Pretty much like you're whining about these people because of the Amazon review incidents? 

yeah, you're wrong on most points there.

There actually are drawbacks. I don't want some shitty sony rootkit that makes my machine vulnerable. I don't want valve to monitor how much time i spend gaming. I don't even want them to know how often i start the fucking thing. I don't want to write down a 64-digit number on the phone listening to some shitty recorded voice that's hard to understand, and then type it in again. Or twice if i mistyped the first time.

The pirates have it much easier. No surveillance, and good keygens even auto fill in the numbers for you. Patches are often bundled, sometimes even cheats/walkthroughs.

And yeah, i'm one of the guys who regularly reinstalls games that actually need the install. 

I don't buy any PC games anymore unless they're on Steam, and have no further bullshit beyond Steam.

Install limits are useless and retarded, and while I may never be affected, it's nothing I want to support. CD Keys used to be acceptible, but now I don't want to care about a fucking number that I have to save "just in case" when instead I can just have a single account with Steam and bam, install whereever and whenever and however many times I want. I don't give a fuck if Steam knows how much or how often I play a game. Any other DRM that basically tries to tell me what I can and what I cannot have on my computer is retarded and intrusive and I don't buy games that use any of these technologies.

So yeah. I don't bitch about DRM really, I just want ease of use/install and nothing that will affect my computer or whatever else I may run. I support Steam and Valve's direction with it mainly from the standpoint that they're doing what they need to do to protect themsealves from piracy while also trying to provide a good platform of service that I believe is beneficial to the PC platform and will help the PC market grow and become more unified. 

While I admire your passion and style, I can't agree with you.

Obviously being a fair and reasonable person, I have no objection to publishers and developers actually wanting to, you know, get paid. Non-invasive and sensible DRM (aka STEAM) is all fine and good.

Howver...

it's not about something that actually affects you

Actually, it does, to a greater or lesser degree, in almost every PC game that I buy (disregarding Steam).

Examples:

UT (either the original or some other version, can't remember) - I couldn't play the game with the retail CD I bought, because of the SecuROM protection or whatever it was disagreeing with my drive. I had to download a no-cd crack to play the game at all.

Bioshock - I couldn't install the game on the evening that I bought it, because the DRM autorisation servers were down. I had to wait till the next day to even install it, let alone play it.

Every game you ever lost the packaging for: need to reinstall it? Can't find the CD key? Well you're fucked, despite the fact that you paid for the game and you have a legit retail CD.

Almost every other game? Having to put the damn cd/dvd in the drive every time you want to play it, even though all of the fucking data required to play is on your hard drive. 

You're a twat. 

but, as an excuse to bitch, I couldn't disagree more with the idea of a PC with internet becoming like a TV - where the control is more in the hands of companies, content/service providers. Fuck that, most of what is good on the PC is because it has historically been the opposite of that - USER control. 

UT (either the original or some other version, can't remember) - I couldn't play the game with the retail CD I bought, because of the SecuROM protection or whatever it was disagreeing with my drive. I had to download a no-cd crack to play the game at all.

My

Bioshock - I couldn't install the game on the evening that I bought it, because the DRM autorisation servers were down. I had to wait till the next day to even install it, let alone play it.

heart

Every game you ever lost the packaging for: need to reinstall it? Can't find the CD key? Well you're fucked, despite the fact that you paid for the game and you have a legit retail CD.

bleeds

Almost every other game? Having to put the damn cd/dvd in the drive every time you want to play it, even though all of the fucking data required to play is on your hard drive.

for you

So you might have to keep your CD cases safe (I put mine in a row on a shelf OMG), put a CD in a drive to play a game, or very occasionally you might have to wait a day to install or sometimes even a game is b0rked and you might have to work around it.

Being a gamer is so tough these days, I don't know how you guys manage it.


Meagreman: If I gave a flying shit about companies knowing about installs or having to write down numbers, I suppose I'd be able to contrive those as """actual drawbacks""". Somehow I just can't see how it's possible.


Scumpie: So there you go, QED, it doesn't affect you but you'll whine about anyway - AND shoot yourself in the ass by not buying games on principle. Well done. Deny yourself fun and entertainment. I like that puritanical streak, it shows that fanaticism is overtaking common sense.

