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How anti-piracy screws over people who buy PC games

I know how he feels and I know why he was so enraged.

Although I rarely ever experience any problems with my games (Retail, of course) out-of-the-box, it did happened on two occasions.

Namely:

1) Battlefield 2
2) Star Wars: Battlefront II

Once my BF2 DVD is inserted in my DVD-RW Drive (from LG Electronics) and then try to start the game (properly installed and patched) it gives me the exact same message, "please insert the original game disc in a compatible media drive and restart", or something very similar. And since replacing the original .EXE by a cracked .EXE would have made on-line play impossible I've had to download (yes, from GameCopyWorld) a mini-image without replacing the original .EXE, and at the moment and since I bought BF2 it is for me the only way I can play the game both off-line and on-line.

In the case of SW:BF II, very similar but not identical problem. With that one the DVD once inserted is properly identified and the game's official and automatic launcher/UI runs, so I can click on "Play BFII". When I click that the DVD spins for a moment and then a message pops-up telling me that the original game disc was not detected. With BFII however to make it work it gets more complicated then even BF2. What I need to do is to get a mini-image but I ALSO have to actually DISABLE BOTH my DVD-RW AND my CD-RW drives and I need Deamon Tools to emulate the copy protection as well at the same time. That way and only that way it works.

All of my other 40+ games work out-of-the-box, but I too find it stupid that real legitimate gamers out there pay for their game and they HAVE to download a crack to make them work (and often since mini-images are much rarer than mere cracked .EXE's it means that if the said game has an on-line mode that it won't be possible to play it on-line because in 99% of the cases one needs the original .EXE to go and play on-line along with a legitimate product key), or ELSE it WON'T work. Absolutely ironic that the supposedly anti-piracy measures forces some consumers to use the piracy measures to make their game work, indeed.
 
That guy is absolutely right. Companies like Ubisoft and EA are the enemies in all of this. I pretty much rely on Steam for games that don't have crippling copy protection.
 
Rofl. I love how he bought both editions, and still got f'd over. Ohhh copy protection, how everyone loves you.
 
Originally posted by: ja1484

He's helping the problem.
Click to expand...

Yes, he is helping the problem.

He buys the games, he gives his money to the publishers and developers, that's what they ask for, that's what the law asks for, and the copy-protection that the developers and or publishers decide to use in their games are screwing him and many of other legitimate gamers over. Yes, he is helping the problem by doing the only thing he should do, buying his games. It is NOT his job to actually find and test another method of anti-piracy. What do YOU really except him to do? Apply for a job at SecuROM so he can engineer a new method all by himself?! Be reasonable for a moment.
 
Originally posted by: Zenoth
What do YOU really except him to do? Apply for a job at SecuROM so he can engineer a new method all by himself?! Be reasonable for a moment.
Click to expand...

I think what he means is that you're not supposed to buy shitty games. Giving them money only encourages this behavior. You're not supposed to pirate it either, since that sort of encourages them as well.

If something sucks, don't buy it, don't pirate it. Give it as little attention as possible, and hopefully it will lose money.
 
No, giving developers money does not "only" encourages this behavior. The thing is the money goes in part to the publishers and the developers. The developers who receive your money gets it because they are paid to imagine a landscape, to create meshes and models, to create a color pallet to use on textures they make to fit their game's context(s). The developers create games, they don't only create anti-piracy measures. The money they receive from the consumers don't "only" serve to pay for anti-piracy measures. They need our money so their employers can pay them to make their games, if we don't give 'em our money then from what are they going to bring the bread and butter on the table? SecuROM? The publishers? And then without the gamer's money the publishers will get their finances to pay their own employees from money-growing trees?

Most of the developers don't HAVE to get anti-piracy measures, I mean anti-piracy companies like SecuROM don't point a gun at their heads to force them to use their methods, do they? The developers usually think that by doing that they help increase legitimate sales and help discourage the pirates from pirating, and that's the big problem, because it's actually the opposite, it encourages the pirates to pirate the games. I know, it doesn't seem to make sense, but that's how it works in this context. The more screwy measures there are, and the more people will tend to bypass them, not avoid them. Some people say that the best thing they can do not to support anti-piracy is to not buy the games, and I AGREE with that. The problem with THAT, however, is that if you don't buy the games you don't support the actual artists behind the actual game-play and art of the game itself, excluding the measures taken to allow the game to technically launch legitimately.

