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Author Topic: SecuROM  (Read 21504 times)

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Royal☭

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #60 on: May 09, 2008, 07:48:10 PM »

Ha ha, so it's not really any kind of take at all.  Instead of reporting you every ten days it now reports you all the goddamn fucking time?

Thad

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #61 on: May 09, 2008, 08:56:39 PM »

Also, I think EA is just trying to placate the tiny community of people who are paying attention.  Spore is going to sell millions, no matter what kind of copy-protection they use, unless the gaming community starts the most incredible word-of-mouth campaign the world has ever seen.

This is an interesting point, because if SecuROM really DOES start hosing people's computers in unexpected ways, it's going to affect a hell of a lot of people.  Worst-case is still probably not as bad as what happened with the Sony rootkit a few years back, but pretty bad anyway.
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Bongo Bill

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #62 on: May 09, 2008, 10:35:41 PM »

Ha ha, so it's not really any kind of take at all.  Instead of reporting you every ten days it now reports you all the goddamn fucking time?

The important difference is that now you can't be screwed over by not having access to the Internet, because it never tries to authenticate you when you're not online. So, for example, if you live in a submarine, you can play the game for longer than ten days.
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Brentai

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #63 on: May 09, 2008, 11:06:05 PM »

Except Spore kind of sucks without internet anyway.
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Bal

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #64 on: May 10, 2008, 12:45:49 AM »

Apple and Amazon have been doing just fine with their DRM-free MP3 downloads.  Adobe doesn't require this kind of invasive bullshit to authenticate its software, and I can guaran-goddamn-tee that there are more people pirating Photoshop than Bioshock.

You want to convince the stockholders that you shouldn't use DRM?  Remind them of what happened to Sony in '05, and tell them that is what happens when you use DRM.

Game industry is not the music industry, no matter how close the distribution models align. The PC game industry is in a near panic right now because of piracy, with nearly every analyst weaving images of financial ruin due to rampant internet brigands.  Every time a company goes out of business, they mention piracy, however erroneously, in their press release. Crytek recently announced that they are not going to maintain PC exclusivity in the future, citing piracy as the primary cause. Speaking of DRM, are you really saying game companies should charge people a premium just to be free of anti-piracy software? Could any one move inspire piracy more than that?

I'm willing to accept SecuROM to the degree that I have already accepted it in other games, but I wouldn't have bought Spore with the originally announced anti-piracy stuff.
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Thad

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #65 on: May 10, 2008, 01:19:59 AM »

Game industry is not the music industry, no matter how close the distribution models align. The PC game industry is in a near panic right now because of piracy, with nearly every analyst weaving images of financial ruin due to rampant internet brigands.

Hm, yeah, that's not really a very good way of contrasting the two industries, there.

The fact that the rootkit was hidden on a music CD is irrelevant.  If it had been a game, an office suite, an OS, a movie DVD, the vendor would have been just as liable to a big fat class action.  Yes, part of the problem is that the software was a stealth install not mentioned in the license agreement, but ultimately I believe that's moot; I really doubt a license agreement saying "By using this software, you agree to let us install a rootkit on your system and make you vulnerable to worms and viruses" would hold up in court.

The issue here has not a damn thing to do with the difference between the music industry and the game industry.  It has to do with the difference between XCP and SecuROM.  The question is, is SecuROM as bad as XCP, and will it affect as many people?  And hey, maybe the answer is "no."  But I have a hunch that poorly-designed software with a history of damaging people's computers deployed to as big a market as Spore is going to have will cause problems.

Speaking of DRM, are you really saying game companies should charge people a premium just to be free of anti-piracy software?

Actually, no, though I can understand how you'd get that from the Apple comparison.

Could any one move inspire piracy more than that?

I would say that an epidemic of crippled CD burners and virus-riddled PC's would, but of course that's just as hypothetical.

The bottom line is that copy protection software doesn't work and inconveniences legitimate users, and as such is not a sustainable business model.  I realize I'm an extreme example, but after my grandmother's copy of Windows locked me out because I had removed some hardware, I started switching everyone in my family over to Macs.

