StarCraft II Gets DRM

[exdeath]

Dialing home to install (eg: Windows XP style DRM) is one thing. That is easily put up with one time.

Eliminating an entire portion of the game (LAN) in the name of DRM? F*** THAT.

 

[69Mach1]

They've entered the realm of: Blow Me (I won't be buying)

 

[Sylvanas]

Yeah It's so hard to log on the Internet to validate, just like how hard it is to log onto the AT forums and whinge about DRM.

 

[NaOH]

Originally posted by: mindcycle

Originally posted by: NaOH
Example makes no sense because your car doesn't drive on the internet.

lol.. It's called an example for a reason. I was illustrating another situation that would be equally as ridiculous.

Originally posted by: NaOH
You say you're standing up for consumer rights? What does that even mean?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=consumer+rights

Originally posted by: NaOH
It's because you're turning this activation into some kind of monstrosity of a DRM (enough not to buy the game) when several people and the article you linked state that it's unobtrusive.

Yeah, a representative from Blizzard says it will be unobtrusive.. That automatically makes everything ok. lol

If you'd like you can read up on the rights you are giving up when you support companies like Activision and their "unobtrusive" DRM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_sale_doctrine

Originally posted by: NaOH
As long as they come up with a good efficient way that will deter it, then I'm all for it. Limiting installs, rootkits, etc etc are a no go for me.

So you think requiring an online connection to install the game will be an efficient way to stop piracy? I'm not for limited installs either, and feel this is not as draconian as that, but I fail to see how any of this will be efficient at all. Let us install the game and play it. If we want to play online we need a key and a bnet account. That's acceptable and works pretty well for most games with a multiplayer component. The need to be connected to the net and signup for bnet before you can install it is not doing anything but guaranteeing we won't be able to sell the game.

First of all, your example is pointless then. Why even bring it up? It doesn't help your argument and you don't even have anything to say when I brought up that you have to activate other goods to prove that it wasn't obtained illegally.

Secondly, you don't have to buy the damn game. No one is tricking you into buying it so no rights were infringed. If it was like Battlefield 2142 where they snuck a note in AFTERWARDS then yeah, that's fucked up because you never knew what you were getting. So save me your misunderstanding of "rights".

Thirdly, if you call blizzard you can unmerge your games from your battlenet account and transfer it to another. Pain in the ass, but that's not too bad considering A HELL OF A LOT of people pirate the damn game. Read up before you spread misinformation about not being able to sell it.

Also, 100,000 people on your petition. That's it!? Out of the whole world, that's it? Do you not understand networking? If you were on the same network as all your buddies, your ping to each other will still be unbelievably low. The only difference is that you have to be on battle.net. Which prevents people from having illegal copies playing on a LAN (which happened A LOT when I was at my University). You know what didn't get pirated at all? Games that needed Steam.

 

[CoinOperatedBoy]

Originally posted by: NaOH
Secondly, you don't have to buy the damn game. No one is tricking you into buying it so no rights were infringed. If it was like Battlefield 2142 where they snuck a note in AFTERWARDS then yeah, that's fucked up because you never knew what you were getting. So save me your misunderstanding of "rights".

It's just part of a slow assault on consumer rights. You don't have to buy the game to have it affect you. The more people who accept the trend and buy games with pointless DRM that kills resale, the more likely the next game you do buy will behave the same way.

Do you not understand networking? If you were on the same network as all your buddies, your ping to each other will still be unbelievably low. The only difference is that you have to be on battle.net. Which prevents people from having illegal copies playing on a LAN (which happened A LOT when I was at my University). You know what didn't get pirated at all? Games that needed Steam.

First of all, even if latency is acceptable, ping on battle.net will not be as low as on LAN, end of story. Also, Starcraft included the ability to spawn free copies from one key just to play on LAN. I don't see why people would feel the need to pirate it on the scale you describe. The fact that they've removed LAN play entirely from the sequel signals a pretty massive shift.

 

[Beev]

Ping is a complete non-issue in well coded games. We have a guy in my WoW guild in fucking NEW ZEALAND who has as low of ping as all of us in the US, and I'd wager that ping is infinitely more important in that game.

People just want something to whine about. End of story.

 

[KeypoX]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: Slick5150


It sucks to be a consumer in this day and age.

yes for digital things it does. Digital media that is.

I still play SC and played it a lot in HS. Over lan mostly as we only had a couple copies, and high speed internet was just being test marketed in the US. There were no cracks back then. And all you had to do was hit a bunch of random number for the CD key. But we didnt think we were doing anything wrong by playing on a lan.

I thinks its fine to limit the online players to 1 per copy. But if you wanna share with your friends its should be no problem.

