Blizzard: Fighting Piracy with DRM 'A Losing Battle'

[Rifter]

No lan = no buy. Im sorry but there is no reason to exclude this option. I had so much fun at lan parties playing SC, and getting 10-20 computers all hooked up to the net to connect to a server thalsands of miles away when the computers are 4 feet apart is stupid.

 

[smackababy]

No lan = no buy. Im sorry but there is no reason to exclude this option. I had so much fun at lan parties playing SC, and getting 10-20 computers all hooked up to the net to connect to a server thalsands of miles away when the computers are 4 feet apart is stupid.

I doubt Blizzard believes that LAN parties are still "all the rage." Why bother lugging my rig around town when I can just connect and play with my friends? When SC was released broadband was no where near the mainstream as it is now. So, if I want to play with players thousands of miles away, I can.

LAN parties are becoming a thing of the past, like it or not.

 

[Fenixgoon]

I doubt Blizzard believes that LAN parties are still "all the rage." Why bother lugging my rig around town when I can just connect and play with my friends? When SC was released broadband was no where near the mainstream as it is now. So, if I want to play with players thousands of miles away, I can.

LAN parties are becoming a thing of the past, like it or not.

i've only been to 1 lan party, but the cool party is having people actually there with you. and if you feel like going out for food together, or catching a movie, you can do that too.

 

[JJChicken]

i've only been to 1 lan party, but the cool party is having people actually there with you. and if you feel like going out for food together, or catching a movie, you can do that too.

This. They are awesome. In Australia, it is a bit easier because we have "internet cafes" so we pay about $2/hr to game on them = ~ $10 a night. Go for food before, troll the streets afterwards.

Do people in the states do something similar?

To be honest, I'd be hesistant to lug anything but a laptop around to someone's home, but I can DEFINITELY see why you would.

 

[stag3]

no lan blows

 

[ViviTheMage]

No LAN sucks, but at least they aren't blowing the software up with traditional DRM. I also never sell my games, and love looking at all of my games in battle net .

 

[smackababy]

This. They are awesome. In Australia, it is a bit easier because we have "internet cafes" so we pay about $2/hr to game on them = ~ $10 a night. Go for food before, troll the streets afterwards.

Do people in the states do something similar?

To be honest, I'd be hesistant to lug anything but a laptop around to someone's home, but I can DEFINITELY see why you would.

They have them in most major cities, but they are not as widespread as you'd hope. I don't know about pricing as I've only been to them for tournaments, so nobody paid per hour.

LAN parties are fun; I, myself, have been to many. They are just a thing of the past. People aren't nearly as restricted by ping as they were in the 56k days, so online gaming is where most multiplayer takes place.

Also, one of the best features SC had: the spawn feature will probably be missing. =(

 

[fleshconsumed]

So, you still have to activate game online. Sounds like DRM to me. What do you do if you have to reinstall the game, do you have to reactivate it? Can you actually reactivate it? What if you want to install it on several computers? Can you? What if you want to sell it? Can you?

Blizzard gets it? I think not. It just uses less obtrusive DRM compared to ubisoft and the like. Most people are just too infatuated with Blizzard (not unlike Apple userbase) that they are willing to overlook it.

 

[smackababy]

So, you still have to activate game online. Sounds like DRM to me. What do you do if you have to reinstall the game, do you have to reactivate it? Can you actually reactivate it? What if you want to install it on several computers? Can you? What if you want to sell it? Can you?

Blizzard gets it? I think not. It just uses less obtrusive DRM compared to ubisoft and the like. Most people are just too infatuated with Blizzard (not unlike Apple userbase) that they are willing to overlook it.

The way battle.net works, is that once it is activated you can install it on any machine. It is simply activating your license for the game. You never have to reactivate it, it is on your account forever. Have you actually purchased a Blizzard game?

And having the least obtrusive, yet protectice DRM is "getting it". Blizzard never says their method is perfect, but they did say they've seen how bad it can get and refuse to go that road.

 

[coloumb]

Blizzard is correct - why force the customer to jump through annoying technical hoops just to play a game? Install the game, let it talk to a remote server, and you're done.

As for the lan issue -

The last LAN party I attended was a long time ago [13ish years?] at the San Jose convention center when Quake 2 was the big game on campus. Was a lot of fun - free food, drinks, raffles, and the few gaming girls who would get a little wild late at night.

However, these days - it's internet cafe's or a room full of desktop computers. "Lan party" gaming is playing at home via a high speed network connection.

When I do hear about a "lan party" - it usually involves taking your xbox360 over to a friend's house to paly halo, etc.

 

[SunnyD]

However, these days - it's internet cafe's or a room full of desktop computers. "Lan party" gaming is playing at home via a high speed network connection.

Here's a little thought to munch on...

