As far as I can tell, none of them justified the sort of responses you’re coming up with.
It has been covered. The product you paid for can stop working completely arbitrarily at the decision of the creator. They go out of business - the authentication servers die, no one can play their game anymore. Hell, they come out with Spore 2, and encourage/force people to buy the new product by shutting down the old authentication servers…
The idea that the product you paid for isn’t yours and its continued functioning is at the whim of the creator is something that annoys people.
You are mischaractizing things. No one has said that they’ll never buy a game with any sort of copy protection. No one said “I haven’t bought a game in 10 years because the CD checks are over the line”, although some people may feel that way. A few people mentioned that this particular form of copy protection is beyond what they’re willing to tolerate.
Some copy protection is becoming downright dangerous and hostile. Do a google for “starforce” for example. The stuff can actually render hardware devices (CD/DVD-roms) inoperable, open up new ways to exploit your operating system, doesn’t get removed by normal uninstallation, and causes other problems.
Is there any evidence that more and more invasive copy protection measures has reduced incidence of piracy and promoted the legal purchase of games?
I’d like to see piracy reduced. I’d like for the PC gaming industry to be healthy and grow. I worry that measures like this are counterproductive.
The trouble is that I disagree with your assumption that all keys are fundamentally “convenient”; it depends on the context. Using an ignition key to start a car is more convenient than, say, hotwiring the car, no argument there. However, there are thousands upon thousands of consumer goods that do NOT require activation devices akin to keys. My refrigerator doesn’t. My shower doesn’t. My Nintendo Wii doesn’t. My camera doesn’t. My stationary bike doesn’t. Why don’t they? *Because a key would not benefit the use or security of them. * There’s a very simple reason why most of the devices we use on a daily basis don’t require keys: because people lose things. Lots of things.
As I think someone mentioned upthread, a software key would just be something else to lose amid the plethora of technology-related tiny devices we already have to keep track of. If I absolutely must use yet another tiny object to operate something, it better damn well be for a good reason. As has been argued already, combating software pirates is not a very good reason in the long run.
I can’t believe this needs explaining, but a car key is basically there so that the owner has control over who uses the car. You can lend it to a friend, sell it to someone else, stop anyone from using it or just leave it running permanently (well, there’s probably laws against it, and fuel problems, but as far as the car companies concerned you can do what you want). A USB dongle is purely for the games company to check that you haven’t stolen and/or copied the game. There’s no reason I can think of why you would want or need control over whether a game that you have just bought will run or not.
I’ll admit that I pirate games fairly often, for many different reasons. There’s the DRM issue discussed here, the fact that a lot of games are released unfinished, so many games are actually rubbish. I usually download a copy of the game, try it for a week to a) make sure it runs on my computer, b) that there are patches out to fix any problems and c) to make sure it’s going to hold my interest for more than five minutes. Basically I use it as a game demo. I don’t see why I should pay £30-40 on a game that either doesn’t work or that I get board of after the first level.
Indeed. As much as I’d hate to not be able to use one piece of software that I paid money for, I’d be infinitely more pissed if that piece of legitimate software took away some of the functionality of my computer, such as not allowing me to burn CDs/DVDs. I paid $50 for the game, but I paid over $1000 for this computer, leave it alone, dammit!
That doesn’t mean that I’m fundamentally opposed to ALL copy-protection. Companies have a right to protect their products from being exploited. However, I think that some methods of copy-protection are better thought out than others. For example, iTunes tags their files in such a way that you can’t mass-copy them in their original format. You ARE allowed to make enough copies for backup purposes and for use on a few other machines (e.g. iPods), which trims back the “Apple is assuming that you are a dirty thief” argument. This method protects the original product passively, without requiring extra effort on the part of the consumer, and without putting the consumer’s machine at risk.
The methods being lambasted on this thread not only require extra steps from the consumer and possibly put people’s computers at risk, but they also do not appear to actually reduce piracy to an appreciable degree.
Personally, I’d welcome the notion of a USB activation key for software I had purchased - particularly if it meant I could install the software on multiple computers (only using one at a time, taking the key with me).
If purchasing the software results in me having everything I need to install and run it independently of the existence and assistance of the manufacturers, I’d consider that satisfactory.
Sure, keeping track of the USB key would be a minor additional inconvenience, but no more so than, say, when I had to upgrade from using floppy disks to CDs or CDs to DVDs - or indeed when I decided that I would start carrying around a USB key for my files, or a pocket multi-tool in case I need to undo a screw.
I’m on the fence about this issue. On the one hand I have several games on Steam and aside from the ‘offline’ mode I never use it checks the games every time. Never really had a problem so why would I be so offended by this copy protection when I’m fine with steam?
