Any clue who is gonna be the European distributor?

[Splitter]

Two thoughts:

If the copy protection is too intrusive and may mess up other games or render the new game unplayable, I won't buy it.

I totally understand companies wanting to protect their hard work, but I also know there are less intrusive ways to keep them from losing vast amounts of sales.

For example, the DVD that came in the box is usually not the end all and be all of the game. Most of the time, there are bugs. Much of the time, there are updates to improve the game (there better be).

The companies that support their games after release are the ones that I support with my money. I've been ripped off a number of times (cough...EA) with incomplete releases that were not properly patched and updated.

I do no think it is too much to ask of the customer that a game's authenticity be validated when it is first installed and then for subsequent updates. Any pirated copy would not be able to be updated and improved. This discourages piracy AND encourages companies to support the products they produce. Any pirated copy would then simply be a "beta" which probably includes all kinds of viruses.

Second thought: verify the authenticity of a game's files for multiplayer modes. I HATE CHEATERS. You want to cheat offline? I have no problem with that, turn on god mode. Don't do it when competing with other humans. I have participated in a few efforts to eliminate cheaters from competition and it's not easy...except for the developers. When game companies did not do enough to protect the online community from cheaters, the leagues had to develop their own special mods and watch like hawks.

If a game has "tighter" authentication for multiplayer, I am ok with that as long as it works. Here again, pirates would not be able to participate which protects both the customers and the developers.

I can't defend software pirates but I do not see the tie in to music piracy. Once you buy a song you should be able to copy that song to any format you wish (legal in the US, btw, under "fair use"). The music and movie industries have cried about piracy issues since magnetic tape became available but I see a lot of really rich artists out there. They must have figured out some way to still make a buck, right?

Youngsters have no idea lol. We used to buy albums for $10 (worth more back then!) that had maybe two or three hit songs and 7 songs you skipped over. We couldn't really buy single songs for a buck. Artists even cried back then that people were recording songs off the radio. But they adapted to the "new ways" and are raking in money hand over fist.

Poor products and anti-piracy attempts that are too intrusive actually lead to piracy. Adapt and overcome, software companies need to do the same.

Splitter

[Oldschool61]

Originally Posted by WTE_Galway

Not really.

Sins of a Solar Empire was released without any copy protection and was one of the top games of the year.

The publishers logic was DRM simply interferes with genuine sales as the people that hack take breaking copy protection as a challenge and would never buy it anyway. It worked for them.

The recent fascination with DRM is simply the result of too many accounting and lawyer types who tend to be control freaks conniving their way into executive positions in big corporations

I have pirated games in the past and those were games I wasnt really interested in and never really played them much and would never have even bought them in the first place so the publisher never lost anything anyway. Any game I really wanted I purchased because I knew that any online play with a pirated copy usually never worked.

As far as i have read, ubisoft had not the best sales with their DRM contaminated games.

So where is their advantage?


The fair minded purchaser of a game which has DRM is the loser.
The pirate is the winner, well he didn't give money for sure but the point is that the pirate doesnt have to struggle with DRM issues.

Publishers should invest their money "they waste on DRM coding" in persecuting the pirates on the p2p plattforms and others.

That doesn't negatively effect the sales like DRM does, because it's not against the purchasers, but lowers the pirate rate.

[chimp306]

Hi

i have been lurking here for a while, looking forward to any news about SOW.

This little DRM chat has persuaded me to thrown in my pennys worth to the debate.

DRM is bad, i have had bad experiences with it and most people that i know who have a knowledge of these things will avoid it like the plague.

So, if they issue a game with DRM, certain people wont buy it.. i normally wait as quite often it appears without DRM later on.

I do however have friends who cant wait, they want the game but they wont buy it with DRM.. so they download the pirate copy which has the DRM ripped out of it.

on a similar note another friend of mine downloads nocd cracks for all his games, because he hates the noise of his dvd drive.. i kid you not.

there is a lot of piracy on the pc, but the pandemic is growing on consoles now too... i for one condone piracy, i like to consider myself old enough to know better, i dont believe that it can ever be stopped, there will always be someone who works around what ever DRM is in place, there will always be someone who will download that work...

Personally i think publishers and developers need to understand that the games market has evolved. there are many new games every month, and many people cant afford to buy every game they want.

Punishing the honest with invasive DRM is not the right way to fix it, it pushes them away and the pirates will work around your DRM regardless.

personally, although flawed as it was i think the right level is the "cd key" system as used in the COD series etc..

just my 2ps worth anyway...

Originally Posted by =XIII=Shea

I must say it will be 1c,as why would they be using 1c forum,s

1C have not set up a dedicated Storm Of War forum though, we are still having to use the IL2-Sturmovik forum to get WIP screenies and other small bits of info.