If all games were released without any DRM everyone and their mother would soon be downloading them instead of buying.
If all games were released without any DRM everyone and their mother would soon be downloading them instead of buying.You've missed my point entirely. People who pirate are going to get pirated games regardless of their DRM. Putting DRM into a game is just a wasted investment. So yes a DRM is a lock. A flimsy lock that will break and won't even slow down the intruder.
I do not understand how you can possibly use the methods in the OP to prosecute someone for illegally downloading software. They are basically downloading the torrent themselves and then looking to see who they're downloading it from. How can you do something illegal in order to catch people doing illegal things?
The "best" (subjective, of course) DRM I've seen so far
If all games were released without any DRM everyone and their mother would soon be downloading them instead of buying.
If all books were printed without DRM everyone and their mother would soon be photocopying them and distributing them instead of buying them.
Except no, that doesn't occur. I wonder why?
The "best" (subjective, of course) DRM I've seen so far was made by Iron Lore and sadly they are out of business today. It was for Titan Quest. It wasn't the "usual" DRM per se, but they did something to "punish" pirates, and to perhaps "convince" them to buy the game AFTER the pirating act was done, not BEFORE it (I.E trying to "prevent" piracy like the usual DRM methods do, and in vain for most of them).
What Iron Lore did was this:
1) The pirate downloads a copy illegally, done.
2) The illegal copy is installed successfully.
3) The pirate launches the game successfully.
4) A game is started successfully.
At that point the pirate thinks he's going to "own" the game for free, forever, wrong.
5) At some point in the game there is a DRM "check" that crashes the game back to the desktop if that check fails, and it would fail only if the copy is illegal (without outright saying that it was due to the executable or other files not being the original, of course).
So, basically, the pirated version would play normally until some point where it would always inevitably crash. The only "problem" with that method is that since it was not mentioned with a clear pop-up message of some sort that the crash was due to the game being cracked most pirates who were affected by that specific crash at that exact same place all went on the official forums to ask for technical support because they thought that the game was "buggy" and just always crashed there "for some reason" despite their PC being "stable", etc.
I bet that Iron Lore never saw that one coming though. They called it a night and must have thought that since it would always crash the affected players (pirates) would buy a legal copy because a "legal copy" would never crash. Nonsense. So that method was a nuisance for the image of the game (figuratively speaking) and the company. Still, in the end, the principle behind it was great, but it wasn't monitored properly, wasn't dealt with honestly by Iron Lore (not saying it crashed due to a failed DRM check in-game) and wasn't clearly stated which of course makes sense... in a sense. You don't exactly call bandits to warn them in advance that cops will be sent to arrest them, do you? Exactly.
But then again, in this case, if you don't tell the pirate that the game crashed at that specific point for the Nth time because the DRM check failed due to the copy being illegal then what do you exactly expect the pirate to think? And that's where things start to get fuzzy for the developers. What CD Projekt tries to do will not convince pirates that it would be too "risky" to download the game illegally. Even if they DO manage to find a few specific pirates here and there, what will those specific cases tell to the majority of pirates? There's tens of thousands of them out there if not way more than that all potentially going to download The Witcher 2 illegally.
In the best of worlds CD Projekt would "win" buy preventing ALL pirates from downloading the game illegally and instead buy it, then again, what exactly ensures that those pirates WILL indeed buy a legal copy exactly because they wouldn't be able to pirate it for some reason? Nothing is guaranteed. And that's what I myself will never understand... WHY do developers think that a successfully prevented illegal copy download automatically means that it IS a successful legal purchase... it's beyond me, because it's not the case. And that would be the actual goal of a successful DRM, right?
If you use DRM in your game then as a developer you want that to not ONLY to prevent an illegal copy download but ALSO want to ensure that all the copy that ARE being downloaded digitally ARE legally downloaded (Steam, D2D, etc), because otherwise what's the actual POINT of DRM as a whole to start with? If DRM ONLY prevents a pirate from downloading a game illegally and DOES NOT ensure that the same pirate will then BUY the game BECAUSE he/she wasn't able to crack it then DRM serves NOT purpose whatsoever, since the pirate will simply forget about it completely and call it a night and never buy the game legally since he/she wasn't able to crack it, hence no legal purchase from that same person, thus means that there was NO LOSS IN SALES...
