Paradox CEO Calls DRM a 'Waste of Money'(industrygamers.com)
industrygamers.com
Paradox CEO Calls DRM a 'Waste of Money'
http://www.industrygamers.com/news/paradox-ceo-calls-drm-a-waste-of-money/
5 comments
> As far as I can tell, there's absolutely no way around it except by having thin clients and running everything off the cloud.
You can protect yourself from piracy by making quality content that people genuinely want to support. You do more good by making it convenient, easy, and affordable to customers than anything else, and having an awesome game makes it even easier to hand over cash.
Convenience and affordability is where a lot of people fail.
You can protect yourself from piracy by making quality content that people genuinely want to support. You do more good by making it convenient, easy, and affordable to customers than anything else, and having an awesome game makes it even easier to hand over cash.
Convenience and affordability is where a lot of people fail.
In general I agree with you, but sometimes affordability isn't possible due to a limited market size.
Adobe Photoshop is the best example in that even if it was only $50 (instead of $2000), the market size is limited by those who want edit photos.
Adobe's answer to this was to make a student version and sell it for 15%+/- of the original price and allow those that want to edit photos but cannot afford the software still buy it for a lower price.
They further versioned by releasing Light Room.
They realized that they needed to make it affordable, but kept the DRMs in place and worked hard to make PS harder to copy. I'm sure it is still possible, but at $400 (student version) you get a lot of value and it becomes easier than pirating.
Adobe Photoshop is the best example in that even if it was only $50 (instead of $2000), the market size is limited by those who want edit photos.
Adobe's answer to this was to make a student version and sell it for 15%+/- of the original price and allow those that want to edit photos but cannot afford the software still buy it for a lower price.
They further versioned by releasing Light Room.
They realized that they needed to make it affordable, but kept the DRMs in place and worked hard to make PS harder to copy. I'm sure it is still possible, but at $400 (student version) you get a lot of value and it becomes easier than pirating.
I've always thought photoshop was made intentionally easy to pirate, as an unfair competitive advantage to keep other companies out of the market (companies and serious professionals buy it--everyone else pirates it).
CS5 didn't even require a crack, you just have install the trial version with a fake serial and edit your hosts file to stop it calling home.
CS5 didn't even require a crack, you just have install the trial version with a fake serial and edit your hosts file to stop it calling home.
Isn't that the same position as Microsoft is suspected to have?
Maybe it is relatively easy to crack compared with games, but non programmers like me don't even know what host files are. That being said, if it is relatively easy to crack you are probably right. It would be financial suicide to compete with them since you couldn't limp in with a weak program. Great point.
Case in point, Valve/Steam got it right: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves-Gabe...
But Steam is a DRM platform, so that's not entirely relevant. They do try really hard to provide value and convenience to the customer, but they haven't stepped back from the DRM position.
But the DRM is not what's protecting themselves from piracy; it's the quality and convenience of the service. Every Steam game is trivially cracked within hours of release, regardless of the DRM, yet most people still choose to buy the game on Steam.
There's the fact that if you're caught playing pirated games on Steam they can easily close your account and you lose all the games you paid for.
What does "caught playing pirated games on Steam" even mean? Cracked versions of Steam games typically have the Steam portion stripped out, so one would not play them "on Steam" at all.
True; they still do a minimum to keep people honest, but all those methods, to my knowledge, are already defeated if you look around. Their stick is making piracy annoying to do, along with the carrot of a long reputation of good games.
Counter-Strike is actually one of those instances where DRM adds value to a product for paying customers. Counter-Strike is a very popular target for cheaters using client hacks like like aimbots and transparent wall hacks, and one of the ways to avoid those players is by hiding behind a pay wall. Every time a cheater is caught and banned, the only way for them to get back in is by paying $10 to re-buy the game. Adding DRM to the client ensures that this pay wall remains intact, meaning that cheaters can ruin my multiplayer experience constantly only if they are willing to inject a fair amount of cash into the system (and very few are).
Old battlenet (before SC2) could disable CD keys in multiplayer, and was a level of DRM I'm ok with. People hack, and having a mechanism to ban them made sense. It doesn't have to come with all of the "single account tied to your purchase" or "3 hardware changes" that we're starting to see.
I'm pretty much OK with CD-keys, and I tolerate Steam because it hasn't had serious problems yet, but anything else I tend to distrust.
I'm pretty much OK with CD-keys, and I tolerate Steam because it hasn't had serious problems yet, but anything else I tend to distrust.
I was a lifelong pirater of games, rarely bought any (though ironically Paradox games were bought, I loved them so much), and Steam turned that around. I don't buy AAA games at full price, which is ridiculously high here in Australia, but Steam has regular sales with significant discounts. I'm not a poor student anymore, plus Steam is much more convenient than pirating. I'll pay a few dollars to avoid spending time finding a torrent, then reading the comments to see if it's good or not, then waiting for the seeders, etc.
Partly because the benefits of Steam (infinite, fast, direct downloads; achievements and leaderboards; cloud game saves; fast patch download; occasional purchase perks such as TF2 hats) far outweigh the negatives (purchases tied to account name; only one account "online" at a time; occasionally weird/buggy "offline" support)
I actually consider everything tired to my account name a plus, as I can log in anywhere and get it. No secondary market, however, is the downside associated with that.