Basically, buying games has two effects, it helps the developers create their games, and it helps anti-piracy companies to put their crap in the developer's games often causing us gamers troubles. And since we want to play the game but not get frustrated by screwed-up anti-piracy measures then what usually happens? Either you buy it to support the developers but end up using a crack to launch it successfully, or you download it because you (and I'm not pointing at your personally ShawnD1, just in case, I mean the collective, it's figurative but I'm sure you got the point by now) believe that buying it is giving your money to a company like SecuROM only and no one else.

Not buying the games won't help getting rid of SecuROM but at least it will give at least some of that money to the good persons, to the ones who actually made the game, made the models, the coding, the art of and in it, the marketing, the guys responsible for the instruction booklet, the cover art of the box, the box itself, everything that's physically real and virtually real about it is being paid from the gamer's money in the end, no gamers, no gaming market. The point of all this is simply what the guy said in the video, and even though he doesn't support what he's doing, he's basically... well, no, not basically, he IS forced, yes, FORCED to use piracy methods to play a game that's supposedly being piracy-proofed, and not only it IS so, but it is also legitimacy-proofed, and if SecuROM and other anti-piracy companies don't understand that message then they are the ones who are not helping the situation getting better. Yes, you can continue using anti-piracy measures but for Christ's sake, make it more efficient, make it working, that's the guy's message and it's a message I fully support.
 
Originally posted by: Zenoth
Not buying the games won't help getting rid of SecuROM
Click to expand...

Sure it will. If Valve is raking in cash with non-intrusive DRM, while Ubisoft goes bankrupt as it hangs onto SecuRom, SecuRom goes down with them. It's not like Valve and other publishers will look at the situation and say "hey, we're doing so great without SecuRom, maybe we should start including SecuRom on all of our games!"

It's natural selection. You support the publishers that don't suck, and boycott the ones that do suck. Buying a game that includes things like SecuRom is as immoral as buying Bum Fights. If you keep giving them money, they will never die.
 
Originally posted by: ShawnD1
Originally posted by: Zenoth
Not buying the games won't help getting rid of SecuROM
Click to expand...

Sure it will. If Valve is raking in cash with non-intrusive DRM, while Ubisoft goes bankrupt as it hangs onto SecuRom, SecuRom goes down with them. It's not like Valve and other publishers will look at the situation and say "hey, we're doing so great without SecuRom, maybe we should start including SecuRom on all of our games!"

It's natural selection. You support the publishers that don't suck, and boycott the ones that do suck. Buying a game that includes things like SecuRom is as immoral as buying Bum Fights. If you keep giving them money, they will never die.
Click to expand...

I disagree still.

Well, if I take me as an example, that is, and me only. I myself do support SecuROM in their philosophy, which is, ultimately to prevent in a tangible manner the piracy of video games on the PC market. What I don't support is non-efficient, broken/non-working anti-piracy methods/measures that in the end will simply screw up the real, honest and legitimate buyer, and in turn will force him/her to get a cracked executable so he/she can finally play because otherwise it just doesn't work. That's the message in my own replies and it's the message from the guy who looks like Kane. It should be very simple to understand but apparently it's not.

Let me reiterate in different words. I do NOT support publishers because they are "good" or don't support them because they "suck", I will support publishers because they respect their consumers or not, it has nothing to do with the actual title they publish to the market. For instance, THQ made a fantastically messy job with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, to a point where petitions went on-line from THQ-supporters and haters alike (who became so due to their behavior towards the game in question and nothing else) to create a "pressure" (ultimately entirely futile, as it usually is) against them to force them to JUST "talk a little more about it", and that means them asking GSC GameWorld the developers to give them more pictures of the game, maybe a single new teaser video, or a new interview, or a new preview, just something for the fans of the still-not-released game (at that time) to put something under their teeth. It was THQ's job to advertise it before its release and believe me it was lacking, seriously.

But it never happened until they really felt like it. When THQ did that I really felt like they were just considering us like mere animals with no conscience and that they didn't realized that in the end we consumers are their bosses since if we all, and I do mean *all* don't support them anymore then they go bankrupt and then they will realize soon enough that they cannot afford their bread and their butter anymore. Your allusion to/comparison with the Natural Selection is in my eyes exaggerated and it certainly don't apply to me. And today GSC GameWorld is its own publisher and they don't depend on THQ anymore to publish Clear Sky this summer but on themselves. With all that said today THQ is not on my black list. They made a mistake in my opinion back then with their supporters, but I cannot hate the whole company just because of a single mistake, with such a philosophy I could just say that I hate everyone who works at Mc Donald's because their food could cause health problems if one eats too much of it. But then again with that in mind I could also say that I won't eat anything anymore because "too much of something is like not enough".

