If Ubisoft's financials are any indication, the amount of gamers passing on the game due to bad DRM is higher than you think, and the amount of pirates legitimately buying the game is much smaller.
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Rumor: Grand Theft Auto V will use additional DRM on PC (Steam + Denuvo)
- Thread starter crimsonheadGCN
- Start date
If Ubisoft's financials are any indication, the amount of gamers passing on the game due to bad DRM is higher than you think, and the amount of pirates legitimately buying the game is much smaller.
Pathfinder
Member
There will always be piracy, no matter what. It doesn't matter how good the game is.
That's not a realistic solution.
come on. DRM on top of DRM? why are people still defending this shit in 2014? it's a backwards ass caveman attitude
CecilRousso
Member
No activation limits is essential. Is there any source for this, because I haven't been able find any such information myself. If I'm to accept a DRM, I want to know the terms I'm accepting. "You probably won't notice it at all...." isn't good enough for me.
Also, aren't all Ubi Soft games cracked within a week of release anyway?
Bananajama
Banned
Pass - we all know there will be a cracked copy within a month as it's that popular so why punish the honest
Pathfinder
Member
What would be your solution to combat rampant PC software piracy then?
Source? Ask anybody who owns FIFA15 or Lords of the Fallen, the community at large didn't know this DRM existed until earlier today. But yeah, no need to rush to accept anything just yet, just this DRM seems inherently better than those others based on the games that use it.
Assassins Creed 2 took 2 months to crack, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory took over 440 days. They started to relax to DRM later during last gen after UPlay came out.
Piracy has to go. It has to.
In a large sea of consumers, if pirates and pirating are allowed to flourish, then it's the small devs who are most vulnerable, as they can't afford expensive DRM or the loss of 1000's of sales. For small devs every penny counts.
So if Rockstar and other companies want to thwart this menace and do a good job of it, these services will become successful and expand to the smaller dev market helping all game developers survive.
It's a waste of breath to argue on though as a pirate will defend his right to pillage. It's what he / she is, it's what he / she does.
I don't "like" DRM but I'll support it if it stops pirating. I don't think DRM is the solution but it's certainly a solution. I still think the best solution is knowing your markets cost tipping point and catering to it. If a pirate only has 1 dabloon to spend, only charge him 1 dabloon.
In a large sea of consumers, if pirates and pirating are allowed to flourish, then it's the small devs who are most vulnerable, as they can't afford expensive DRM or the loss of 1000's of sales. For small devs every penny counts.
So if Rockstar and other companies want to thwart this menace and do a good job of it, these services will become successful and expand to the smaller dev market helping all game developers survive.
It's a waste of breath to argue on though as a pirate will defend his right to pillage. It's what he / she is, it's what he / she does.
I don't "like" DRM but I'll support it if it stops pirating. I don't think DRM is the solution but it's certainly a solution. I still think the best solution is knowing your markets cost tipping point and catering to it. If a pirate only has 1 dabloon to spend, only charge him 1 dabloon.
Make buying the software more enjoyable then pirating it. Which Steam has done a good job of so far.
GrizzleBoy
Banned
Publishers dont put games on steam for the weak drm protection it provides, they do it for market visibility. Games on steam sell well. Publishers want their software to sell well. Its a no brainer.
However, if you have a huge release like GTA that effortlessly sells millions at a time whenever its released, even a small percentage of pirated copies adds up very easily and thyll of course want to look into minimising that as best they can.
Like I noted before, if we use a conservative figure like only 1,000,000 people on PC get the game and only 1% (10,000) where a minority portion of pirates who just cant wait for a crack if the drm holds up, thats around £500,000 they wouldnt have been able to earn if they used the easily cracked steam drm.
If we assume that more than one million on pc end up wanting the game, which I think we can, then the reward for this risk continues to be more lucrative.
