bad on Vista either, it got worse, true but not to the level it was originally stated to be.

Peaceful boycotts seldom work unless you already have a large group at your disposel beforehand. Unfortunately, the PC market who purchase games are not the people up in arms, nor are they probably the people who would purchase Mass Effect to begin with. (See my disagreement with Oluseyi on where I see the future of PC games). Also, DRM can seem a lot better if you propose a lot worse DRM. You make people think their getting the better of you while in reality, they are still losing.

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One: FarCry, though honestly I didn't buy it, it came with my GeForce 6800, I didn't buy BioShock because of the same reason I guess I won't be buying Mass Effect either, and that I think is the first game which features limited activations/instalations.

Was it FarCry though or was it the drivers? I know some older CD-Roms had problems with many of the SafeDisc's, SecureRom's, etc., but if you still have a 16x CD-RW as your main disc drive, chances are you're not going to be the target audience for Mass Effect.

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Also: Could it be that the PC market is getting smaller?

Not really. PC games sold almost a billion dollars worth of games at retail stores last year. While it wasn't near the rate of the major consoles, it's still 14% of the market. And that doesn't count digital distribution. Lots of games are being purchased, just few games are hitting that million sold mark. While good for the PC game industry overall, it's bad if you're in the industry of making big budget games where you need to sell 500000 copies to break even.

Quote:Original post by Trapper Zoid
Although this is slightly off-topic, I see this as part of the problem with PC gaming. I don't think I've ever had a top of the line PC. I've always been significantly behind the curve, because I couldn't justify the cost of a machine 50% more expensive just to play games.

These days, I don't particularly see the reason to bother buying a PC for gaming. An 8 year old PC will do everything most people need a computer for except for running the latest flashiest games, and those are nearly all ported to a console anyway. And the casual and quirky indie games which remain the PCs strength tend to run on the lowest spec PCs.

Most of us don't have the greatest machines, but we do have serviceable machines for games. An issue I've brought up in previous threads is that one of the misused complaints people bring up is about not being able to run games. They can run them, just maybe they can't run them with every option set up at ultra high. About 60% of the Steam community theoretically can run Crysis. The biggest thing holding the majority of people who can't back is the graphics card. (And the botique computer makers such as Falcon, Voodoo, etc made almost half a billion last year in sales. Somehow I can't envision selling PC's that can't run todays games.) I think part of the problem is that when you go into Best Buy, you know you can buy an XBox and play the games, but if you try buying a computer, they're trying to sell you a machine with ancient technology. But as you stated, even that PC can do the majority of what you need a computer for anyways. And the casual and quirky indie games will be a reason why PC gaming never dies. As long as people have the ability to create, they will. Regardless of if it's a PC as we view them now, a calculator, or even a wrist watch.

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In truth, I wasn't going to buy Mass Effect for the PC, because I don't have a Windows machine capable of playing it. As soon as I feel I'd like to play those games, I'll get an Xbox 360. I also won't have to worry so much about DRM shenanigans either... at least not yet.

As I've already stated, most likely the DRM shenanigans probably exist to a similar extent. But we've come to accept it on consoles.

Quote:Original post by Nytegard
Was it FarCry though or was it the drivers? I know some older CD-Roms had problems with many of the SafeDisc's, SecureRom's, etc., but if you still have a 16x CD-RW as your main disc drive, chances are you're not going to be the target audience for Mass Effect.

It WAS FarCry or rather its DRM software (can't recall right now what it was), it didn't like the fact I had Alcohol 120% installed and its virtual drive functionality enabled (even though I was NOT running the game from the virtual drive), I ended getting a patched no-cd executable in order to play it.

Quote:Original post by HelplessFool
Yep, XIII originally came with starforce until it was patched out later on.

Yes, though I didn't get it at launch I did get one of the early copies as the box was still one of those big ones from before they standardized the size to be similar to a DVD case, got it in a bargain bin at Office Depot, had no idea about Starforce back then.