Again, that's an extreme example, but for a more mainstream one, take a look at the epic clusterfuck that has been WGA.  I don't think there's any doubt that it's cost Microsoft far more money between development and damage control than it's saved in lost revenues to piracy -- especially inasmuch as it's still effing trivial to get a pirated copy of XP.

I'm willing to accept SecuROM to the degree that I have already accepted it in other games,

Me too -- which is to say, none at all.

but I wouldn't have bought Spore with the originally announced anti-piracy stuff.

Care to expand on that?  Is the ten-day check really the deal-breaker here and everything else A-OK?
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Bal

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #66 on: May 10, 2008, 02:25:39 AM »

The fact that the rootkit was hidden on a music CD is irrelevant.  If it had been a game, an office suite, an OS, a movie DVD, the vendor would have been just as liable to a big fat class action.  Yes, part of the problem is that the software was a stealth install not mentioned in the license agreement, but ultimately I believe that's moot; I really doubt a license agreement saying "By using this software, you agree to let us install a rootkit on your system and make you vulnerable to worms and viruses" would hold up in court.

The issue here has not a damn thing to do with the difference between the music industry and the game industry.  It has to do with the difference between XCP and SecuROM.  The question is, is SecuROM as bad as XCP, and will it affect as many people?  And hey, maybe the answer is "no."  But I have a hunch that poorly-designed software with a history of damaging people's computers deployed to as big a market as Spore is going to have will cause problems.

Which is all irrelevant to my point, which was about stockholder perception. In the music industry services like iTunes have more or less allayed the more apocalyptic fears. They're still litigious as all hell at the RIAA, but for the most part that's a battle that has already been waged.  PC gaming, on the other hand, is being declared dead or dying by analyst after analyst, declaring this the age of the console, and citing piracy as a cause. The number of people affected by software like SecuROM is inconsequential unless sales drop below a certain threshold. It has already been pointed out that many people, particularly the block of people a game like Spore is likely to appeal to, are completely unaware of the issue, and would likely continue to be so. My point, that EA and other publicly held companies involved in PC gaming must use some kind of anti-piracy just to maintain stockholder confidence, stands.


I would say that an epidemic of crippled CD burners and virus-riddled PC's would, but of course that's just as hypothetical.

The bottom line is that copy protection software doesn't work and inconveniences legitimate users, and as such is not a sustainable business model.  I realize I'm an extreme example, but after my grandmother's copy of Windows locked me out because I had removed some hardware, I started switching everyone in my family over to Macs.

Again, that's an extreme example, but for a more mainstream one, take a look at the epic clusterfuck that has been WGA.  I don't think there's any doubt that it's cost Microsoft far more money between development and damage control than it's saved in lost revenues to piracy -- especially inasmuch as it's still effing trivial to get a pirated copy of XP.

Yeah, as I've said a number of times previously in this thread, I fully believe that anti-piracy measures serve only to alienate customers, and empower pirates. In the post I referenced earlier, Tycho mentioned that for nearly every PC game he buys he seeks out, and of course easily finds, and cracked exe with which to free himself from any disc requirements or other problems, and I know many other people who do the same thing. That phenomenon speaks directly to the problem.

However the reality of the situation at the moment is no one with real influence in the industry has recognized that point, and taken the step of eliminating anti-piracy all together from their products. I don't think that will ever happen in a meaningful enough way to change the industry. Part of the reason would have to be that some games really are at much greater risk of being pirated, because they're in genres that appeal to pirates. First person shooters are one of the most obvious examples of that. Now, the fact of the matter is that you can't stop the pirates, but if you're making the next big shooter, your biggest fear is day zero piracy. Valve eliminated that problem entirely with Steam (you can't pirate what you don't have), but not everyone uses that service, and only Valve, to my knowledge, makes full use of it's features. 

