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Copy protection cop-out causes anger
AN ANNOUNCEMENT FROM UBISOFT BOSS Yves Guillemot has caused a collective sigh of despair from the joystick-joggling community. The Large Fromage of the French gaming house announced during a recent financial conference call that his boffins were working on yet another fiendish tool to prevent the unwashed masses from stealing the company's software.
Guillemot would not be pressed further on the nature of the the new tool, but it is safe to say that it will not make the playing experience more pleasurable, and is certain to be met with howls of derision by the bedroom-dwelling denizens of Gamerworld.
But there is one solid fact about the battle against software piracy, much like the fight against drugs, or the war on terror, or the skirmish against people dropping their chewing gum on the pavement. It can never be won.
No matter how smart your DRM people are, no matter how much money you throw at the problem and no matter how many layers of protection you add... there is an army of people out there working in basements and bedrooms and bunkers, fueled by Red Bull and pizza, just waiting for you to announce that you have released an uncrackable game.
And with a network of underground undesirables assisting each other in some kind of freaky hive-mind cooperation, most games are cracked within days, if not hours.
The biggest irony is that the people who do the hardcore cracking are almost certainly not the kind of people who would even think of wasting their time doing anything as mundane as playing games for hours on end. For them it's not about getting free stuff. It's about sticking it to The Man.
So what should Monsieur Guillemot do to stop the P2P crowd from dipping its sticky fingers into his pension fund? There is no simple answer. But there are a number of new models which reward honest software purchasers rather than punishing them with irritating, nagging, overbearing DRM schemes.
Adding value to retail boxed products seems to be having a positive effect on sales, according to Nintendo. Adding limited edition figurines, for example, means that gamers are more likely to stump up cash for a game rather than stealing it.
Exclusive online content – whether it be in the form of multiplayer gaming modes or downloadable content like additional levels, items or weapons – can also boost sales of genuine software.
Titles like the online-only RPG World of Warcraft, by far the most popular title in the history of gaming, have proved that content is king. Developer Blizzard offers free trials of the massive communal online experience, sells the initial software package at a knockdown price, then charges a hefty monthly subscription once users are hooked.
But the key here is that the online experience is constantly updated. New areas to explore, items and quests are regularly introduced in free point releases, which keeps the punters happy. And major new upgrades are sold as paid-for packages which keeps the cash registers ringing, and the shareholders happy.
This 'heroin dealer' sales model is not exclusive to the gaming world. Even heavyweight productivity software uses the free-taste-then-you-pay model to great effect. Adobe will cheerfully allow you to use its wallet-worryingly expensive Creative Suite of design software for 60 days without charge, then send you into a spiral of Photoshop withdrawal when your two months is up. If you do decide that CS4 is worth the £2500 Adobe demands, you will be drawn into a world of pain with upgrade reminders, password nagging and reinstalls which would test the patience of a saint.
Apple seems to have developed another model, though not one the Cupertino company would be willing to publicly admit. Here's one intriguing example. Many years ago, there were two heavyweight contenders in the music-creation software ring. Steinberg's Cubase and E-magic's Logic. The latter had bomb-proof security because of its hardware dongle and is one of the few mainstream software packages never to have been fully cracked. There were occasional software workarounds, but these were so unreliable and unstable, and the updates were so frequent, that it hardly seemed worth the trouble.
Cubase, on the other hand, was easily cracked and dodgy copies regularly flooded the interweb meaning that just about every bedroom junglist, amateur breakbeat freak and wannabe composer out there used what was widely seen as the inferior product as their weapon of choice.
Now this might not seem ideal for the folks at Steinberg but those tens of thousands of illegitimate users eventually turned into a few thousand serious users who, once they started making commercial gains from using the software, would repay that loyalty by buying genuine copies. Cubase had stolen a march on Logic simply by being easier to bootleg. Oh the irony.
Then along came Apple and, seeing the comparative sales figures, decided to shock the music industry with a move that very few saw coming. The company bought Logic lock stock and barrel from E-magic, seriously updated and improved the software, slashed the price in half, and completely removed all copy protection from the package. A bold move, indeed.
We suspect (though it is, of course, impossible to prove) that the clever folks at Apple saw the loyalty created by easy access to expensive software translated to increased sales when musos moved out of the bedroom and into the studio. Logic is rapidly becoming the industry standard for music production, which of course leads to increased sales of Apple hardware. Nice.