Fixed
It's not like DRM is a new concept. It has been used in software for decades. It has never stopped piracy before and it is naive to think it will do so now. All it ever does is cause problem for legitimate consumers. This has been proven again and again. As you say, resonable pricing is the way to go in my opinion. Markets with rampant piracy are usually markets where consumers have lower income. Price items at a level that is actually attainable for these consumers and they most likely will buy games instead of resorting to piracy. Heck, charge me two dollars more for my games and use this to subsidise the pricing in poorer countries.
Pathfinder
Member
That's not going to stop people from pirating. People will pirate because they can, it has nothing to do with how enjoyable a product is.
cripterion
Member
I take it you buy no games on Steam or on consoles then?
I don't care if they introduce DRM as long as it doesn't fuck with my experience while playing the game or having it installed on my pc.
The fact of the matter is that as long as you have software running on people's PCs you will never stop piracy. To think otherwise is just fooling yourself. So until we get to the day when you are just streaming your games off a server piracy is going to be around and DRM is at best delaying the inevitable and at worst inconveniencing those who paid for it already.
I also disagree with the idea that the only way to stop pirate is with a stick. For example Steams auto updating doesn't sounds like a big feature, but it is one of the reasons I don't even consider piracy anymore. After all who wants to go back to the days when you would want to install an update to a game you pirated, but if you did you would need to find a new crack which would lead you to some pretty shady websites. That is not even mentioning that if the game you pirated was pretty niche you may not even be able to find a crack for it and would be stuck with buggy software. And that is only one way in which Steam has made actually buying the game better then pirating it.
alexandros
Banned
Some form of drm is a necessity in today's market, be it hardware-based like game consoles or software-based like Steam. As long as said system isn't intrusive, doesn't cause problems for legitimate buyers and doesn't impose arbitrary restrictions like always online or limited activations, I have zero problems with it. If it is actually effective and causes more people to buy games, even better. So for the time being there is no reason for concern, given that we haven't had any negative reports from the games already using it. I sympathize with the DRM-free cause but it is not realistic to expect it to become reality anytime soon.
KCroxtonJr
Member
That rape mod must have really scared Rockstar....Mods and ENB were a huge reason I wanted to get this on PC, hope this doesn't totally fuck things up :/
While I agree that it is too early for people to call this the worst DRM yet, you will have to excuse me if I don't find much comfort in people saying that this new DRM has been in two whole games and around for a a little over a month and there are no problems so it's fine. As I remember people saying similar things about other DRMs that blue screened my PC or prevented legitimate software from running.
The Janitor
Member
Uh.. no. DRM doesn't stop piracy.
Focusing on attracting costumers is gonna give you more sales than focusing on stopping pirates.
It doesn't stop it, but if it delays it long enough to give them more sales, then it's done its job.
CecilRousso
Member
Yeah, source for the information that there are no activation limits. I haven't found anything about it, and that the FIFA15 and LOTF players haven't noticed any yet is no real indication that there aren't any.
If they are to use DRM like this, they must inform us about such details.
iNvid02
Member
FIFA 15 and Lords of the fallen, both remain uncracked (not 100% on the last one) and use this DRM. For FIFA its been over a month which is impressive.
I think the approach will be "just dont publicize we use it" because having played FIFA regularly, it really is an invisible system. No idea if it causes performance issues though.
I think it will eventually be broken, but obviously the pubs think the time it buys them in the important launch period is worth the investment.
I disagree, every other DRM except Steam has the most intrusive DRM.
Used to think Steam DRM is actually the worse DRM, but found that Steam is more of a boon than a bane (as I started using Steam Client; it has so many perks on the foreground).
Obviously the best DRM is no DRM, but Steam comes next after No DRM in my list..
On the other hand, at least for LOTF, the DRM has been obfuscated. JShackles points to a very brief sentence that suggests there is something there, but no mention of it is made anywhere else, like most games available.