Quote:Original post by tstrimp

Quote:Original post by Valderman
You're right of course - it's still as legal as ever. If someone were to suggest changing copyright law here to prohibit cracking your own legally bought games, movies or music, they'd get laughed out of parliament.

Maybe not in Japan, and I'm not sure Canada's stance on it, but it is illegal here in the US (DMCA) as well as the European Union (EU Copyright Directive). Once again, you're not buying the game, just a license to use it.

Oops, my bad, I mean that it's still legal in Sweden (only temporarily living in Japan.) The EU Copyright Directive is cute, but doesn't do anything itself but only requires the member states to implement legislation. Swedish legislation is compliant enough that the EU doesn't care, but is less retarded on some points, this being one of them. There was even talk about prohibiting copy protection measures that prevent consumers from exercising their fair use rights.

As for the "you're just buying a license to use it"-argument, I doubt that would hold up in court back home. Off-the-shelf software falls under copyright law, not contract legislation, and as such, for my own personal use I do whatever I damn well please.

Quote:Original post by nsmadsen
Anyone who says they wouldn't is either a terrible business person or a liar.

DRM pisses customers off and causes bad press, yet does not affect pirates at all. Indeed, it only makes the pirated copies more attractive because of their ease of use. It also costs time and money to develop. Anyone who claims that using draconian copy protection measures make business sense simply doesn't understand anything about piracy.

There is a huge thread on the Mass Effect forums where one of the community mods is trying to quell the copy protection fears. From what I can gather the game does not limit you to 3 installs, only 3 concurrent installs. In other words you can install the game on 3 pc's (Friends, brothers, etc.), but any more and the game wont activate until you remove one of the copies.

My main concern is this part right here though:

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Sure, I have an always-on net connection but what happens if I don't play for 11 days and the moment I want to play my connection is down? Are you saying I'm not going to be able to play my perfectly legitimate purchased copy of the game, even the retail version, until I get permission?

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That is correct. And I would suggest that you contact EA Support the moment this happens (once you get your internet back) to report the issue. If there are people having problems with the system as designed, then Support needs to hear about it so they can help us evaluate it for the next game title.

.

Ugh.

Thinking about this today though, I can see where EA is coming from. You can't play COD4 online without a CD check every time you play, you can't play UT3 without a CD check every time you play, and EA seem be saying "Well we want to use that same system, but instead of doing it every time you play we only need to check once every ten days". They probably thought they were being nice!

On one hand I can see the side EA is trying to take on this and are probably surprised at the reaction this has had seen as every multiplayer game on the PC does this anyway. On the other hand this is a single player game, something that people tend to play without relying on a net connection. People were pissed at the sudden reliance on the internet to activate Half Life 2, so I can see why people would be 10 times more pissed with this method. After reading that thread though I think people are more annoyed with the direction copy protection is heading rather than the situation at hand.

Quote:Original post by Valderman

Quote:Original post by nsmadsen
Anyone who says they wouldn't is either a terrible business person or a liar.

DRM pisses customers off and causes bad press, yet does not affect pirates at all. Indeed, it only makes the pirated copies more attractive because of their ease of use. It also costs time and money to develop. Anyone who claims that using draconian copy protection measures make business sense simply doesn't understand anything about piracy.

The thing is, it makes perfect business sense. Businesses are corperate entities who value their property, be it physical or intellectual, extremely tightly. Regardless of if people are going to not pay for it, it's their property, and they don't want people stealing it. It's similar to any other intellectual property. I can't just go make Super Mario Bros. - GameDev edition, because I don't own that property. (Well, I could, but most likely I'd get a Cease and Desist and be sued if I continued).

The thing about the pirates is that they typically belong to organizations, be it crime syndicates or even state sponsered, and the police are after them on multiple counts, not just for video games. And while they can break the DRM, can you? At least companies are just putting up DRM measures, and not taking a more drastic approach of sueing anyone who downloads a game for thousands of dollars, yet. And DRM will improve, and evolve to a point where it's transparent to us. And while pirates might be able to still crack it, it will get to a point where it's too much effort to distribute it to people as we currently know it.