So what's the lesson for the software industry in all of this? It can be summed up by using another commercial allegory... 'razors and blades'. When you buy a fancy new razor, you generally get a handle and a couple of blades in a whizzy package at what seems like an incredibly good price. You happily shave for a week or two, wondering at the smoothness of your chin (or whatever you happen to be shaving) once those five titanium-tipped blades have been swept across its rugged contours.
Then you realise you have to go out and stump up a small fortune for new blades on a regular basis. µ
Tags: Apple
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Steam has the huge disadvantage that it 'updates' games with things that ruin the game, and you cannot stop it, there's an option to 'disable updates' but that only seems to work partially.
Also steam tracks you a lot and even puts that info online.
And their forum is a disgrace of disrespect full of forced censorship that actually changes the content of what you say to 'clean it up' and if you are a bit critical (regardless of language used) they ban you.
The Cubase example is not as uncommon as some may think. I went to a 3D CAD training seminar some years ago where the distributor told us that they knew and were quite happy for there to be pirate copies of their ($15,000 base price) software around and were not too concerned, particularly for home use. The rationalization was that this would create a base of users who would then want to use this package when they got high enough up the chain to make purchasing decisions at large companies. Needless to say the software in question is now by far the dominant 3D CAD package in my neck of the woods, and 1 of the most popular worldwide.
Wasn't Ubisoft who enforced that stupid Starforce in every game and, after getting their heads out of their asses, silently dumped it?
I even built an electrical switch to disconnect my optical drive! Such a waste...
The Hackers need fun too, so this is just a way to increase sales and include them at the same time. The Hackers just won't buy anything without a challenge.
Then the people that don't want to pay [for software] will celebrate, by picking free copies of the Hackers trophies.
Despite being a dedicated software pirate back in the old C-64 days, I always went and paid for Infocom's adventure games, because I loved the games and wanted all the extras they used to throw in the box.
Think I've still even got a bit of fluff from the HHGTTG game lying around somewhere...
I agree with "Hmmm". I just went out to a few Usenet sites and Cubase SX4 has about 3 different distributions I saw within the first 20 pages of appz.
I didn't download and decompress as I have no use for Cubase SX4 but they are there.
I have CubaseSX4 cracked right here. Stop talking out of your arses.
"You'd be hard pressed to name a single game or computer system that died due to piracy."
SEGA Dreamcast.
Took me a few seconds. Try harder.
The article was pulled out of an arse. Cubase cannot be cracked. It sells well. The argument uses selective cases.
who can stop them?
We can complain about DRM till the cows come home, if DRM inclusion isn't hurting sales enough (ie. people are opting out of buying because of DRM) then they are going to keep applying it.
I hate DRM, but I reward software companies who make good games. Sometimes those games have DRM, sometimes not. If the game is good enough, I'll put up with the BS to a certain extent.
As for the Amiga's downfall, it died because of poor marketing. Piracy was as rampant beforehand (most kids with a C64 didn't own a legitimate game but had dozens of 5 1/4 inch floppies or cassettes with software on them) and it was afterward on the early PC's.
You'd be hard pressed to name a single game or computer system that died due to piracy. You might be able to chalk up a few software houses but even they tend to fall off the branch due to other problems. Look at Black Isle's demise because Interplay decided to focus more on console games and the games they produced tanked, leaving the company chronically short of money...
Hi,
I'm from a country where the income is ... well let's put it the other way, I couldn't afford a rent in one of the "civilised" countries.
So my option, play "cracked" games. A lot. The result? I bought the Prince collection, Chronicles of Riddick, Larry collection, Civ 4 collection (not mentioning my favorite movies or music)
Guess it's bad to have free access and actually get to enjoy something.
BTW, I started buying the moment I had enough money and I mostly did it because I respect the authors of these marvels and it's the least decent thing I can do to show them my appreciation.
Cubase SX 4, three years old, it's still uncracked to the day. The team which cracked version 3.1, a feat which took 9 months, said that they have better things to do and that it's not worth it. We'll see how this pans out, if because of this Ableton or SONAR takes the crown on the PC.
From wikipedia:
Cubase SX V1.0 introduced the use of cross-platform USB dongles combined with a system of code encryption licensed from Syncrosoft. This protection has been successively broken for all versions of Cubase up to Cubase SX3.1. However, the copy protection for Cubase SX3 did manage to survive unbroken for 9 months after its public release. Even though some unstable cracks of Cubase Studio 4 were available before the release of v5, Cubase 4 remained uncracked for its entire developement cycle.
...is M$. Their ill protected software enabled them to grow in piracy ridden countries. People who makes US$500/month or less, just can't afford windows/office. Pirated ones keeps them away from open source, which is beneficial to M$. If lots of people get to work with open source, there will be no reason to companies to use M$ expensive software.