But I am. It’s hard to put into words why. Only 3 installs? I’m already annoyed with windows XP I’ve gone past their install limit and so every time I re-install it on my computer I have to call them up in order to get it activated. Very annoying. The protection also seems to be a little vague on what info it phones home to determine if it’s on a different computer or not. At least Steam doesn’t put stupid limits like that on it.
I believe I’ll buy these games…I also believe I’ll be looking for a crack or a workaround.
Your refrigerator, your shower, your stationary bike aren’t portable. They can’t be “copied,” that is, used in multiple locations by unauthorized persons. So they are very poor analogies to offer.
Where you have a vested interest in seeing that the potential for misuse is reduced, you often have a key. You lock your bicycle, your car, your locker, your safe-deposit box, your apartment/house, etc. You do so without worrying too much about the key issue.
Those aren’t particularly good analogies, either - you don’t sell your fridge to someone and then expect to keep a lock on it, either. The apartment is closer, but I sure as crap wouldn’t rent from a landlord who was promising to check every other week to make sure I wasn’t letting someone else stay with me.
Sure, provided you don’t mind not being able to burn CDs or DVDs anymore. SecuROM will still be installed with the game… and that’s not a good thing.
Edit: The only problem I have with activation is… I still play Infocom games on occasion.
20 years later.
Think the DRM servers are still gonna be up for Spore? Microsoft is turning off their PlaysForSure servers. MLB killed theirs a while back. Servers get turned off, the game is dead. Even if I paid for it.
Wow, the car analogy totally went off the rails, didn’t it? If we’re going to make an analogy to a car, try this:
The manufacturer has placed a remote-controlled lock that only they can access, using the wireless/cellular network. Every 10 days you have to prove to the manufacturer that you still hold the title, or they will lock the car and your key won’t work. Likewise, if your car is out of range of the network for more than 3 days, it locks automatically. Can you really say you own the car when the manufacturer retains the ability to lock you out of it at will?
That is the problem, that the manufacturer/publisher still has control over an autonomous product I’ve paid for. (I say autonomous because someone will surely point out MMOs otherwise.)
But in those cases, I am protecting MY property from thieves. The consequences of not using the key is that I lose my property. Locks and keys installed on my house and car are things that benefit me; I wouldn’t buy one without it. It’s worth noting that bikes DON’T have locks and keys (or at least most don’t) and that people actually go out of their way to purchase them and use them on their bikes. Security deposit boxes are rented solely because they’re locked.
In the case of Spore and SecuROM, I buy something, and then the company that sold it to me is using a key to protect their intellectual interests. I derive no benefit from it, am inconvenienced from using MY property, and in fact there’s a chance that a technical or commercial problem will cause my property to be locked away from me.
It’s the logical equivalent of there being two keys for my car, one held by me and one by the Hyundai dealership, and every ten days I have to have them open my car door for me just to prove I’m still in possession of it.
I recently bought a Civ 4 expansion through them. Fool thing prompted for a CD instead of a D2D code, and D2D’s customer service said it wasn’t their problem. I had to get a no-CD crack for the thing to work!
Meanwhile, I can go to any computer in the world, log in to Stardock’s webpage, see a list of games I’ve purchased from them, download Sins of a Solar Empire, and start playing. Now don’t tell anybody this, and I hope it doesn’t get me banned, but…I could potentially then even leave the copy of the game on that computer, so the next user can play the game!* And remarkably, I’ve never been contacted by anyone at Stardock and told to prove that I didn’t pirate their game, or else they’ll delete it off my harddrive.
It really makes a difference when the publisher doesn’t act like they hate the customer. Especially these days, I take notice when a company treats its customers well, and I’m more than happy to buy their products. I suspect a lot of gamers feel the same way.
I’ll admit I don’t mind Steam as much for a couple of reasons. One, they provide a lot more online than simply authentication; there’s videos and demos and full games easily accessible through their client. Two, the authentication isn’t linked to the computer, it’s linked to your account. My hard drive can crash, be formatted, or whatever, and it’s no problem; just log into your account and download the games again without needing a CD or even a key available. It is annoying that you have to be logged into Steam in order to play even single player games, but Valve provides a net benefit to having online connectivity, so it’s tolerable.
You know, I was going to make this exact same point. A while ago my gaming computer went tits up. I was rebuilding it and decided I wanted to put GalCivII and all the expansion back on. I went on Stardock, logged in to my account, clicked on purchases…and simply downloaded and installed the game and all the expansions. It really was that easy.
I also bought Sins from them (and noted that in addition to the game there is a bunch of addons that were free downloads too…love the Sins theme and wallpaper :)) and frankly I will be buying games from them in the future, including the new expansion for GalCiv II…even though I’ll probably only play it occasionally.
