Game devs still don't get it in 2017

The BBQ Pit
1

Sonic Mania looks like classic Sonic The Hedgehog. And also like a game I would love to play. The reviews are good, and from what I hear it sounds like essentially another few hours of Sonic And Knuckles, which is definitely worth 20 bucks to me.

But I’m not going to buy it. I will seriously consider pirating it, however. Not due to lack of funds. But because the illegal version is a better game. Because SEGA, morons that they are, decided that in 2017, adding Denuvo Digital Rights Management software was a good idea. Because, you know, apparently selling your game on Steam isn’t enough protection from pirates, and for some reason it hasn’t gotten through to people in 2017 that DRM is a load of piss and wank.

See, the whole point of Denuvo is to prevent piracy. And yet, on the side, it also makes the game run worse. If the Denuvo servers are down for some reason when you go to activate your game, your game will not be allowed to start. If you aren’t online your game will not start. (This is a sensible requirement for an MMO or a multiplayer shooter, but this is fucking Sonic The Hedgehog!) And there are numerous reports of games just straight up running worse while Denuvo is active.

Meanwhile, it took a few days before the first cracks of Sonic Mania went up online. I learned about this game a week ago, and there’s already a crack up on a certain piracy site I won’t name with some 200 seeders. DRM has one job - stop people from pirating your games. And it can’t do that. It has literally never done that. Instead, it has given people a clear incentive to crack your game. We see the same pattern over and over and over and over again. And it never works. The only kind of DRM that actually prevents the game from being pirated is when connection to the server is part of the core functionality (like in games with a core focus on online multiplayer). Everything else exists solely as a hassle for paying customers and a boon for pirates who can actually offer a better version of your game for free.

So my reward for giving SEGA money is an objectively worse experience than if I just stole it. Not that I would know this if I didn’t pay attention to the news, as for some reason SEGA was quiet before release about the presence of shitty, game-worsening “fuck you paying customer” software.

Who, exactly, are the chucklefucks who keep thinking that this is a good idea? Who? Is there some kind of law that any Sonic The Hedgehog game has to have at least one terrible fucking design aspect built into it, so that when this game had actually good gameplay, they had to fuck up the business aspect of it? Not to mention that if you preordered the game, Steam currently won’t let you refund it, because you bought it more than two weeks ago - even if you try to refund it from the very moment you find out it invited this fucking cancer into your home computer. What is this bullshit? Who does that?

2

I stopped gaming a few years back when Steam inserted itself between me and what I’d bought. I shouldn’t need an internet connection to validate a single-player game that I paid for. I think if those companies could prevent a friend from sitting in your chair and playing a game on your computer they would.

Know what I play now? Commodore 64 games on an emulator from when I was a kid. It works on anything and the gameplay is classic and still good. Guessing I’m the world champion of Dino Eggs at this point.

3

If this board had a “like” button, I’d click it for the OP. I don’t really have anything to add to his point, though. So I guess I’m just sorta running naked through the thread yelling “Free Bird” at this point.

4

This is a publisher problem, not a game dev one

5

Denuvo does NOT affect performance, this has been shown time and time again, when the protection has been stripped either by pirates or by the devs themselves. Even horrible implementations do not seem to affect performance much. And that’s key. The protection can be implemented in any number of ways, the sonic version, for example, DOES NOT require an internet connection to run.

So Denuvo is probably the most transparent type of DRM you’ll ever encounter, assuming it was implemented correctly and without online hooks,as it is for this game.

What the fuck is there to complain about?

Also stop acting like a fucking self entitled teenager. You don’t want to support DRM games, even if that DRM does not in any way whatsoever affect your ability to enjoy it, because fuck companies that don’t want to have their games pirated day zero, I guess? Then don’t buy it. You are not entitled to the game just because it has DRM you don’t like.

Oh and:

Did you time warp from 2005 or some shit? Steam complain post? Common, if it wasn’t for Steam Pc gmaing wouldn’t be where it is now. We’d all be stuck playing stupid action adventure games with direct to DVD “cinematic” story lines on fucking consoles, the most locked down of platforms.

6

Funny, I seem to recall Half Life (a Valve product) being distributed on CD and playing it on a PC. I had the sequels and lots of mods, and once Steam was required it screwed up everything.

Maybe it’s all still do-able and I’m just an old fart. But I’d come back to gaming if it was simpler and didn’t require an internet connection to validate a game I already have on my computer. Same for music and movies - I want to OWN what I’ve paid for and know it’s going to work. Not have it live on a cloud, have to validate my ownership every time I use it and down the road have to pay again to access it when the system changes.

7

This needs to be repeated, over and over, until it sinks in. Don’t like it? The solution is to NOT BUY IT, not to steal it.

