Disciples III Dev Akella Signs DRM Deal With Byteshield

[mindcycle]

Moscow-headquartered Akella, developer of Disciples III, Age of Sail 2 and other titles, said Thursday it signed a deal with Byteshield to provide DRM for its PC games in order to counter piracy.

While many gamers object to the use of DRM, Byteshield has made efforts to reach out to gamers for input on creating the technology. DRM watchdogs Reclaim Your Game approve of the DRM, calling Byteshield "safe, transparent, and non-invasive on your PC."

Byteshield describes its technology as an account-based copy protection model that "enables users to run games on multiple computers without limiting their ability to use the product they purchased."

In 2008, Stockholm-based PC game distribution platform GamersGate said it selected Byteshield for its catalog of digital PC titles.

"We are glad to work with ByteShield and hope for a long and successful partnership," said Vladimir Koudr, VP Publishing at Akella. Byteshield chief exec Jan Samzelius added, "Akella’s strong position in Russia along with their focus on user experience makes it a perfect fit."

via Gamasutra

I heard about this DRM solution a while back when Reclaim your Game did an interview with them. Check the link below.
http://www.the-prism.com/index.php?topic=2298.0

The DRM is being dubbed as "consumer friendly" since it's transparent (their wording) to the end user. Apparently, small bits of code are left out of the main executable and need to be downloaded from their server in order for the game to launch. With this method you don't have to install DRM running at a low system level on your machine and it makes it harder to crack (their words). So essentially, they require you connect to the internet before you can run your game and they also run checks from time to time (as specified by the publisher).

Read up on how the DRM works: http://www.byteshield.net/how_it_works.html
I also found an interesting article written by ByteShield about piracy here: http://www.byteshield.net/collateral.html (ByteShield™ Whitepaper #0005)

ByteShield seems slightly better than SecuROM online activated DRM for example, but reading through their site they fail to convince me it's a much better solution. The constant checks with the server is what concerns me. EA got tons of shit because Mass Effect and Spore were originally going to phone home every 10 days for authentication. What makes ByteShield think they can get away with the same thing?

ByteShield seems to at least want to be upfront with their customers, so that's a step in the right direction. I just don't see how this DRM is any better than anything else. It will most likely be cracked just as quickly as any other "DRM solution", and once that happens legit customers are the ones who will have to deal with any potential issues caused by the online authentication.

What do you guys think?

 

[StrangerGuy]

So, alienating the paying base in order to stop a non-paying base is a rational business strategy?

Oh when they realize their "perfect" DRM backfires they will blame piracy again. Very funny...

 

[aigomorla]

i wonder how much money companys lose with sophisticated DRM's only to be cracked the 3rd day the game is released.

I mean would the games be cheaper, if they used a simple drm, then spend millions on a good DRM, only to have a 13 yr old hacker crack the code, and list the crack on torrent a couple days later.

 

[Zebo]

I'll pretty much buy this game no matter what. Played disciples 2 and it's expansions hundreds of hours probably. Fantastic art work and a TBS which is a rarity nowadays. DRM and copy protection schemes only prevent casual copiers like back in the day when I'd get a game of my friends HDD at a LAN party and it worked. Determined folks who visist torrent sites/irc/emule etc it won't stop.

 

[lupi]

and if you don't have an internet connection on the computer you're using....

 

[shortylickens]

I am seriously looking forward to Disciples 3 so I may put up with this. But I am not thrilled.

 

[Borealis7]

Lupi got it right. I've played so many hours of TBSs on a laptop during long car trips. TBSs are actually the best type of games to take on the road.

 

[mindcycle]

Lupi got it right. I've played so many hours of TBSs on a laptop during long car trips. TBSs are actually the best type of games to take on the road.

Yeah, and if the game requires constant online authentication checks then that possibility pretty much goes away.

I'm just disillusioned by all these DRM developers claiming their protection is going to stop pirates and then the game is cracked day one anyway. Since byteshield is a new form of DRM it may take crackers a bit longer than say SecuROM, but once the method is in place it's pretty much over for any game that uses it in the future.

If I remember correctly SecuROM made the same claims with their online auth DRM. Oh, and then remember when Spore was released on the net 10 days prior to the street date and all of the protest on amazon.com and whatnot. When will publishers learn this crap doesn't work and only serves to tarnish their image among their paying customer base..