I mean... gah, it just doesn't hold up. Look, I don't really like EA, but Electronic Arts as a publisher don't suck, they published many known and well liked games and I own a couple of them namely Battlefield 2 as mentioned in my first reply in this thread and Battle for Middle-Earth II, and a few others. I like their published games and I thank EA for publishing them. I didn't "chose" a side, I mean I didn't pick up only the "good ones" and left the "sucky" ones behind due to a "Natural Selection", that's far-fetched, too much. How many people seem to really hate EA both in terms of developers and publishers? Many people will happily tell you that they want to boycott EA "because they suck", because they basically turn gold into shit. I don't like what they've done with Westwood Studios, but I bought Command & Conquer 3 and even Kane's Wrath. I really, really regret seeing that company (WS) being gone today and only seeing a few of the former employees of the company today formed in a much smaller company without any real success (Petroglyph Studios). That's a direct result of their financial problems however. And I understand that, EA isn't the only universal cause, they basically saved at least a few of those guys' arses at WS by offering them a job. The thing is the C&C series is being retaken and the Kane character is coming back. And thanks to nostalgia I am still buying C&C games today. But I don't boycott EA because I don't like them very much, simply because I'm not that stupid and I know that at times they CAN make good games and they CAN publish both a crappy or a good game on the market in a well advertised manner and in due time.

The point is as I said and as I will repeat, two things:

1) I support SecuROM in their ultimate goal to fight piracy, yes. But what I am enraged at is that they don't seem to understand that they HAVE to verify their anti-piracy methods if they don't want to go bankrupt eventually. The actual SecuROM's reason of existence is not questioned, but their methods are, and are also hated by many including me because two of my games are affected by that and I bought them.

2) Your "Natural Selection" argument just doesn't make sense to me. Maybe it does to you but then again if that's the case then what does that mean to me? Nothing you got it. Good for those, or bad for those of you who are concerned by that, but I'm sorry I won't just leave an entire company behind in the dust and history because they apparently "suck" or are apparently "good". If they treat me as a mindless entity from which they can suck the money from then it's another story, but since I'm not a vengeful person in real life I always end up calming down a little and I tell myself "ok, it was a mistake, let's see if they change their philosophy in terms of public relations in the future and then I'll make up my mind again". If you're not like that, fine! But I don't care.
 
Originally posted by: Zenoth
Originally posted by: ja1484

He's helping the problem.
Click to expand...

Yes, he is helping the problem.

He buys the games, he gives his money to the publishers and developers, that's what they ask for, that's what the law asks for, and the copy-protection that the developers and or publishers decide to use in their games are screwing him and many of other legitimate gamers over. Yes, he is helping the problem by doing the only thing he should do, buying his games. It is NOT his job to actually find and test another method of anti-piracy. What do YOU really except him to do? Apply for a job at SecuROM so he can engineer a new method all by himself?! Be reasonable for a moment.
Click to expand...


Yeah, that's what I was saying. Yelling on a vlog helps to solve every problem. Just last week, it brought Jesus back.
 
Originally posted by: ja1484
Originally posted by: Zenoth
Originally posted by: ja1484

He's helping the problem.
Click to expand...

Yes, he is helping the problem.

He buys the games, he gives his money to the publishers and developers, that's what they ask for, that's what the law asks for, and the copy-protection that the developers and or publishers decide to use in their games are screwing him and many of other legitimate gamers over. Yes, he is helping the problem by doing the only thing he should do, buying his games. It is NOT his job to actually find and test another method of anti-piracy. What do YOU really except him to do? Apply for a job at SecuROM so he can engineer a new method all by himself?! Be reasonable for a moment.
Click to expand...


Yeah, that's what I was saying. Yelling on a vlog helps to solve every problem. Just last week, it brought Jesus back.
Click to expand...

Well if you have a better idea go ahead and do it, give SecuROM some flowers and speak to them as if you were either your friends or if your were a politician. Why not applying for a job at SecuROM while you're at it? Maybe YOU can help the situation? I mean, seriously, if you are able to find a good solution for everyone, hey I'd even pay you a beer someday and I'd be the first one to thank you because you see I find it frustrating to have to disable my media drivers, use an emulation/virtual-drive software and use a mini-image of one of my games to play it, because it doesn't work out-of-the-box like it should.

