How do you feel about bullshit DRM?

So, yeah.

fuck DRM.

Digital Rights Restrictions Management, my ass!

I hate DRM, I don't use any software with it, including Steam for this reason. That said I feel like that ship has mostly sailed. It's still possible to get games and other programs without DRM of course, but the idea of a DRM-less world seems pretty far-fetched to me.

At one time I thought if enough people cared, all it would take is to not buy anything with DRM in it for a month or two, and that things might change. I don't think this is possible anymore, too many people have just accepted it as an inevitability, or don't even know, understand, or care about the problems of DRM.

Anything that inspired this thread you need to vent about? edit: Oh I guess it was just that other thread, ok.

There should be no boundaries to access or modify something that you as a customer paid for.

As long as DRM is minimal and easily crackable, it's not as big of a deal as always-online or some other more involved system, but still sucks.

I don't like DRM because it inconveniences legitimate customers. Thing about Steam though, is that the service itself is the DRM and I've really never been inconvenienced by it in any way. Then again, all I do is buy the games and then play them and never touch anything else with the service.

I try to only buy stuff on GOG. I can tolerate Steam when some publishers absolutely insist on not putting their stuff on GOG, but in that case it'll only be if it gets part of something like a Humble Bundle package.

Don't most big-name proprietary programs have DRM on them? It's always about buying a license to use it on up to N computers, or one user account without sharing. Or time-limited (subscription based) software. It's their way of doing business.

DRM hurts legitimate customers and that's all it accomplishes. However I love Steam because it's super convenient. I mean, come on, I click install and the game downloads, installs and patches itself without me having to do anything other than wait.

I'll tolerate Steam sometimes, but in the past 2-3 years, I'm more likely to ignore a Steam-only release than to actually submit to using it.

So yeah. Dislike DRM big-time.

I hate DRM as much as the next guy but that's one heck of a loaded question, Quasar.
Regardless, fuck DRM and how much it inconveniences legitimate customers.

Unfortunately like so many things with regard to the public, the 'boiling frog' thing is in full force and those who have a profit motive to ensure their version of DRM is supported, will get their way.

Same with non-stop surveillance and the sliding view of privacy.

If a product I want is steeped in DRM I'll go out of my way to pirate it if I need it and run it in a VM, or I'll use an open source/free alternative if I have doubts about its security or potential to be abused to gain access to my machine.

Then again, I was also the girl who instead of buying CD's at 25-30 bucks a pop would use limewire/bearshare to download the album and then physically mail the band the 25-30 bucks if I enjoyed the album.

In my view, we're in a place where big corporations have produced the majority of what the average consumer can use and have no reason to do anything but expand their hold to increase profits (as they do) so I feel no reason to go out of my way to line their pockets for something I don't really need to be used in a way dictated to me strictly for profit generation. I can buy from independents, I can buy used and if all else fails, I can pirate.

Fuck DRM.

I'll tolerate certain forms of DRM, but only up to a point. CD-keys are crap, especially if you lose your case. Games attached to user accounts are fine because they're convenient. I don't mind Steam because I tend to have it open all the time anyway. I draw the line at needing any programs beyond Steam, though, especially uPlay; not only do most Ubi games require uPlay to be open, but if you made the mistake of buying said games through Steam, the uPlay launcher won't work unless Steam is also running. Which means you run into "hilarious" problems where the two launchers are actively fighting each other for your attention.

Oh, and GFWL is pure poison.

Good, but i say it's horrible yet terrible, ugly yet disgusting, DRM sucks.
BTW EA surely loves to use DRM in their games, such as the Need for Speed reboot, it requires you to have your internet connection always online, in other words, you can't play offline.
And i'm very proud of not using Steam and that i'll never use it, GOG on top!

I pretty much live on Steam. It's not really a big issue for me and never was. But I'm more likely than not to not buy Origin games (only if they're a series I already like, so like... two series) and I won't buy anything with Uplay.

Steam so far has been the least intrusive of the DLC and I can live with it because of its ease of use, but I really wasn't happy with previous 'protection' programs like Securom, and I have on purpose skipped the online verification from Ubisoft or EA's Origin when it decided to open its own online store.

Should Steam become worse or we have to install more mandatory third party DLC I think I will probably stop supporting the PC gaming industry despite having already mostly abandoned the console market because of lack of interesting titles.

GOG/DRM-Free first, Steam second, everything else can fuck right off.

I have all my GOG games backed up, and I rarely buy on Steam. Even when I do it's rarely anything for full price. I'll never pay full price for a rental.

The only DRM that gets a shrug from me is multi-player DRM.

I have no complaints either way. Never had any DRM issues. Not for a long time, anyways.

I vote for "It's Great".

Establishment oh Establishment, you always know what's best!

Fuck DRM.

DRM doesn't work and it will never work. Simple as that.

