DRM is Killing the PC Gaming Market

 

Written by Mark C. Barlet, on 14-10-2007 11:08 Editor's rating Average user rating    (0 vote) Views 42792     Favoured 78 Digital Rights Management, also known as DRM, is single-handedly destroying PC gaming as we know it. In the industry there is an ongoing battle between the gaming makers and the pirates, and the casualty in this battle is the end user. Take the latest in the gigantic Sims 2 expansion, Bon Voyage: the disk that contains your game also contains Sony's SecuROM. Reportedly, this has been crippling computers all over the place. SecuROM has been reported to disabled your CD/DVD Burner software, your optical drive itself, printers, cameras, and even crashes the PC outright. The theory is that ANYTHING that can get media off your PC is the enemy of this DRM. Now here is the kicker, and here is why we, the consumer lose: within 24 hours the games release, pirates had cracked the SecuROM and offered it online for all to download. AbleGamers is in no way condoning the theft of software; we want you to go out and buy it so that the makers of great PC games keep making great PC games. Let that sink in for a second, thousands of users all over the world are having their computer destroyed by DRM software. They are being punished by the game publisher for honestly paying for the software, and those that waited less than a day could go and download it for free with no issues what so ever. Can someone tell me how this is a win for the gaming industry? Can anyone tell me how this encourages the end user to go to the store and buy the game versus just stealing it? How is the an issue for disabled gamers? There are many great peripherals on the market for the disabled gamers. Many of them use on-board memory used to store data, like what key strokes you assign to which button. Some DRM software sees these peripherals as an enemy, and can disable them. EA, the makers of the current title in question, released a statement, and according to the responses, EA may not be forthcoming with the truth of the matter. EA states that they have only received 41 calls on issues from the DRM software, out of 100,000 copies of the game. A few responses to the post by EA shows that they may be selectively picking the sources of their numbers, omitting the 4,146 posts from 883 people on the Sims Forum. This is not a story about The Sims, or EA, it is an example of the failure of DRM. It does nothing to stop those that want to pirate the game and only harms those that legally bought it. Share this story with the rest of the world Recommend this article... Last update: 19-11-2007 11:54 Published in : Game News, PC Games Keywords : forthcoming, peripherals, selectively, encourages, according, destroyed, publisher, responses, statement, thousands, Users' Comments (25) Add your comment Posted by Darren, on 21-03-2008 04:47, IP 81.168.115.142, Guest 1. DRM is killing PC games Now I very rarely buy any PC games, I normally buy them for my 360, at least with that I know I'm not going to install any DRM software. The main way companies could protect their software from piracy is to keep it on the disc and put protective measures to stop the PC taking certain files off the disc (as most consoles do), it would also save filling up the HDD full of nearly 10Gb of junk just to play one game. Sims2 destroyed DirectX on my sisters computer through this DRM, it took me nearly half a morning to fix it and now her system thinks she only has DX7 but will let her play DX9 games.   » Report this comment to administrator Posted by Guest, on 05-02-2008 22:05, IP 210.10.203.32, Guest 2. What's Wrong With This Picture? I bought Bon Voyage. Now I use Daemon Tools to check that when I download a linux distro that the iso isn't damaged before I burn it. Bon Voyage recognised it as a threat and disabled my drive. I'm on a laptop. I only HAVE one drive. I ended up resorting to pirate methods just so I can play a game that I PAID for.    Someone tell me how this is right.   » Report this comment to administrator Posted by Skye, on 19-11-2007 10:32, IP 67.60.163.65, Guest 3. Securom is the Problem The hard part was being ignored at first, or banned, and messages deleted when bbs-ers tried to tell EA about it. Now they want the numbers (those with issues) and everyone has already given up, or taken it off their computers. They gave us no warnings, and we still don't know the outcome. After uninstalling the game, securom is still embedded in my computer, and others!   » Report this comment to administrator Posted by rara chan, on 29-10-2007 07:40, IP 141.218.12.242, Guest 4. MEOW heh.   too bad for EA that people have found ways around this, and have hacked steam as well. You can't play on the steam servers, but LANing up with friends to paly offline is just as fun.   » Report this comment to administrator Posted by ioo, on 23-10-2007 08:33, IP 24.126.44.160, Registered 5. Point Taken Stacy Stacy,  I understand what you are saying. But DMR is an issue period. In this case, EA is the developer of the game, but SONY is the maker of SecuROM. As for EA not telling the truth, well that's EA, in fact that is all game makers, they hate the end user.  My point was that EA's DRM only screws the legal user. Same with the ROOTKIT on BioShack, End user gets it, and on and on.  Now there is a whole story in the lies told to end users by the users of DRM technology. I will write that one up soon.   » Report this comment to administrator

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