Oh, it’s connected to the 'net a lot more than 3 times a month - my laptop is my primary computer. However, I shouldn’t have to worry about my 10 days being up while I’m traveling, or in the event that I don’t have internet access.
One little “what if?” by itself might not seem like a big deal, but a lot of “what ifs?” added together spell out a game that is needlessly less versatile than others of its type. Simply put: if the game is NOT online-dependent (like an MMORPG), then I shouldn’t have to worry about having internet access in order to play it.
I’m not particularly well-versed in hacking technology, but what’s to stop someone from creating a “pirate” USB key, using an ordinary USB drive, that allows the player to bypass the authentication process? I think the point that a lot of posters on this thread are trying to make is that some software companies seem to commonly underestimate (or maybe don’t want to acknowledge) the actual abilities of software pirates and hackers, and the ones who end up being saddled with cumbersome anti-piracy technology aren’t the ones doing the pirating.
A mandatory USB key wouldn’t be as big of a pain-in-the-ass as mandatory 10-day authentication server checks, but it would still probably end up being an example of anti-piracy technology that doesn’t really do what it was designed to do, and “punishes” the wrong people with varying degrees of inconvenience.
I do think the efficiency and ingenuity of the pirates out there is underestimated. Too bad we don’t have their collective talents working on curing cancer…
They’re really really good. Software companies have been devising many many ways to stay ahead of them, and pirates always defeat them efficiently and quickly. It’s all for ego. They race to be the first people to crack and distribute new games.
No copy protection scheme that I’m aware of has ever stopped determined pirates for more than a few days at most. When protection schemes become more onerous, pirates actually have a more pleasant user experience than legitimate customers. I’ve cracked many games I own simply because CD swapping is inconvenient, and in at least one case I didn’t want the starforce protection on the game messing with my computer.
That said, I’d like to see less piracy and more support for developers. But I don’t think more and more invasive copy protection scheme helps the industry - pirates defeat it, and legitimate customers are discouraged from buying. I don’t want the PC gaming industry to dry up and/or become EA-ized because there’s not enough support from customers.
If the 10 day checks were reduced to 3 month checks, and if a check failed, you had 30 days to complete it before the game stopped working, I think almost every concern listed here would be eliminated.
Passing over the digital distribution item (which I’ve edited out of your quote, and point taken), I really don’t get the rest of these objections. I bought a car last month, it came with a key. No one can use it without that key, even me. I do not feel like the dealer or the car manufacturer is treating me like a thief.
Agreed. There should be a grace period where you can play, but it nags you – “get to a net hookup in the next 10 (or whatever) days, please” doesn’t sound like that onerous of a system. Having the game just quit because you forgot to monitor what day it is does indeed suck.
Again, physical property metaphors are not all that apt to the discussion of anti-piracy tools used to protect software, because:
it is much, MUCH harder to “pirate” a car by duplicating it exactly and trying to sell the duplicate without authorization from the manufacturer, than it is to do the same thing with software;
Car door locks serve the important purpose of helping protect one’s OWN property from being taken by low-tech thieves, namely whatever is locked in your car; also, the ignition lock is there to prevent someone else from taking YOUR car, not to prevent people from copying the car.
With car security, it’s not that the car companies assume that the buyer might be a thief, it’s that they’re assuming that everyone else might be a thief.
The key is for your benefit, not theirs. Once it’s sold they don’t care if your car is key operated or not.
These analogies you keep bringing up are all bunk. Yes, cell phone towers (for example) track where a cell phone is - because it’s a necesary part of operating the system. The makers of software generally have no need to track software in order for the software to work. This is not for the consumer’s benefit, as car keys and cell phone functionality is. It’s for the benefit of the developer.
There may be reasons why software protection is a good idea, but your attitude of being dismissive of legitimate objections, and making bad analogies isn’t demonstrating them.
The car key analogy made no sense at all. The exploding bookshelves analogy was flawed but at least it was within the realm of demonstrating its logical point about the creator retaining the ability to disable a product after the product has been purchased.
Ok, so you’re going to assert that good intentions on the part of the manufacturer mollifies your objections. Fine. But, given a key to use anything (a locked chest, a car, whatever) its still the same objection: I don’t care (and why should anyone) what the manufacturers intent is. The practical issue is that you have an object of any sort that requires a key. If you want to object that its different, please tell me how its different regardless of intent.
OK, I guess its pretty hopeless when exploding bookshelves are an acceptable analogy to, well, anything. I give up, you’re all very obviously on the side of goodness and puppies, and I am not: a USB key to play a silly game would obviously be the end of humanity, and I am damned to Heck for entertaining the idea.