Nogke: No I'm whining about people on here too, now :D 

let's see where it goes... 

I can't wait for the day when something locks Shambler out of his game or breaks his operating system or his gmail account is magically deleted or his drm-ed music decides it belongs to someone else or he has 5 different "service tools" like Steam installed and they spasm wildly in an update orgy.

If you don't care, then why are you so angry?
For some people DRM and copy-protection is a major pain in the ass, that's a fact. I would not like to have sex if there was mandatory simultaneous penetration of my read end involved. If you can live with that, then do but spare us the details. 

It's a sane, sensible, well-balanced argument - from my side at least.

Spurt: I'm "angry" (i.e. cheerfully contemptuous) because:

1. People are cocks.

2. Those people are being cocks where I accidentally stumble across it.

3. The issues aren't a major pain in the ass, people are trying to make them being to justify their petty bleating.


P.S. Yes OMG things sometimes go spazzo with computers, yes that sucks if/when it ACTUALLY HAPPENS and funnily enough if/when it does then it's obviously absolutely fine to have a grumble about it. IF the vast majority of retarded bandwagon-jumping anti-DRM whiners had actually have regular serious problems being able to play games, then I wouldn't be writing all this. But so far, in everything I read, the vast majority don't. They just whine without genuine reason. 

yeah, it's abandoned forevever 

Unreasonable whining is annoying, but on the other hand not addressing issues because they don't affect you directly (in the case of DRM, they do, albeit mostly visibly) can be dangerous, too. For sooner or later, there might be a situation in which some measures take the existing ones a step further and nothing can be done because of their initial acceptance (or ignorance).
This applies to many other fields, as well. 

*not visibly 

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I dont mind having to jump through a couple of hoops to play games on my PC. My freind keeps saying to me "you know Rick, you can use your XBox 360 controller with your PC" but I am proud to be a PC gamer. I prefer using a keyboard and a mouse to play my shooters. I like the fact that there are things like command line options and console commands, and a mouse to aim with (hell its got to be easier than those pesky mini-stick things on the control pads).

I have to get in my car and drive 20 miles north to get to the nearest store which stocks all of the latest PC games, and do whenever there is something worth buying. And TBH pretty much all of them require you activate them with a serial no from the inside of the box. I dont mind this, its no biggy. So what?

Sometimes the installer get fucked and I have to enter the code several times.

Windows systematically destroys itself over a period of time. My freind had to come round to my house to activate his copy of DoW2 because he doesnt have internet at the moment. I remember taking my first copy of HL2 round to someones house (I mean carry the entire PC box) so I could use there internet.

I dont mind. As long as they keep making PC shooters I will do these things. I mean it says on the back of the box what the requirements are to play!

I play all of the shooters. I like to have a hard copy of my games, mostly just to look at the box sat on my shelf and think "yeah, I have a lot of shooters"

Far Cry 2 and Crysis Warhead:

Far Cry 2 is the winnar! But both games ARE PC shooters, and will get my support for being decent games, and I dont mind having to key in a code or log into somthing to play it, as long as they keep making the damn things to play.

My ultimate argument to this debate is this, as a singer out of one of the local "wedding bands" which play in the FUCKING nightclubs too said to me when I asked him if he got tired of playing cheese all of the time:

"I couldnt give a shit" "I - DONT - GIVE - A - FUCK" 

Let chitter chatter whinnyness and more shootin' pls. 

get a women play Quake and leave the other games alone... 

What negke said.

Personally I agree that the majority of whining is completely impotent (especially whining on the internets), but refusing to buy DRM'd products (which is also what I do) is hardly shooting yourself in the appendage of choice.

It's exercising one of the few effective powers we have in modern society (that of consumer choice). By avoiding support for products using technology I ethically disagree with (and conversly supporting those without DRM) I am attempting to influence the companies involved.

If everyone did this there would be no need for whining (altho I'm sure another reason could be found ;) 

But all the companies will do is stop making PC games and make console ones instead, and then I'll be stuck with no keyboard and mouse :(

ID Software - anyone realise that if you install the patch (1.3 or 1.3.1) you can install the game and you dont need to put the disc in the drive to play it! 