Great article!
The DRM drug dealers can put their malware where no sun shines.
On the other hand, Steam works, doesn't annoy the users, allows you to play off-line. It even has some advantages over physical disks (I can download/transfer any game I own onto any machine once I have logged on without requiring me to find the original disks).
Like people have already said, adding DRM is only affect people who buy them legit. If you get it from download and such it will be stripped of any protection anyways.
Basically you won't be doing anything except to drive away your existing customer base and force them to go the other route.
It's like bomb an entire country full of innocent people to get a small group of terrorist, the only result you'll get is now you've got an entire country full of people who hate you. Oh well I guess that's how we've always been doing it right?
People just don't learn.
Release game with CD-Key this is a very minimal DRM. Version, CD-Key and checksum for internet multiplayer. Then update your game frequently with nice features, maps, mods and fixes, forcing non-purchasers to re-crack the game. Eventually they'll buy when the game gets down to 20$ so they don't have to keep cracking it. You'll still get the 40$ sales from the loyal, more honorable users and you've keep everyone happy and you'll have many sales. (The crackers and loyal users will spread good word.)
It's fairly obvious that this article says what we were already thinking: why do companies waste money on DRM? I'm glad I'm among friends here.
Besides, I would say that a great deal of "piracy" and other sorts of file-sharing business is one of two big things: try-before-you-buy or people that never would have paid money for it. Neither of these are lost revenue - in fact, the former is likely GAINED revenue, as there's been a few games that I would have never bought if I hadn't played a "borrowed" copy first.
A third group mentioned in the article (the people that "stole" Cubase) includes a lot of university students and office minions I'm sure. The group that hacks file modification and engineering software for some one-time project. And guess what? Having easily hacked software is free advertising for those programs, I guarantee.
1. After Bioshock mk 1, (with securom that stopped my DVD burner working) I stopped buying games with securom. Why? Because you retards ****ed up my computer that is. Up till Bioshock I bought in fact EVERY game I played. Morons.
2. I will not accept any DRM that makes it harder for me a paying customer that plays a game than those who download it illegally, cracked style.
3. I will NEVER EVER again buy a Ubisoft game anyways. Why? Because Ubisoft after getting huge loads of cash from nVidia REMOVED dx10.1 from Prince Of Persia, to even the difference in performance between ATi and nVidia GFXcards. I guess ATi had a so good card that nVidia had to resort to shady practises to remain competetive. I will never ever even buy a nVidia videocard because of this.
4. FarCry 2. In a interview with ATi driver team, they revealed that Ubisoft denied ATi any prior to release use of the game, even though nVidia had been in on development from the beginning. ATi in fact had to buy the game themselves in the shop at release day to optimize their drivers. No wonder why ATi get constantly lower FPS in Farcry 2 than nVidia cards. Mu response? Never buy anything Ubisoft or nVidia. Burn in you know where!
Sorry Ubisoft. I don't really care if you make the best DRM evah. I won't buy your game has if it has DRM. I've been burned by too much bad DRM. So say thanks to your DRM predecessors. It is they who have cost you a sale.
Didn't they though. They gave you the blades and made you buy the razor.
Essentially the mac is the hardware dongle for Logic :)
Let them try their best with all their useless DRM...it simply demonstrates their stupidity.
I have downloaded Fallout 3 "illegally" and played it for HOURS AND HOURS...guess what? I bought the collectors edition & will buy the 'game of the year' edition in october. Why? because I choose to.
You cannot stop me from choosing, DRM or not.
Never again will a customer be sucked in by a pretty trailer, buy a game & find out it sucks.
I just played Prototype, guess what? I'm not gonna buy it. It stupid.
Have any developers gone hungry because I didn;t buy it? did anyone lose any "revenue"?
Choice.
Copy protection isn't all evil. An open ability to copy software did significant damage to the Amiga platform. While I don't think they should be draconian with the controls I do think there is a balance to be found.
If you doubt software publishers would break even releasing downloadable titles on a donation basis then you believe in some sort of copy protection.
It's ironic that the only people who really suffer with draconian DRM and copy protection schemes are the legitimate users.
We pay for corporate paranoia, whilst those who are downloading illegal versions will (almost inevitably) be happily using cracked versions without all the annoyance and frustration of DRM.
The result? Those of us who pay for our software actually get an inferior version of it. What a great way to encourage people to buy the legitimate version.
DRM = FAIL!
But, I think blades is a goods meanwhile software is not goods. Maybe if the sofware enjoyed you and you had trapped for necessity, I think people willingly to pay anything for this.