Quote:Original post by capn_midnight
Actually, I have to agree that pirated copies are "lost sales", though certainly not to the degree that groups like the RIAA claim. I know lots of people who rationalize their piracy as "demoing the product", but I don't know any of them who paid for the product later or got rid of it if they didn't pay. To say, "I pirate because I wouldn't have bought it anyway," is a lie. There are lots of people who pirate because they want something for free, even though they easily have the means to buy the product, and just pull out these arguments as a rationalization to convince themselves they aren't bad people.

Whether pirated copies are lost sales have nothing to do with what the pirates said they would do. Regardless of anyone's rhetoric, not every pirated copy represents the action of an individual who would have purchased the game otherwise. In fact, the vast majority of individuals, unable to pirate a game, will pass on it because - as you point out - they want something for free.

Quote:Original post by Nytegard
I just get somewhat upset when people ask why their 8 year old PC can't run a game, yet don't expect an 8 year old console to run the latest software.

Consoles are discretized, and games are sold to specific consoles. Right there on the box it says that this game is for PlayStation 3; I don't expect it to run on PlayStation 2. Unfortunately, the PC has been a single continuous product for about 20 years, albeit with substantially changed parts and architecture. The PC's emphasis on backward compatibility has built an expectation of it in consumers.

Quote:Original post by Nytegard
Peaceful boycotts seldom work unless you already have a large group at your disposal beforehand.

This is true. The absence of a collective voice means that the concerns of gamers may not be regarded by publishers. However, there is an organization that intends and claims to represent gamers, and I think it should become a focal point for these issues: The Entertainment Consumers Association.

I met Hal Halpin of the ECA at NYCC; I think GameDev can do an editorial special on consumer advocacy in the changing production environment and market. I know they've mostly focused on representation to elected officials (fighting horrible anti-gaming legislation), but I think they can represent the gamer voice to publishers.

Quote:Original post by boolean
There is a huge thread on the Mass Effect forums where one of the community mods is trying to quell the copy protection fears. From what I can gather the game does not limit you to 3 installs, only 3 concurrent installs. In other words you can install the game on 3 pc's (Friends, brothers, etc.), but any more and the game wont activate until you remove one of the copies.

I've skimmed through that thread yesterday, and that was what I was hoping was the case although I didn't see the explicit part that said that. It's the same sort of process that's used in a lot of commercial software, like my Adobe CS3 package (can only be on one desktop and one laptop at a time). I didn't see any mention of the process for deactivation though, which I'm concerned about

Quote:My main concern is this part right here though:

Quote:
Sure, I have an always-on net connection but what happens if I don't play for 11 days and the moment I want to play my connection is down? Are you saying I'm not going to be able to play my perfectly legitimate purchased copy of the game, even the retail version, until I get permission?

Quote:
That is correct. And I would suggest that you contact EA Support the moment this happens (once you get your internet back) to report the issue. If there are people having problems with the system as designed, then Support needs to hear about it so they can help us evaluate it for the next game title.

.

Ugh.

I'm hoping the rep was meaning that if the system crashes and burns they'd be seriously evaluating relaxing that requirement.

Quote:Thinking about this today though, I can see where EA is coming from. You can't play COD4 online without a CD check every time you play, you can't play UT3 without a CD check every time you play, and EA seem be saying "Well we want to use that same system, but instead of doing it every time you play we only need to check once every ten days". They probably thought they were being nice!

On one hand I can see the side EA is trying to take on this and are probably surprised at the reaction this has had seen as every multiplayer game on the PC does this anyway. On the other hand this is a single player game, something that people tend to play without relying on a net connection. People were pissed at the sudden reliance on the internet to activate Half Life 2, so I can see why people would be 10 times more pissed with this method. After reading that thread though I think people are more annoyed with the direction copy protection is heading rather than the situation at hand.

I agree; for me it's far more about the philosophy of the thing. I wouldn't mind in the least if a game checks authorisation every time it needed to connect to their server for a valid reason; playing multiplayer or searching for game updates, for example. It's more the philosophy that a single player game needs to keep on being revalidated in case they find you've been naughty that sticks in my throat.