OK, maybe not, but I’m a little frustrated that there seems to be a culture in this thread that any barrier, regardless of how trivial, is unacceptable.
But cars do NOT have to have locks! Shouldn’t cars be free? Shouldn’t you have to chain them to lamp posts with your own lock that you sadly had to buy despite your trust in humanity?
I really can’t get my head around this argument, and I apologize for the sarcasm.
ETA: I’ll add that I’m tired, and should have shut up before now. Please carry on.
You appear that you think you’re making logical arguments that are falling on deaf ears, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. You’re speaking in hyperbolic extremes and making irrational analogies and strawmen and then getting frustrated and insulting when no one agrees with you.
You have not in recent posts come close to making a logical counterpoint to anything anyone has said nor have you characterized anyone’s arguments accurately.
Your response to my point in the last post demonstrates that succinctly.
I’m speaking in hyperbolic extremes? No love for the exploding bookshelves? Really?
Well, for my hyperbolic extremism I apologize, and I’ll try to do better. I think I took a shot at this with the USB key issue, but alas. Why is it so darned awful to stick a USB key into a free USB slot? This has not been addressed except with somewhat specious arguments about intent of the key, which is silly – a key doesn’t have intent. Neither does a car or anything else.
I can’t, because an object requiring a key wouldn’t have a key without intent, now would it? Why on Earth would something have a key that didn’t need one for some reason?
Analogies don’t have to be realistic. They need to be logical and demonstrate a point. Exploding bookshelves make a point about creators retaining the ability to disable products. An analogy between car keys and software keys has no logical connection at all.
The hyperbolic extremes are mostly in the way you attempt to portray what other people say. For instance:
First, the “shouldn’t cars be free?” line is the most absurd of the bunch. Who here says piracy is ethical because it’s unethical to charge for software and it should all be free?
No, cars do not have to have locks. But they add value to the purchaser of the car. If the car did not come with locks from the factory, most people would install locks in their cars because they provide utility and increase the value of the car.
As for the lamp post line - I have absolutely no idea where you’re trying to go with that. Your characterization of what the argument you’re countering is is completely off the wall.
A USB key could easily be lost. It could break. If all software requires a USB key, you’re going to be swapping around the keys like you swap CDs/DVDs now, making it more likely that those things happen. It would also be inconvenient. Especially if a user has limited numbers of USB ports or they’re hard to reach.
More fundamentally, car manufacturers add locks to cars BECAUSE IT MAKES THEM A BETTER PRODUCT. Users want locks on their cars. If the manufacturers didn’t do it, the users would do it themselves. It makes the product better.
Adding locks to software DOES NOT MAKE IT A BETTER PRODUCT. It inconveniences the user. Most users would not add locks to their software if the developer did not.
These things are not only not the same, but they’re not logically related in any way whatsoever. This analogy is thoroughly faulty and of no use whatsoever.
Intravenus De Milo: I don’t know what to say to that. I really don’t see a readily workable dongle functioning as a key, or some other really easily acceptable activation device, whatever that is, is that objectionable. I really don’t understand why apparently you or others here do. If the alternative is a game, with as convenient an activation device as possible, versus no game, I really don’t get the militant objections that would compel the latter course: no game(s).
No one has made a case that the alternative is no game. Time has been spent on this thread discussing the idea that anti-piracy measures make people less likely to buy a game. Sins of a Solar Empire is probably one of the most profitable PC games this year and has no cd copy protection whatsoever.
These measures typically do not deter piracy substantially because pirates are technically savvy and widely distributed enough that the ability to defeat such measures is fast and widespread. Making them more onerous does nothing to inhibit piracy, it merely further inconveniences the end user. If someone came out with a dongle requirement for a game, it would be defeated within days. The end result would be that little to no piracy was discouraged, but legitimate customers will be inconvenienced.
Senor Beef, I have some sympathy to what you’re saying – I was indeed doing a bit of a parody of some of the extremist postings that came earlier in the thread. But I am honestly baffled – why is it such a big f’n deal to accept some sort of validation for a game? Really! Why!?! I find it incomprehensible. I understand some of the objections, and have acknowledged several of them. I just don’t get why every restriction is absolutely unacceptable, with various silly analogies (exploding bookshelves) tacked on. Why is this even necessary for this discussion? Why is every activation scheme unacceptable? If I’m mischaracterizing things, I apologize, but my impression is one where the majority of this thread would rather have no games at all, versus a few games with some mild restrictions. Which seems like a very counter productive stance, one that could well end up with very few or almost no games on the PC when things work themselves out.