It really is going to dependant on how it functions, if it causes any issues with the game, if it imparts any restrictions on the game (installs, offline play etc), performance issues etc. Indeed there simply isn't enough information at the moment to really make a conclusion on it, other than to be suspicious due the the legacy of sercuROM
The Janitor
Member
So then why don't they patch it out after it's been cracked?
UnrealEck
Member
If EA's logo is on there I can guess that Dragon Age will be using it too.
People are saying this DRM is causing problems with performance and stability in Lord of the Fallen. Not sure how they can determine that though without some sort of error message relating to the DRM or some sort of debugging.
People are saying this DRM is causing problems with performance and stability in Lord of the Fallen. Not sure how they can determine that though without some sort of error message relating to the DRM or some sort of debugging.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
Pretty much my attitude as well. DRM exists, and I've come to terms with that. All I ask is that it function well. If it doesn't...well, vote with your wallet.
dark_inferno
Member
It better should affect your buying decision. Or else they wont learn a thing and next thing we see is Uplay + Steam + 5 other DRMs in one fucking game.
Because the effort to patch it out costs more than the sales it would generate? Also, them patching it out would publicly acknowledge there's a crack out for the game which could cost them more sales.
CecilRousso
Member
It's pretty much also the only form that actually gives something (read: a lot) back to the user for accepting the DRM.
this would be super depressing if true
DryvBy
Member
The thing is, it doesn't. There's pirate groups that put out games under "Day 0" meaning that they're patched without DRM and ready to go before the game is even released.
CadetMahoney
Member
how big of a problem is piracy on PC?
Really? Point me to somewhere I can download FIFA 15 or Lords of the Fallen cracked. You can't because it doesn't exist. In this case, the DRM has worked.
civilstrife
Member
Not to defend piracy, but it is not at all like stealing from a store. Or it is, if the store sells infinitely replicable code.
Real talk, this is going to be the worst for multiplayer.
I can't imagine if the servers go down, or the DRM servers start getting fickle, all hell will break loose.
With GTA IV, after GFWL went defunct- it was impossible to update it even after being prompted, the online fell apart, and hell- I didn't even sign into Social Club just to get it to start.
In the words of Trevor, "THINGS COULD GET REALLY MESSY."
I can't imagine if the servers go down, or the DRM servers start getting fickle, all hell will break loose.
With GTA IV, after GFWL went defunct- it was impossible to update it even after being prompted, the online fell apart, and hell- I didn't even sign into Social Club just to get it to start.
In the words of Trevor, "THINGS COULD GET REALLY MESSY."
dark_inferno
Member
Well now since we have Steam sales,indie bundles and russian key traders we have less pirates than before steam sales.
The Janitor
Member
How do you know that? Are there any stats that show DRM sells more copies? Because I think those stats would show the opposite
Gangxxter
Member
Well that sucks. R* and their stupid way to use three different DRM systems at once is so bullshit. In GTA IV it was GfWL, SecuRom and R*SC. Now it's Steam, Denuvo and R*SC.
I thought this stupid stuff was a thing from the past since Max Payne 3 only used R*SC and Steam/SecuRom (whether you bought it on Steam or retail).
So, GTA V requires Steam even if you go retail? Well that sucks. I love Steam, but I want my retail games to run without Steam if possible. Especially if they already use other DRM systems.
Denuvo changes its code everytime you launch the game? Does this mean the game is "always-on", even in singleplayer?
Damn I hope we can still mod the game in singleplayer...
I thought this stupid stuff was a thing from the past since Max Payne 3 only used R*SC and Steam/SecuRom (whether you bought it on Steam or retail).
So, GTA V requires Steam even if you go retail? Well that sucks. I love Steam, but I want my retail games to run without Steam if possible. Especially if they already use other DRM systems.
Denuvo changes its code everytime you launch the game? Does this mean the game is "always-on", even in singleplayer?
Damn I hope we can still mod the game in singleplayer...
Will still buy the game day one.
Not a problem at all if you treat your customers right.