Oh man I remember the SecuROM days. A lot of people who freak about Steam probably either don't remember SecuROM, or remember it too well.

Steam saved PC gaming. It's as simple as that. You can moralize about its DRM (which is easily cracked by the way) but as a digital distribution platform with a massive and expanding library going back decades, it's never been easier or cheaper to be a PC gamer.

dethtoll said:

Steam saved PC gaming. It's as simple as that.

herp derp please explain what Steam actually saved PC gaming from? Because I must have missed the great pre-Steam PC apocalypse and that sounds like something I'm pretty sure I would have fucking noticed.

Bullshit DRM is bullshit

This is more all-about rant, so in tl;dr:
Fuck DRM, fight against that shit.


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About five years ago, I would've abhorred the thought of piracy, because mostly I kept the thought "if it looks fun for me, I'll buy it" and usually check out if there's demo out there.

But today?
It's more complicated issue, and now, I am actually leaning towards about advocating piracy for several reasons.

First is the preservation. If there's a game you bought several years ago, want to play it today but it doesn't work because the CD/DVD is broken, or the server is shut down, there's chance that someone made a copy of it. And then there's abandonware thing, but that's another thing altogether. Do know that sometimes even old games can be pulled out (and possibly never re-instated for purchase), whatever reason that might be.

Second thing is that you can try out the game to see if it's worth the amount it says on the tin. This does lead to the slippery slope thought of "if I can pirate this, then I can pirate this too." But if you want minimal or zero piracy, make a good demo that captivates audience.

Third, and probably major reason why I started supporting piracy, is the DRM of any kind. The first instance of DRM I only experienced (I've probably told this already) was the Civ 5 DVD I got as a gift. I had internet open when I installed, but what I didn't expect was that it was going to download 5 gigs worth of files from the internet with really shitty connection to the boot that could interrupt any time (it can still do that from time to time, although connection became much better.) Suffice to say, I was enraged from that.

And what I do not like is that you need a fucking internet connection for a fucking single player game. "But hold on, you can in Steam play with offline mode!"

You are missing the point entirely. Multiplayer-only games are okay with that (duh), but tell me point about that in a single player game. For high score? Achievements? Those are optional. I wanna hear good defense for that. And don't start me with the crap "It's for making investors secure!" Really. What you do to me, is that I am not gonna pay for a single player game at all, instead, I'll get it from the internet, without giving a dime for you, Mr. Publisher. (Devs ain't at fault here.)

And do you folks defend this shit?
If you seriously do, you deserve a good, hefty kick in your groin. Fuck these people making it standard. Not everyone has a good internet, no one deserves such treatment.

dethtoll said:

Oh man I remember the SecuROM days. A lot of people who freak about Steam probably either don't remember SecuROM, or remember it too well.

Wasn't SecuROM that type of installer that only gave certain amount of installations and then it became unusable? Or am I thinking some other form?

DRM has always been prevalent throughout the gaming history. Some were in physical protection, like old Dungeons&Dragons games, where you had to search manual for keyword or use Dethek wheel to determine the correct word. Some were more drastic, like breaking the game if there was (probably) a pirated copy. It did happen even when you had the bought official CD, only way to fix it was to re-install it.

But the thing is, thanks to internet, the DRM becomes more and more intrusive, making it impossible to play some games. I watched some time ago Game Dungeon, Ross covered some things that I didn't even thought it would be possible.

.:edit:.
Wikipedia article of SecuROM:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecuROM

It's very complicated to play a game nowadays, Download a client, Create an account , link it to your payment card, buy the game, download it, update it over 20 times per month, Accidently do something wrong, get banned permanently ... Eee

There are much worse things in Steam than DRM. Like being unable to buy the English version of a game sometimes if you are an eastern european poor guy. You have to enjoy only a crappy half-assed localization in your legit copy.

In an ideal world I'd be against excessive DRM, but the abundance of morons insisting their anecdotal experience it has no positive effect on sales trumps decades of research and data as well as intuitive logic concepts have made it necessary to take a pro-DRM stand as a moral position. Without balance against rampant idiocy we all lose no matter our personal beliefs.

Orchid87 said:

There are much worse things in Steam than DRM. Like being unable to buy the English version of a game sometimes if you are an eastern european poor guy. You have to enjoy only a crappy half-assed localization in your legit copy.

What? I have my Steam client set to English and it automatically uses English in ALL games unless I switch the language in-game or set a different language for the client. I've never seen a Steam game forcing a localized version on me.

Phml said:

In an ideal world I'd be against excessive DRM, but the abundance of morons insisting their anecdotal experience it has no positive effect on sales trumps decades of research and data as well as intuitive logic concepts have made it necessary to take a pro-DRM stand as a moral position. Without balance against rampant idiocy we all lose no matter our personal beliefs.

I'm not sure I parsed this post correctly, but it sounds a bit like "two wrongs make a right".