This "DRM" scheme puts internet cafe's out from being able to "host" this title. Why would that be? Simple - you can't simply install a bunch of copies of SC2 (or any similar title for that matter, whether "legally" acquired or not) for people to play because the cafe would have to hand out its Battle.net logins for them to play. Why is this bad? You hand out your Battle.net login to some random kid, they take the login home and download the title from there (or change the password locking out the cafe, etc).

From the player's standpoint, the opposite is true. You would have no "personal" stats or setup without owning your own account.

This is the ultimate in terms of DRM. You take choices and control out of the consumer's hands. Good for your bottom line, bad for the consumers and dependent businesses.

 

[magomago]

I wonder if LAN would be there is no hamachi-style network existed? I would think that is the #1 reason why LAN isn't there; I noticed that whenever i went to look up DOTA strategies, I'd always come across forums where everyone was playing LAN using Hamachi.

 

[Lean L]

Here's a little thought to munch on...

This "DRM" scheme puts internet cafe's out from being able to "host" this title. Why would that be? Simple - you can't simply install a bunch of copies of SC2 (or any similar title for that matter, whether "legally" acquired or not) for people to play because the cafe would have to hand out its Battle.net logins for them to play. Why is this bad? You hand out your Battle.net login to some random kid, they take the login home and download the title from there (or change the password locking out the cafe, etc).

From the player's standpoint, the opposite is true. You would have no "personal" stats or setup without owning your own account.

This is the ultimate in terms of DRM. You take choices and control out of the consumer's hands. Good for your bottom line, bad for the consumers and dependent businesses.

afik the blizzard thing works much like steam. You can start the app (or in this case, the game) and then log into different accounts. Cyber cafes are known for using steam in this fashion.

 

[fleshconsumed]

The way battle.net works, is that once it is activated you can install it on any machine. It is simply activating your license for the game. You never have to reactivate it, it is on your account forever. Have you actually purchased a Blizzard game?

And having the least obtrusive, yet protectice DRM is "getting it". Blizzard never says their method is perfect, but they did say they've seen how bad it can get and refuse to go that road.

WC3 was probably last game I bought, I didn't install it though, it still sits in a box

I suppose it's good that it's a "steam" like architecture, can't believe I'm saying it, but you still can't sell it unless you sell your .net account with it. It's still limiting.

 

[smackababy]

WC3 was probably last game I bought, I didn't install it though, it still sits in a box

I suppose it's good that it's a "steam" like architecture, can't believe I'm saying it, but you still can't sell it unless you sell your .net account with it. It's still limiting.

It is very similar to Steam. They sell a license to a game, and you can use it anywhere, so long as you log in. Yes, this does hurt the resell market, but I think it also curbs piracy quite a bit.



As far as them removing LAN support, it probably does have a lot to due with the ability for people to play multiplayer without having purchased and activated the game. Blizzard obviously feels that LAN support is not a large enough market to stop them from preventing those playing illegal copies using software designed around the LAN. It is all numbers, and Blizzard is doing what they feel is best for THEIR game.

I seem to always get the feeling from a lot of people that developers owe something to their customers. This is not true. I'm sure every developer wants to make the best game as possible, but they also want to make their house payments and feed their children.

 

[SunnyD]

afik the blizzard thing works much like steam. You can start the app (or in this case, the game) and then log into different accounts. Cyber cafes are known for using steam in this fashion.

The point is is that customers will need to own their own copy of the game as well. You can't do just one or the other in this scenario.

 

[smackababy]

The point is is that customers will need to own their own copy of the game as well. You can't do just one or the other in this scenario.

I believe that anyone in a Starcraft tournament would own the game. Sure, it doesn't help those who want to play the game for free, but they don't give Blizzard any money anyway. Why should they cater to them?

 

[SunnyD]

I believe that anyone in a Starcraft tournament would own the game. Sure, it doesn't help those who want to play the game for free, but they don't give Blizzard any money anyway. Why should they cater to them?

God damnit, the back button ate my post. Fuck it.

 

[kalrith]

The no LAN sucks. I still go to WC3 LAN parties several times a year. Just because you "haven't been to a LAN party in 13 years" doesn't mean that they don't exist.

 

[smackababy]

Just because 10 or 15 people in the world still do something, doesn't mean a company should support it.

 

[simonizor]

Here's a little thought to munch on...

This "DRM" scheme puts internet cafe's out from being able to "host" this title. Why would that be? Simple - you can't simply install a bunch of copies of SC2 (or any similar title for that matter, whether "legally" acquired or not) for people to play because the cafe would have to hand out its Battle.net logins for them to play. Why is this bad? You hand out your Battle.net login to some random kid, they take the login home and download the title from there (or change the password locking out the cafe, etc).

From the player's standpoint, the opposite is true. You would have no "personal" stats or setup without owning your own account.

This is the ultimate in terms of DRM. You take choices and control out of the consumer's hands. Good for your bottom line, bad for the consumers and dependent businesses.