So what do you do? You have this huge investment in a platform that is guaranteed to lose you sales. You probably have a console release safety net these days, but you can't just turn to the people who funded this project and tell them you're doing nothing to protect their investment on the PC end. It just doesn't work that way. The most secure solution, from a financial standpoint, is a subscription based game, but that market only has so much room, and there's an 800 pound gorilla sitting in it. Another is a service like Steam, but of the people who have tried those, only Valve is anywhere close to right regarding execution, and many companies, such as EA and Microsoft, are philosophically incapable of going to someone else for something of that scale. Finally, you can use a service like SecuROM. It does absolutely nothing to pirates, 100% placebo, but there it is.

Care to expand on that?  Is the ten-day check really the deal-breaker here and everything else A-OK?

I may actually still not buy it if there are problems. It's quite a bit more than BioShock does.
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Thad

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #67 on: May 10, 2008, 12:20:37 PM »

So your point is that stockholders are too stupid to understand that breaking people's computers is bad business policy.

Maybe you're right.  But I still think they'd understand something very basic like "Here is how much money Sony lost for doing the exact same thing you are suggesting that we do."
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Bal

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #68 on: May 10, 2008, 12:31:43 PM »

I don't think they consider the ramifications beyond "stopping piracy".
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Brentai

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #69 on: May 10, 2008, 02:10:05 PM »

in b4 "securom doesnt stop piracy" again
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Bal

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #70 on: May 10, 2008, 03:00:07 PM »

That's why it's in quotes.
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Thad

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #71 on: May 10, 2008, 08:53:21 PM »

I don't think they consider the ramifications beyond "stopping piracy".

Well, what I'm saying is that if someone explained it to them in blunt terms -- ie "this will cost you a shitload of money" -- they might.
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Bal

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #72 on: May 11, 2008, 01:56:32 AM »

Maybe so, but I think their response would be to seek another anti-piracy solution, rather than consider the possibility of doing nothing. In fact, that already happened. Starforce was universally condemned, so now we see SecuROM.
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Thad

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #73 on: May 11, 2008, 09:01:10 PM »

Fair.  It's going to take at least one more wave of catastrophic backlash before people start questioning the FUNDAMENTAL issue of copy protection rather than simply questioning specific implementations of same.
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Brentai

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #74 on: May 11, 2008, 10:20:17 PM »

That's a hell of an institution to try and break down overnight, though.  Copy protection is as old as the manuals in King's Quest games.
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Dooly

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #75 on: May 11, 2008, 10:53:01 PM »

Ah, I remember the days when "copy protection" was just answering questions with information from the manual.  They didn't even put it in the CD versions of games, because the idea of downloading or copying an entire CD's worth of data was unimaginable.
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Thad

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #76 on: May 11, 2008, 11:22:07 PM »

Copy protection is as old as the manuals in King's Quest games.

And it punished legitimate users while failing to prevent piracy even then.
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Saturn

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #77 on: May 12, 2008, 01:27:19 AM »

I wonder if the rate of PC game piracy would go down if PC gamers didn't get fucked out of money on hardware/Operating system upgrades at every turn (DX 10 only being on Vista while XP could in theory do the job fine, DX 10.1 REQUIRING ENTIRELY NEW VIDEO CARDS FOR NO REASON THAT I CAN FIND OTHER THAN GREED, Games requiring SLI just to run at an acceptable Frame rate)

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Bal

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #78 on: May 12, 2008, 03:53:18 AM »

On that front, DX10.1 is idiotic, and to my knowledge no game even makes use of it. Point of fact, no game even makes particular use of DX10.0 yet. Even Crysis was designed primarily under a DX9 environment, and there are hacks out there that make it run under DX9. As for SLI, nothing requires that yet, and I don't think anything ever will. By the time the level of power you gain from SLI (which by the way is massively overestimated by most people) there will be new and better cards that do the same thing. SLI is just for hardware geeks who like their computer to hum with an unearthly power/

The only legitimate use I can think of for SLI is a later, affordable graphics upgrade within the same basic hardware generation. For instance, I could buy a second 8800GTS for significantly less money than I paid for my first one, or could pay for a new one. The only problem with that is that SLI isn't really that good. ie I would not get a second card's worth of power from that investment.
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Arc

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Re: SecuROM
« Reply #79 on: May 12, 2008, 08:28:12 AM »

there are hacks out there that make it run under DX9.

Such as, uh, just right clicking.

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