But, heck, developers in general just don't get it.
If all games were released without any DRM everyone and their mother would soon be downloading them instead of buying.
I buy games because I choose to buy them. Because I feel the moral obligation to support people developing the games I love. Not because of any technical or legal constraint.
Like I said before - locks help keep honest people honest.
There are 2 types of people in the world:
1 - those that obey the law
2 - those that break the law.
Pirates are just a different type of criminal then in the real world. Instead of stealing TVs or cars, they steal software. If there was no internet, those pirates would probably be out on the street stealing candy from kids.
Awhile back there was a discussion on pirates that cracked an indie bundle that only cost a few pennies. Why would someone pirate an indie bundle from an independent developer, and a game bundle that cost less then $1? Because they can, and because they do not care.
If those lawyers can get payments from people who pirate Witcher 2, good, I hope they can. But its not going to stop piracy.
Because paper and ink cost money?
Have you ever tried to photocopy a 500 page book? I hope you have a couple of hours to waste, and lots of paper and ink. Then there is the binder issue, you have to punch holes in the paper, and put it all in a binder.
Comparing software and books does not work.
Like I said before - locks help keep honest people honest.
There are 2 types of people in the world:
1 - those that obey the law
2 - those that break the law.
Pirates are just a different type of criminal then in the real world. Instead of stealing TVs or cars, they steal software. If there was no internet, those pirates would probably be out on the street stealing candy from kids.
Awhile back there was a discussion on pirates that cracked an indie bundle that only cost a few pennies. Why would someone pirate an indie bundle from an independent developer, and a game bundle that cost less then $1? Because they can, and because they do not care.
If those lawyers can get payments from people who pirate Witcher 2, good, I hope they can. But its not going to stop piracy.
Did you not read the rest of my post? Paper and ink costs money, sure. So does internet bandwidth and disk space, you can argue that pirating software isn't free either in that way. But the real reason books don't need DRM is that the price of a new book is so cheap that it isn't worth the hassle.
Edit: also, lending and reselling physical books is basically cost-free. Yet the book industry isn't trying to crack down on those practices. I wonder why?
Buying used games and renting gives nothing to the publisher or studio which created the game either.
Back around 1996, 1997 or 1998 ID software made a CD with all of their games on it, the cd was called the Quake shareware CD. You could buy the CD for $5, and get all of the demos. If you wanted the full game, just call a phone number, provide a credit card number and you were given the access code for the game you wanted.
The problem was, someone cracked the encryption code and then put the crack out on the net. When people found out what was going on, those $5 CDs were flying off the shelves faster then the stores could keep them in stock.
I still have my Quake shareware CD. 2 years ago I bought the entire ID collection on Steam just to have it.
Buying used games and renting gives nothing to the publisher or studio which created the game either.
Why should it? The original purchaser already paid the publisher/studio, so why should the second or third owner also do so?
When you purchase a used car, you don't also give money to Ford for making the car. The original purchaser gave their money to Ford already.
Well my point is that people always say piracy is wrong because it takes money away from the people who make the games. Lending games, buying used, and renting have the same affect. I think the video game industry needs to focus more on educating the consumer rather than trying to put elaborate DRM's in place.
I think the video game industry needs to focus more on educating the consumer rather than trying to put elaborate DRM's in place.
]My opinion, the majority (>50%) of people who download pirated games justify their actions in some manner. [/B]
While talking to gamers who pirate, some of them have a "screw the developer, let someone else buy the game" attitude. They can not relate buying game = making sure the developer has a job to make more games.
I am willing to bet that the majority of pirates are kids, who have no financial responsibility of their own. If this is the case, then the lawyers for the Witcher 2 sending out bills is not going to do any good.
Piracy has always been an issue, and I do not think its going to stop until 2 things happen:
1 - make better games. Do not give the pirates the excuse that the game is junk and is not worth buying.
2 - educate the public of the financial impact of pirating software.