I have bought every blizzard game, i may not buy this one. Well i lied i stop wow before it hit any expansions so, i didnt buy those.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: 69Mach1
They've entered the realm of: Blow Me (I won't be buying)

And you must be so disappointed because right up until you found out it would have some form of DRM you were saving your pennies right? :roll:

 

[KeithP]

A one time activation through the internet doesn't sound like a big deal to me other than the "no resale" possibility. However, I have a simple rule for that. If I can resell the game I will pay up to $40 for it, if I can't, $30 is my limit. So the deciding factor for me will be price and game reviews.

I am curious about how many of the folks saying they won't buy SC2 because of this requirement are making those posts from a computer with a Microsoft OS with a similar DRM scheme. I am guessing all of them. Linux and OS X feature no such limitation, why aren't you using one of those operating systems?

-KeithP

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: KeithP
A one time activation through the internet doesn't sound like a big deal to me other than the "no resale" possibility. However, I have a simple rule for that. If I can resell the game I will pay up to $40 for it, if I can't, $30 is my limit. So the deciding factor for me will be price and game reviews.

I am curious about how many of the folks saying they won't buy SC2 because of this requirement are making those posts from a computer with a Microsoft OS with a similar DRM scheme. I am guessing all of them. Linux and OS X feature no such limitation, why aren't you using one of those operating systems?

-KeithP

If anything, MS's DRM scheme for the OS is stricter than what is being proposed here. Every now and again, you need to download an updated version of WGA. If you want to download non-security updates, you need WGA, etc... MS's OS is not just phoning home once for activation. Not that I mind MS's current system because it's not intrusive to me.

As for the hupla surrounding the DRM surrounding SC2 - get a grip. It calls home once during installation. Nothing about installation limits, etc. It's not phoning home when you play SP.

The only issue I could see is resale of the game if the online activation ties you into a B-net account.

 

[Red Irish]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: KeithP
A one time activation through the internet doesn't sound like a big deal to me other than the "no resale" possibility. However, I have a simple rule for that. If I can resell the game I will pay up to $40 for it, if I can't, $30 is my limit. So the deciding factor for me will be price and game reviews.

I am curious about how many of the folks saying they won't buy SC2 because of this requirement are making those posts from a computer with a Microsoft OS with a similar DRM scheme. I am guessing all of them. Linux and OS X feature no such limitation, why aren't you using one of those operating systems?

-KeithP

If anything, MS's DRM scheme for the OS is stricter than what is being proposed here. Every now and again, you need to download an updated version of WGA. If you want to download non-security updates, you need WGA, etc... MS's OS is not just phoning home once for activation. Not that I mind MS's current system because it's not intrusive to me.

As for the hupla surrounding the DRM surrounding SC2 - get a grip. It calls home once during installation. Nothing about installation limits, etc. It's not phoning home when you play SP.

The only issue I could see is resale of the game if the online activation ties you into a B-net account.

That's the only issue most of us are talking about - I like cheaper second-hand games.

 

[exdeath]

Originally posted by: KeithP
A one time activation through the internet doesn't sound like a big deal to me other than the "no resale" possibility. However, I have a simple rule for that. If I can resell the game I will pay up to $40 for it, if I can't, $30 is my limit. So the deciding factor for me will be price and game reviews.

I am curious about how many of the folks saying they won't buy SC2 because of this requirement are making those posts from a computer with a Microsoft OS with a similar DRM scheme. I am guessing all of them. Linux and OS X feature no such limitation, why aren't you using one of those operating systems?

-KeithP

Microsoft didn't strip LAN support out of XP. /thread

 

[KeypoX]

Originally posted by: exdeath

Originally posted by: KeithP
A one time activation through the internet doesn't sound like a big deal to me other than the "no resale" possibility. However, I have a simple rule for that. If I can resell the game I will pay up to $40 for it, if I can't, $30 is my limit. So the deciding factor for me will be price and game reviews.

I am curious about how many of the folks saying they won't buy SC2 because of this requirement are making those posts from a computer with a Microsoft OS with a similar DRM scheme. I am guessing all of them. Linux and OS X feature no such limitation, why aren't you using one of those operating systems?

-KeithP

Microsoft didn't strip LAN support out of XP. /thread

also you can reinstall xp/vista/7 as many times as you like.

How are you gonna reinstall starcraft? What if you upgrade a motherboard what will happen with SC? Windows will work fine and can be reinstalled, though you may have to call, I have never had too. I bought Mass effect and its a pain in the ass to reinstall, good thing its single player...

hell you could ever resell windows. SC will be a big pain if it has a 1 install limit. I have reinstalled SC1 at least 20 times. And blizzard made it so easy and you can download the game from their website. They are stupid to go this route, spending all this extra time and money. Only to be cracked before its even released, and lose sales.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: KeypoX

Originally posted by: exdeath

Originally posted by: KeithP
A one time activation through the internet doesn't sound like a big deal to me other than the "no resale" possibility. However, I have a simple rule for that. If I can resell the game I will pay up to $40 for it, if I can't, $30 is my limit. So the deciding factor for me will be price and game reviews.