8

Steam makes everything easier; even adding mods because developers are now working with Steam to make adding mods basically a one click process to activate/deactivate. Steam also means that you can own games without having to have them loaded on your HD nor having to store them somewhere. They will not be lost, stolen, borrowed nor damaged. It also means that about 90% of my 150 Steam games cost $10 or less and several were free.

Steam has made gaming simpler and cheaper.

9

“I shouldn’t have to worry about my code getting wiped out because I put a fridge magnet next to it!” he shouted as he clutched a box of carefully sorted punch cards to his chest.

10

This is exactly the opposite of what I’ve heard. Apparently it was fixed a few days after release. It’s still shite.

What is the point? It was less than a week before Denuvo was broken. It took about as long for the game to get cracked as it took for offline functionality to be restored. This always happens. DRM breaks the game in some substantial way that has to be fixed, and is cracked almost immediately afterwards. It’s stupid, pointless, nasty software that has no business in games.

Even if you believe that Piracy significantly impacts sales (I thought that argument was put to bed ages ago, but okay, I guess not), it’s already been cracked. Meanwhile, almost every single piece of news about Sonic Mania in the last few days has been about the DRM, how the DRM has been cracked, how the DRM is awful, and how you can’t refund the preorders. It turns out there are a lot of people who really don’t like pointless, unnecessary software. Go figure.

Can’t argue with that. Steam is DRM that everyone loves.

11

Yeah. I mean, it’s not an issue I feel deeply attached to or anything, but many gamers in general have this enormous sense of entitlement that I really don’t see in any other kind of product. It’s really like you feel you are owed this game exactly how you want it on your specific terms, and if the makers don’t deliver, you’re entitled to steal it. It’s a bizarre way of looking at a consumer product and I’d be really interested in any sort of analysis as to how this came to be. What makes gaming so unique?

I remember when Diablo 3 came out, a game I frankly loved, they had some sort of anniversary celebration in which they rewarded players with free gifts, bonus XP and some other stuff. The number of people who complained that their free stuff wasn’t good enough just blew my mind. And I always rationalized it with, “well, these are children,” but it’s not just kids, is it? It’s like an endemic part of gaming culture.

Fascinating.

12

EA delenda est.

13

Because games tied to a server can and have been erased entirely from existence. If one values games as art, culture and history, that’s not good. It doesn’t come from a place of entitlement but preservation.

14

That’s a nice sentiment, but as an explanation for the phenomenon I have witnessed, I don’t really buy it. I’m not particularly thrilled that content no longer belongs to us, either games or movies or music, but this unhappy trend doesn’t fill me with a sense of determination to steal some shit. I think it’s a valid concern, but an entirely separate issue from why gamers feel so entitled. As I mentioned in the previous example, one of the greatest displays of entitlement I personally witnessed was over free content.

The idea that fifteen year olds are stealing games because of some altruistic historian sensibility is pretty absurd. They don’t like that they can’t have what they want exactly how they think they should be able to have it. The question for me is how we got from, “I can’t buy what I want” to “well then it’s fine to steal it.” My best WAG would be that it’s just so difficult to enforce laws against the theft of digital media.

15

Got a cite for the age bracket of software pirates? As for griping about freebies, are seriously suggesting that’s somehow endemic to gamers?? People of all walks bitch about free stuff. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” isn’t a recent axiom.

Look, let me put it this way: Fahrenheit 451 isn’t a hypothetical for games. There are games that only exist because of pirates. How is that any different than memorizing a book so it isn’t lost?

16

Do you? I find their age irrelevant but if you think it matters I guess we could talk about that.

Anecdotally stealing software seems to have been around since I was a teen, and is still an issue among my peers. I am 34 now. So, Millennials, I guess? People most likely to engage with digital content seem the most likely to steal it. Nothing Earth shattering there.

17

Would you mind elaborating on this point? Perhaps with concrete examples? It’s not an area in which I have much knowledge.

18

Well, for one example, there’s Frank Cifaldi (late 30s/mid 40s-ish) who is a notorious software pirate that has released ROMs of games that were never published. He also works for Digital Eclipse, which recently worked under contract to digitally update games for Capcom and Disney.

If you have an hour to spare mabye you should sit down and watch this lecture held at the reputable Game Developers Conference regarding the necessary “evil” of video game emulation.

19

Here’s a Nintendo game that now only exists because of enthusiasts

20

Interesting. I’ve used C64 emulators before but I never considered that as stealing, more like the Gutenburg project the provides free digital copies of old books. I’m sure there are all sorts of interesting questions we could ask about whether recreating a game in a different format can be meaningfully considered a different product. I’m not even sure if it’s legal. I assumed it was.

How do you see these examples as fitting in with the OP’s complaint? I’m not drawing a big connection. He’s talking about a modern currently available game with DRM software that ostensibly makes it more inconvenient to play than the exact same version of the game without the software. If I’m reading the OP correctly, his major concern is that he can only play the game online, and that this is so inconvenient to him he would rather steal the game. I don’t see much about preserving history in his complaint.