A-grade shitstirring as usual, whether intentionally trolling or not.

Seriously though, you're a bit late on this one... the battle has been fought and lost. It has been widely recognised that DRM for PC games (at least the more modern, cunttacularly invasive DRM practices) has a negative impact on legitimate consumers, while the warez monkeys happily continue pirating their games without any trouble at all (except perhaps an extra day or 2 delay while someone works out how to circumvent the copy protection).

This is an opinion shared not just by internet whiners, but also by many game developers who understand that pissing off your paying customers is probably a bad move.

Having the usual CD check at startup is fine and good and will stop most casual piracy. Anything beyond that and as you've so astutely observed, people will start complaining about it. Whether or not they're whining cockbags is neither here nor there - they probably are - I am! It is fairly irrelevant though - they're you're paying customers. Look after them or they'll stop paying. 

What has got you so riled about this? Is it something specific, or what? I've never seen you rage up this much over something this trivial.

Everyone has an opinion, but nobody really cares that much either way. Certainly I can see why there is some heated debate at times, and both "sides" have a vested interest in putting forward their cause, but you in this case are not batting for either team, but are seemingly whining about the whiners.

I'm just a bit puzzled about the strength of your convictions given your stance on the matter. Care to shed some light, or at least spew forth a stream of highly creative and passionate abuse? 

Money GOOOOOOOOOOOD 

I don't really give a shit about DRM.

I play Quake 1. 

"has a negative impact on legitimate consumers,"

Let's be honest. It has a negative impact on SOME legitimate consumers. A very small number of them, in fact.

Most people install the game and, assuming the DRM works correctly, never notice it. They play the game and when they are done or want to move on, they uninstall it and never look back.

The average consumer isn't reinstalling old games 5 years after the fact and trying to get that game to run and cursing their loss of the CD case and all the other stuff that gets thrown up in these threads.

For the vast majority of people, DRM is a non-issue. They don't even know it's there. 

Heh - for once ;)

I must admit though that I had a copy of HL2 which I installed (with a serial no) about 2 or 3 years ago. I then had to format my HDD and had since lost the serial no. So I thought that was it - no HL2. I must admit that at this stage I was only blaming myself (if you lose something then its your own fault, right?)

I was very happy when I realised that because it had been registered on steam I could just re-install it! And the AI in the installer knew that because I had steam up and running with HL2 as one of my registered games it could then install the game from the disk (rather than downloading it all)!

Hats off to steam/Valve!

GTA4 is crazy, you get Rockstar Social club and GFWLIVE accounts up and running to play the game and use all of its features. But to be fair its a seriously resource hungry game anyway (7800GTX minimum!) and I wasnt that bothered.

Far Cry 2 - I dont think it required online registration (it came with a good ole' serial in the box) but if you are online it has an "autopatch" feature which I thought was quite nice.

Games usually say on the back of the box "requires online registration", so if you havent got the internet then you cant play the game. You wouldnt complain if your computer wasnt powerful enough to play a game, you would just upgrade or not buy the game, right? You wouldnt complain if your Wii games wont run in your XBox/PS3?

Or maybe you would........ 

I posted on here because I deluded myself that it would be a good place to sound off with some ranting because you guys are smarter and maturer than the average Blues News / Shack (I assume, I no longer visit) / Amazon smegging whinebags.

Obviously I was terribly, horribly mistaken.

ANYWAY...

Nonentity: well you just go ahead and do that and make your big badass point to the game companies. In the meantime, I'll actually be playing the games and enjoying them. Which is the whole point of gaming IIRC.


Frib: yes the battle has been fought and lost. The whiners have lost because DRM is still on games these days. Oh and this just one of my sporadic moments of contemptuous gaming community misanthropy. The point being, I don't really care about DRM nor being for nor against it. And obviously that being my opinion, it is FACTUALLY CORRECT, so other people shouldn't care about it. Or, if for some deranged reason, they really have to care about something that ensures you only install a game 3 or 5 times that 99% of people including their dimwitted selves will only install once, could they at least do so in private. Cheers. Sham xxx.