I am curious about how many of the folks saying they won't buy SC2 because of this requirement are making those posts from a computer with a Microsoft OS with a similar DRM scheme. I am guessing all of them. Linux and OS X feature no such limitation, why aren't you using one of those operating systems?

-KeithP

Microsoft didn't strip LAN support out of XP. /thread

also you can reinstall xp/vista/7 as many times as you like.

How are you gonna reinstall starcraft? What if you upgrade a motherboard what will happen with SC? Windows will work fine and can be reinstalled, though you may have to call, I have never had too. I bought Mass effect and its a pain in the ass to reinstall, good thing its single player...

hell you could ever resell windows. SC will be a big pain if it has a 1 install limit. I have reinstalled SC1 at least 20 times. And blizzard made it so easy and you can download the game from their website. They are stupid to go this route, spending all this extra time and money. Only to be cracked before its even released, and lose sales.

Where is there anything about "install limit"?

 

[Liet]

Originally posted by: Elcs
Dawn of War 2 had this with GFWL/Steam. It ended up being a non-issue to most people.

Not true. During beta and early release, GFWL would crash nightly, and this would actually knock you out of your current game and you wouldn't be able to even PLAY the game. It was ridiculous.

I haven't played in a while... maybe it's still happening!

 

[mindcycle]

Originally posted by: NaOH
Also, 100,000 people on your petition. That's it!? Out of the whole world, that's it? Do you not understand networking? If you were on the same network as all your buddies, your ping to each other will still be unbelievably low. The only difference is that you have to be on battle.net. Which prevents people from having illegal copies playing on a LAN (which happened A LOT when I was at my University). You know what didn't get pirated at all? Games that needed Steam.

Why would you compare that number to the amount of people in the world? The amount of people in the world has nothing to do with the amount of people who are actually going to buy the game, or who even play video games for that matter.. If the game does extremely well and sells a million copies in the first few weeks/months, that would be 10% of the user base. Put things in perspective instead of trying to compare apples to oranges.

Taking LAN play out of a game that has thrived on that option in the past and putting up additional roadblocks to hinder resale is not good for the customer. If you can't see that then you obviously don't understand the problem.

 

[KeypoX]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: KeypoX

Originally posted by: exdeath

Originally posted by: KeithP
A one time activation through the internet doesn't sound like a big deal to me other than the "no resale" possibility. However, I have a simple rule for that. If I can resell the game I will pay up to $40 for it, if I can't, $30 is my limit. So the deciding factor for me will be price and game reviews.

I am curious about how many of the folks saying they won't buy SC2 because of this requirement are making those posts from a computer with a Microsoft OS with a similar DRM scheme. I am guessing all of them. Linux and OS X feature no such limitation, why aren't you using one of those operating systems?

-KeithP

Microsoft didn't strip LAN support out of XP. /thread

also you can reinstall xp/vista/7 as many times as you like.

How are you gonna reinstall starcraft? What if you upgrade a motherboard what will happen with SC? Windows will work fine and can be reinstalled, though you may have to call, I have never had too. I bought Mass effect and its a pain in the ass to reinstall, good thing its single player...

hell you could ever resell windows. SC will be a big pain if it has a 1 install limit. I have reinstalled SC1 at least 20 times. And blizzard made it so easy and you can download the game from their website. They are stupid to go this route, spending all this extra time and money. Only to be cracked before its even released, and lose sales.

Where is there anything about "install limit"?

if there is no install limit what is hte point of having to connect to activate? You could resell and there would be no problems.... or point

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: mindcycle

Originally posted by: NaOH
Also, 100,000 people on your petition. That's it!? Out of the whole world, that's it? Do you not understand networking? If you were on the same network as all your buddies, your ping to each other will still be unbelievably low. The only difference is that you have to be on battle.net. Which prevents people from having illegal copies playing on a LAN (which happened A LOT when I was at my University). You know what didn't get pirated at all? Games that needed Steam.

Why would you compare that number to the amount of people in the world? The amount of people in the world has nothing to do with the amount of people who are actually going to buy the game, or who even play video games for that matter.. If the game does extremely well and sells a million copies in the first few weeks/months, that would be 10% of the user base. Put things in perspective instead of trying to compare apples to oranges.

Taking LAN play out of a game that has thrived on that option in the past and putting up additional roadblocks to hinder resale is not good for the customer. If you can't see that then you obviously don't understand the problem.