You couldn't be more wrong. You simply have to have an account to tie the key to for ownership purposes. You can use any account that you want to on that game. The whole experience does nothing to hinder the user in any way. It only helps them by giving them a service from which they can manage all of their games and download ones that they may have lost the hard copy of.

WC3 was probably last game I bought, I didn't install it though, it still sits in a box

I suppose it's good that it's a "steam" like architecture, can't believe I'm saying it, but you still can't sell it unless you sell your .net account with it. It's still limiting.

It's very little like steam. The only thing that it has in common with steam is that you sign in with your account on Blizzard's website, and then you can download games that you've already purchased (even if you purchased the retail copy) and also purchase new games. There is no application running in the background. You can't resell your games, but I would never resell a game with an online CD key in the first place. It is so easy to just make an ISO of the disc, write down the key somewhere and keep playing it while the person you sold it to suffers.

To all of the people who are upset about lack of LAN, with internet speeds these days, it shouldn't be a problem. You should be able to connect to a game of a person sitting next to you, and play without lag as if you were on a LAN connection. In the past, users hosted games on battle.net and other users connected through the host's internet connection, but (from what I've read) it seems that Blizzard is going to be hosting the games in SC2, so hopefully they have good servers running all of this, or they'll have a lot of unhappy people.

 

[SunnyD]

You couldn't be more wrong. You simply have to have an account to tie the key to for ownership purposes. You can use any account that you want to on that game. The whole experience does nothing to hinder the user in any way. It only helps them by giving them a service from which they can manage all of their games and download ones that they may have lost the hard copy of.

Well, you could be more wrong. As I tried to post earlier before my post got eaten...

If I own the game, why would I be going to an internet cafe to play it? That's my point. An internet cafe owner has no vested interest in purchasing a title his or her clients who don't own the title themselves can not use. The account owner isn't going to hand out the keys to their castle, and the end user won't use the internet cafe if they don't need to (I know this varies from country to country). Like I said, it's lose-lose for the customer, and win-win (double-dipping if you will) for Blizzard by forcing customers to go this route.

Again, to clarify since people can't seem to wrap their teeny little heads around this concept: For business owners to provide a service to clients who don't have an account of their own, nada. Zip. Zilch. Nothing. Not gonna happen with this form of DRM... excuse me... I mean authentication.

 

[smackababy]

Well, you could be more wrong. As I tried to post earlier before my post got eaten...

If I own the game, why would I be going to an internet cafe to play it? That's my point. An internet cafe owner has no vested interest in purchasing a title his or her clients who don't own the title themselves can not use. The account owner isn't going to hand out the keys to their castle, and the end user won't use the internet cafe if they don't need to (I know this varies from country to country). Like I said, it's lose-lose for the customer, and win-win (double-dipping if you will) for Blizzard by forcing customers to go this route.

Again, to clarify since people can't seem to wrap their teeny little heads around this concept: For business owners to provide a service to clients who don't have an account of their own, nada. Zip. Zilch. Nothing. Not gonna happen with this form of DRM... excuse me... I mean authentication.

What you can't wrap your head around is the concept of expecting Blizzard to support non paying customers. Those who play the game at internet cafes without a license are doing it illegally. AFAIK, the purchase of a Blizzard game grants the purchaser the right to play it, not to charge others to play it. So, therefore, Blizzard doesn't give a crap about people who wouldn't buy the game to begin with. This might cause some people who can't buy the game to miss out on it, but it doesn't equate much of a loss of revenue for Blizzard.

They prefer to make it as easy as possible for legitimate users to access the game in as many places as they can. That is the concept of fighting piracy: give you customers something worth buying.

 

[Ichigo]

What you can't wrap your head around is the concept of expecting Blizzard to support non paying customers. Those who play the game at internet cafes without a license are doing it illegally. AFAIK, the purchase of a Blizzard game grants the purchaser the right to play it, not to charge others to play it. So, therefore, Blizzard doesn't give a crap about people who wouldn't buy the game to begin with. This might cause some people who can't buy the game to miss out on it, but it doesn't equate much of a loss of revenue for Blizzard.

They prefer to make it as easy as possible for legitimate users to access the game in as many places as they can. That is the concept of fighting piracy: give you customers something worth buying.

Wha-?

Regardless of your feelings on it, lack of LAN directly contradicts the statement you made.

This indicates that you're probably more interested in spewing PR crap instead of making a rational response, which I almost thought you were doing until the bolded section above.

So now everyone gets to stop taking you seriously.

 

[frostedflakes]

Blizzard is full of crap. The omission of LAN play is ridiculous, and a ton of people are at least somewhat miffed about it, so obviously there's demand for the feature.

They want everything to go through Battle.net to prevent piracy. If LAN play was included, people could pretty easily pirate the game, find a way to crack the activation/online authentication, and then play with friends on a local network. Leaving LAN out is one way to make things more difficult for pirates. Unfortunately it also creates more hassles for legit customers as well. Sounds a lot like other DRM schemes that people complain about.