And I find it equally frustrating to think that some people around will say "well, why don't you just disable those drives and just shut up about it?" and in turn diminishing the causality behind the necessary actions to make a darn game work. Why not also telling HIM instead of me that what he does doesn't help? Hey why not simply send an e-mail to SecuROM and talk about that vlog and provide them with a direct link to the video and tell them "look guys someone here doesn't help the situation, don't listen to him, he's enraged and he's yelling at you, he's frustrated, his arguments and his opinions at their base have no values, but I myself have a better solution for you and here it is...", no?
 
Originally posted by: Zenoth
If they treat me as a mindless entity from which they can suck the money from then it's another story
Click to expand...

Isn't treating you like garbage what DRM is all about?
CD keys and CD checks are annoying, but they don't break the game. SecuRom and StarForce really do break the game. Unless you hack the game you legally purchased, there is a good chance that your SecuRom or StarForce game won't work, even though your computer meets every requirement on the box. Can you return the software? No, stores never take returns on open PC software. So what are you left with? You paid $50, and you got literally nothing in return. Ubisoft/EA/other just stole your money.

It seems weird that individuals are treated like shit, but those standards don't apply to corporate software because the publisher knows they could never get away with something like that. MS Office doesn't require a CD in the drive, nor does it install a rootkit. Even Photoshop doesn't do that, and that's some seriously expensive software.

I was wrong to call it a "boycott" to not buy these products. The term boycott usually implies that a product is perfectly fine, and the lack of support is solely based on moral reasons. That's not what the hatred for DRM is all about. Here we're talking about products that really are inferior; they don't have the same quality as a product that doesn't include that DRM. People are not resorting to cracks because a crack is more ethical; they are cracking their games because the crack really does work better than what they brought home from the store. This is really no different from that scandal where Creative made shitty sound drivers, and people had to download Daniel K's drivers just to get some function out of their Creative sound card.

The idea of buying a broken game out of sympathy is weird. I don't get a paycheck at my job out of sympathy, and I'll bet you don't either. If Ubisoft and EA are making inferior products, they should face the same reality as anyone else who does a bad job.
 
I love my Steam. That is all.

And I didn't know I could get a mini image to make BF2 playable on my computer without a CD. Thanks for that tip.
 
Zenoth, it is very clear that you have never worked closely enough with execs that sell pretty much any kind of retail product. In short, the only thing that will ever change this DRM crap is money and/or the law. That's it. This means that the only thing we can do as individuals is to speak with our wallets.

When the execs of publishers sit down during their quarterly and annual meetings to discuss profit margins they also discuss why they are not getting enough money and how they can make more. They really do not give a crap about the law and moral ties with copyright protection because they cannot get pinched for it. Nor do these people give a crap about the quality of the games they publish as long as those games sell. All they care about is how much money they are losing or making. So, if they are convinced that they are losing too many sales because of their crappy copyright protection and the consumer's refusal to purchase those games then they will change their ways because they want more money. That does not mean that they will simply remove DRM copyright protection, but they will do whatever it takes to make more sales. The way to do that is to develop effective methods of copyright protection which does not harm the legitimate user in any way. This will become their goal as soon as the dollars justify the means. Until then, we are fucked.

 
DRM does not have to be intrusive (STEAM) I agree with the guy in the video it might be easier to run pirated games than retail games because of this crap. That's why I won't spend the money on anything that I hear is intrusive and will usually only look for games on STEAM. DRM sucks.

Is it me or did that guy seem angry?

 
Originally posted by: Zenoth
Most of the developers don't HAVE to get anti-piracy measures, I mean anti-piracy companies like SecuROM don't point a gun at their heads to force them to use their methods, do they?
Click to expand...

Now that you mention it, maybe they do.

Think about it. Maybe to make PS3 games Sony "encourages" publisher to use SecuROM for their PC games. It's really the only reason that makes sense for using such a worthless annoying piece of shit like SecuROM.

Buy games from Stardock, no DRM to screw up your PC or gaming experience.
 
Originally posted by: TheVrolok
YouTube clips rarely load properly for me anymore. Page loads, and they just sit there, not buffering. Hmm.
Click to expand...

It's probably SecurROM's fault. 😉
 
10/10

My latest example.

I bought Bioshock at launch.

I installed it once.

I now cannot install it again as it brings up some cryptic error.
Searching leads to some insanely complicated process & sending the results to Bioshock just so i can possibly get a fix to play the game.

Take a wild guess how much money 2k will see from me in the future :roll:
 
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