It's the past bro, this isn't 2001 anymore. LAN gaming is dying and those of you who continue to ignore this are just going to end up bitter and disappointed.

It's just not relevant anymore.

 

[KeypoX]

Originally posted by: mindcycle

Originally posted by: NaOH
Also, 100,000 people on your petition. That's it!? Out of the whole world, that's it? Do you not understand networking? If you were on the same network as all your buddies, your ping to each other will still be unbelievably low. The only difference is that you have to be on battle.net. Which prevents people from having illegal copies playing on a LAN (which happened A LOT when I was at my University). You know what didn't get pirated at all? Games that needed Steam.

Why would you compare that number to the amount of people in the world? The amount of people in the world has nothing to do with the amount of people who are actually going to buy the game, or who even play video games for that matter.. If the game does extremely well and sells a million copies in the first few weeks/months, that would be 10% of the user base. Put things in perspective instead of trying to compare apples to oranges.

Taking LAN play out of a game that has thrived on that option in the past and putting up additional roadblocks to hinder resale is not good for the customer. If you can't see that then you obviously don't understand the problem.

how cna you people defend what blizzard has done? And wtf are you talking about steam for. It came out 6 years after SC. And every game ever released on steam has been pirated.

 

[mindcycle]

Originally posted by: ayabe
It's the past bro, this isn't 2001 anymore. LAN gaming is dying and those of you who continue to ignore this are just going to end up bitter and disappointed.

It's just not relevant anymore.

Over 100,000 StarCraft fans disagree with you.

http://www.destructoid.com/ove...-petition-144437.phtml

 

[69Mach1]

Originally posted by: jonks

Originally posted by: 69Mach1
They've entered the realm of: Blow Me (I won't be buying)

And you must be so disappointed because right up until you found out it would have some form of DRM you were saving your pennies right? :roll:

No this was just the final nail in the coffin. I used to think Blizzard could do no wrong. Now I think otherwise. I'm sure plenty of people will buy anything they make, so I won't be missed.

 

[Martimus]

Originally posted by: 69Mach1

Originally posted by: jonks

Originally posted by: 69Mach1
They've entered the realm of: Blow Me (I won't be buying)

And you must be so disappointed because right up until you found out it would have some form of DRM you were saving your pennies right? :roll:

No this was just the final nail in the coffin. I used to think Blizzard could do no wrong. Now I think otherwise. I'm sure plenty of people will buy anything they make, so I won't be missed.

This was likely the last nail in the coffin for me too. I had planned on buying the game, but I wasn't immensely excited about it. (SC1 was a good game, but not as fun as C&C or Red Alert at the time - for me at least) Seeing that I need to sign up for some sort of online account before I can even play the game is more hassle than it is worth for me. The lack of LAN support is another problem, as I generally avoid Multiplayer that isn't over a LAN (I grew tired of the immaturaty of people when you can't walk over and smack them.)

If they remove the need for a battle.net account, I will probably still buy the game and play the single player campaign. If they leave in that requirement, I doubt I will pick it up. The LAN issue is less important, as I don't have time to go out and play on a LAN as much as I used to.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Originally posted by: Martimus

Originally posted by: 69Mach1

Originally posted by: jonks

Originally posted by: 69Mach1
They've entered the realm of: Blow Me (I won't be buying)

And you must be so disappointed because right up until you found out it would have some form of DRM you were saving your pennies right? :roll:

No this was just the final nail in the coffin. I used to think Blizzard could do no wrong. Now I think otherwise. I'm sure plenty of people will buy anything they make, so I won't be missed.

This was likely the last nail in the coffin for me too. I had planned on buying the game, but I wasn't immensely excited about it. (SC1 was a good game, but not as fun as C&C or Red Alert at the time - for me at least) Seeing that I need to sign up for some sort of online account before I can even play the game is more hassle than it is worth for me. The lack of LAN support is another problem, as I generally avoid Multiplayer that isn't over a LAN (I grew tired of the immaturaty of people when you can't walk over and smack them.)

If they remove the need for a battle.net account, I will probably still buy the game and play the single player campaign. If they leave in that requirement, I doubt I will pick it up. The LAN issue is less important, as I don't have time to go out and play on a LAN as much as I used to.

do you play any games on steam?

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: Nik

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

Originally posted by: ayabe
*yawn*

Yeah I'm sure you guys aren't going to buy this game now, what a joke. :roll:

I won't be buying it now, but this DRM is just one of the reasons, not the main reason.

Bingo.

Count me in this crowd. Now we only need 2mil or so to join us.

 

[Firsttime]

I'm still wrapping my head around no LAN support. That is what made SC. SC was THE RTS LAN game for so long. DRM is just stupid. Screw this new Blizzard. Theirs games used to be genre defining. I'm having a hard time seeing SC2 do that.