Posts
It is when a company stoops to such a low level of dishonesty such as promising to exclude bullshit DRM from their game, then turning around, shipping their game with the latest version of Securom , and then insulting customers with the insinuation that they are software pirates before finally offering a fix for SecuROM causing install issues for their game, that I rise up to the occasion and protest with a big fat boycott.
Why not just the game, but the entire company? The answer is simple, the game is the symptom of the problem, the companies pushing their bullshit DRM is what is causing the problem. Boycotting an entire company also sends a stronger message.
I can only wish that more people followed suit so that companies, in this case Bethseda, can no longer get away with thinking they can treat their customers as criminals. There really needs to be a concerted effort to protest against bullshit DRM such as SecuROM and Starforce and the companies using such low and slimy tactics to push said bullshit DRM.
The gamers bending over, happily taking the big fat DRM dick up their ass, isn't helping the issue either; If you are able to ignore the fact that DRM is being sneaked into your games, if you are willing to ignore that game companies are getting more and more audacious and slimy with pushing intrusive DRM into their games and enjoy the game itself, then more power to you, but you are still not helping the issue, not one bit.
Personally I can understand why DRM is such in wide use lately, the fact that game production has risen up to a level where it's up on par with Hollywood production standards, studios can't afford to lose a profit to pirated sales as they could withstand in the past. Studios need to be able to pay the wages of their employees to keep that quality on par with industry standards. But you're right, regardless of this, they shouldn't treat their customers as criminals.
ReplyDeleteI see boycotting the studio as a problem leading to a greater problem, as some people will take boycott as an excuse to pirate, thus encouraging game studios to look for more stronger DRM to prevent this and secure profits. If you want to play the game properly in my opinion you should purchase an electronic non-drm version of the game (if there is one) and boycott the purchase of digital media versions which have DRM. If studios and software companies realise that their potential customers can be found via the internet through download management systems like Steam, Direct-2-drive and others, then I doubt that the use of securom or starfuck will ever be conceived again.
I am not following you here, how does the change in production standards alter how a studio can afford to "lose profit" to piracy and how does piracy lead to "lost sales"?
ReplyDeleteI am pretty sure that the use of DRM incurs an additional overhead to the cost of production.
See, the thing is, there will always be software pirates regardless if they are there to protest or if they are there just to get stuff for free. Companies should realize this and use it to their advantage. The companies are already doing a good job of encouraging software pirates if they add a DRM that screws customers over while the pirates get off scott free.
Another thing is that Steam has been around for ages, the success story of TF2 and Portal is heard all over the internet. There is no way a high-profile company like Bethseda could be ignorant of Steam and its user base. In fact, they also use Steam to transfer their games, so why they still chose to ship the DRM version of the game is anyone's guess.
Well, lets put it like this: Back during the Sega Megadrive and Super Nintendo Era, the average game production cost for a AAA game was around $1-5 million. The software to make these games was cheap as the current technology could not support what movie studios could produce. As new technologies came in, the current average of videogame production cost has risen around $20-60 million per game since the technology is up to a level that is capable of rendering realistic scenery and models. Studios have to then utilise movie standard programs such as 3Dsmax 10/maya/XSI, Sony Acid, Photoshop CS3 and so on to keep with the trend of making games realistic. The fact that these programs are so expensive leads to why studios are desperate not to lose a sale; Max by itself costs around $3k AUD for a single license. So a license for a studio with around 200 personnel, maybe 40 of those are modellers/animators, so that's around $120,000 added onto the production cost per year, not including warranty and what else. Outsourcing may cost maybe $250,000 for assets. The list goes on.
ReplyDeleteApparently, I made a mistake and wrote Piracy directly = Lost sales in my last post. I didn't mean to say that, there's no instance or study that shows it as truth because they can't be sure a person downloading a copy isn't just replacing a broken copy or a lost CD, or if they are really pirating the game. What I meant to say was Piracy = lower confidence in the platform, thus research into DRM adds onto the price in order to get the game onto there. There is a price attached to the DRM software, currently though I'm not too sure how much it costs for that. I wouldn't say it would be cheap either. But they would count this as an option to make up for the loss of sales from those making copies. I guess if they're still doing it, it must be working in some fashion.
I don't believe there will be a day when companies will yield to the effects of software piracy. As far as game studios go, you have two people; you have the people who are sympathetic towards gamers who play their game (those are your programmers, modelers, designers and so on), you have another group who want those people to pay for their game (The CEO, businessmen, lawyers, human resources). As far as the guys on the second team are concerned, they aren't going to back down against piracy and will spend as much money making sure that they receive that money.
In regards to your last paragraph, there's a demograph for those who do not have highspeed connections to the internet. Unfortunately, in places such as Australia you'll find that it costs $70AUD monthly for 1.5mb and maybe a 30GB download cap. As most games nowadays are beginning to exceed 4-5Gb's to download, that's putting a bit of pressure on people who'd rather go out to a game store and purchase the game on a digital medium.
Boycott the media CD's which have DRM, the companies confidence in distributing DRM CD's will go down as the electronic versions are soaring.
I definitely can see that games are getting increasingly more expensive to make. However, this is a conscious decision of the company. There are always ways to do it at a lower budget. Take Croteam, for example, they managed to make Serious Sam at virtually no cost.
ReplyDeleteMy point is this, if Croteam can make a great game at almost no costs. A company can stand to knock off a few million dollars off their production costs.
Also, I am not supporting piracy. The message of my post is that more people need to get into activism, boycotting DRM and the companies that support them.
DRM is rentware and spyware of the worst kind, this is even worse than that CD debacle. But don't take my word for it, look at the reviews for one of EA's newest titles http://www.amazon.com/Command-Conquer-Red-Alert-3-Pc/dp/B0016BVY7U
ReplyDeletePS- yeah that game itself may or may not look good (it looks like a fun self parody with the "Commie" bits to me, and just like an enjoyable RTS) but no matter the game it's criminal that they can get away with tampering with their customers computers like this. And it only sweetens the deal for pirates who can download modified versions and don't have to put up with such nonsense.
ReplyDelete