Ubisoft Is "Formulating A Linux Game Plan"

[shmerl]

Temar: I'm talking about those at the head who were pushing for this (and they were scientists supposedly, so one could argue they had to know better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko). Obviously some scientists knew it was complete lunacy. Same thing with DRM. Some artists and educated people know that DRM is lunacy, but publisher execs enforce this sickness with undemocratic means like DMCA and etc. So your expectation about them having any common sense isn't any better than expecting common sense in those who enforced Lysenkoism.

[Temar]

...I think it's safe to make the limited generalization that there exist more sales which DRM has prevented or delayed than ones which it has caused or hastened.

Yes that's probably true, but it's not relevant here. I agree that probably noone will buy a game solely because it has DRM. However the real question is:

How much pirating gets prevented by DRM right after release when the game is still at full prize and how much casual pirating gets prevented once the crack is out?

On the one hand you have some impatient pirates who don't want to wait for the crack and on the other hand you have casual pirates, who would not seek out for warez on their own, but would copy the DVD from their neighbour if they could. Many of the second group might pick up the game from a Steam sale later on.

Sure you can't prevent the hardcore pirates from pirating, but still the revenue from above groups is probably much larger than the sales lost from people who do not buy the game simply because it has DRM.

[Temar]

Temar: I'm talking about those at the head who were pushing for this (and they were scientists supposedly, so one could argue they had to know better:

The one who was pushing for this was Stalin:

..., a discredited theory of inheritance favored by Stalin for ideological reasons.

So please stop with your ridiculous theories.

You might not like DRM, but until you can show some numbers which prove that DRM reduces revenue from AAA titles, I will just assume that you don't know what you are talking about and those business managers actually know what they are doing. Sure, they might all be wrong, but at the moment I see no reason to believe that.

[shmerl]

However the real question is: How much pirating gets prevented by DRM right after release when the game is still at full prize and how much casual pirating gets prevented once the crack is out?

Virtually none. Cracked games appear in a very short time after releases of DRMed games and are pirated ever since. DRM can even boost piracy, since cracking it can be viewed as sport, while DRM-free games aren't enticing pirates that much.

[shmerl]

The one who was pushing for this was Stalin:
So please stop with your ridiculous theories.

I know history. Stalin was supportive of it, but he didn't care about either way. He had no clue about science. Lysenko was the author and the main driver behind it. Do you homework first. It's not by accident it's called Lysenkoism.

You might not like DRM, but until you can show some numbers which prove that DRM reduces revenue from AAA titles, I will just assume that you don't know what you are talking about and those business managers actually know what they are doing. Sure, they might all be wrong, but at the moment I see no reason to believe that.

Factual evidence shows that games with DRM are widely pirated. Now show me any proof that DRM prevents piracy. Business managers who invented DRM and DMCA-1201 were real lunatics. They proposed users to pay fees just for the fact of being able to copy anything, because users can "potentially pirate something". And those kind of idiots have common sense?

[Vim_User]

Factual evidence shows that games with DRM are widely pirated. Now show me any proof that DRM prevents piracy. Business managers who invented DRM and DMCA-1201 were real lunatics. They proposed users to pay fees just for the fact of being able to copy anything, because users can "potentially pirate something". And those kind of idiots have common sense?

Fact is: unlike some Internet know-it-alls that try to shift the burden of proof when asked to back up their claims with actual numbers, those "lunatics" successfully run multi-million dollar companies. You may not like DRM, but that doesn't magically free you from backing up your claims.

[shmerl]

Fact is: unlike some Internet know-it-alls that try to shift the burden of proof when asked to back up their claims with actual numbers, those "lunatics" successfully run multi-million dollar companies. You may not like DRM, but that doesn't magically free you from backing up your claims.

Let proponents of DRM prove that DRM prevent piracy - they won't be able to find any proof. Counter proof is trivial. Check any game which comes with DRM and compare it to pirated versions which distribute the same thing DRM-free.

The fact that they run something big is not a proof that what they declare they use DRM for (i.e. preventing piracy) is actually true or makes any sense. Multi-million companies can do stupidest things. Remember Simcity DRM fiasco? Sure, they had to know better, since EA is a multi-billion company, right? Wrong. Billions aren't an antidote against stupidity.

DRM doesn't reduce piracy but it's used for a range of side reasons from uneducated "everyone uses it so it actually does something useful" to something worse like "by using DRM we control the consumer, the market and technology". DRM can also be used as an excuse for incompetence (as was noted by several developers in the past). For example if the product fails, some exec can blame poor sales on piracy, and say - "see, we aren't sitting idle in the face of such theft. We use DRM!". Either way, DRM is never neither good for the user nor preventing any piracy. It's use is always unethical and normal companies and publishers should avoid it outright.

[Kite]

Let proponents of DRM prove that DRM prevent piracy - they won't be able to find any proof. Counter proof is trivial. Check any game which comes with DRM and compare it to pirated versions which distribute the same thing DRM-free.

The fact that they run something big is not a proof that what they declare they use DRM for (i.e. preventing piracy) is actually true or makes any sense. Multi-million companies can do stupidest things. Remember Simcity DRM fiasco? Sure, they had to know better, since EA is a multi-billion company, right? Wrong. Billions aren't an antidote against stupidity.

DRM doesn't reduce piracy but it's used for a range of side reasons from uneducated "everyone uses it so it actually does something useful" to something worse like "by using DRM we control the consumer, the market and technology". DRM can also be used as an excuse for incompetence (as was noted by several developers in the past). For example if the product fails, some exec can blame poor sales on piracy, and say - "see, we aren't sitting idle in the face of such theft. We use DRM!". Either way, DRM is never neither good for the user nor preventing any piracy. It's use is always unethical and normal companies and publishers should avoid it outright.

You've neglected to prove your thesis. That is an extremely broad argument -- that *NO* implementation of DRM can prevent *ANY* piracy -- and you have provided a single example of an exceptionally onerous implementation of DRM without even proving that it did not prevent piracy. Simcity was despised for having intrusive DRM, not for ineffective DRM, and I find no evidence to lead me to believe it was not just as effective at preventing piracy as it was in preventing actual sales.

[shmerl]

Kite: I explained how this can be proven. Games are pirated widely with DRM being broken almost right away after the release. If you aren't aware of that - go and check. Some developers even bring examples of DRM inducing piracy. See http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/cd...drm/1100-4783/

And, if some will devise DRM that actually would be so intrusive that it would be hard to scrape, people will hate it for such intrusiveness even more, just like you yourself have pointed out above. DRM never works and always damages the end user who pays for the product.

That's all besides the point, since DRM is unethical to begin with because of its overreaching preemptive policing nature.