And offline is way better than it used to be. Is it still problematic?
And offline is way better than it used to be. Is it still problematic?
Good Old Games is more apropriate example, I think http://www.gog.com/
I've mentioned this before, but World of Goo did everything right: great game, 90 on Metacritic, easy purchase through Steam or direct from their website, no DRM at all, and priced at $19.99. But an estimated 90% of players were on pirated versions of the game: http://2dboy.com/2008/11/13/90/.
Is there something else they could have done?
Is there something else they could have done?
Unless pirate players have a significant negative effect on the gameplay experience, which doesn't seem to be the case from what I can see for this game in particular, World Of Goo's makers do not care how many people pirate their game, either in absolute terms or as a percentage. All that really matters is the absolute number of legitimate sales.
It doesn't matter how many people pirate content vs buy it. What matters is whether DRM would have increased or decreased the total revenue. More than likely it would have caused it to decrease. The people who pirated it would not have necessarily been paying customers, and fewer people playing the game overall would likely have led to less publicity and fewer total sales.
Edit: a lot of game makers are adopting this sort of model as an intentional business practice by going "free to play". Having a big installed base is great if per user costs are low (which they can be if everything is digital) and can improve average perceived value for multiplayer games, all of which can make it easier to pull in more revenue from a small subset of players who voluntarily choose to pay for certain things than to attempt to charge everyone a flat fee.
Edit: a lot of game makers are adopting this sort of model as an intentional business practice by going "free to play". Having a big installed base is great if per user costs are low (which they can be if everything is digital) and can improve average perceived value for multiplayer games, all of which can make it easier to pull in more revenue from a small subset of players who voluntarily choose to pay for certain things than to attempt to charge everyone a flat fee.
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> As far as I can tell, there's absolutely no way around it except by having thin clients and running everything off the cloud.
OnLive does precisely this. It's effectively perfect as far as copy-protection goes; but it's also seamless to the user and (provided you have a decent pipe) actually has a few benefits as things like download time, system specs, or syncing saves are no longer an issue.
OnLive does precisely this. It's effectively perfect as far as copy-protection goes; but it's also seamless to the user and (provided you have a decent pipe) actually has a few benefits as things like download time, system specs, or syncing saves are no longer an issue.
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One exception is multiplayer games. You can still pirate them, but you won't be able to play online with the majority of players. This makes the copy significantly worse, so Blizzard doesn't have to worry much about Starcraft 2 piracy.
Lol, not true. SC2 disabled LAN play because of this. People would just do LAN games via Hamachi.
That's the point. To "protect" themselves, they hurt legitimate consumers.
That's the point. To "protect" themselves, they hurt legitimate consumers.
That's kind of a revealing statement, in fact.
It's about ownership.
If game companies need to hurt their customers in order to "protect" what they think they're selling, then what are the customers buying after all?
The companies think the customers want to buy a copy of the game, so it logically follows that thus, making copies of the game must be restricted. But the customers obviously are buying something else if they feel hurt even after they've rightfully received their copy and even go lengths to "fix" the situation by turning to pirated versions.
It is my guess that what customers want is the abstract concept of ownership.
People buy games and music and movies because they think those games and music are good, and they admire them, thus they want to own these products.
Anecdotally, most of what I own is because I wanted to specifically own it. I own movies on physical DVD disks that I still downloaded from Piratebay for viewing after I bought the DVD because they have better DVD rips and it takes less time to download than to rip myself.
Whatever games I bought and my friends bought when we were teenagers were the best ones that we thought we wanted to own. We wanted to have the game, we wanted to own the game to feel good about owning something we liked. All my game boxes were like that. Monkey Islands. F1GP. Eye of the Beholder. Obtaining a pirate copy wouldn't have satisfied my need to own those titles. Me and my friends pirated stuff that we didn't feel for, and if we hadn't been able to pirate them we wouldn't have bought it.
We didn't buy games to get a copy, we bought games for ownership, we wanted to own them and cherish them. And that is exactly what DRM games don't want to give you: ownership.
It's about ownership.
If game companies need to hurt their customers in order to "protect" what they think they're selling, then what are the customers buying after all?
The companies think the customers want to buy a copy of the game, so it logically follows that thus, making copies of the game must be restricted. But the customers obviously are buying something else if they feel hurt even after they've rightfully received their copy and even go lengths to "fix" the situation by turning to pirated versions.
It is my guess that what customers want is the abstract concept of ownership.
People buy games and music and movies because they think those games and music are good, and they admire them, thus they want to own these products.
Anecdotally, most of what I own is because I wanted to specifically own it. I own movies on physical DVD disks that I still downloaded from Piratebay for viewing after I bought the DVD because they have better DVD rips and it takes less time to download than to rip myself.
Whatever games I bought and my friends bought when we were teenagers were the best ones that we thought we wanted to own. We wanted to have the game, we wanted to own the game to feel good about owning something we liked. All my game boxes were like that. Monkey Islands. F1GP. Eye of the Beholder. Obtaining a pirate copy wouldn't have satisfied my need to own those titles. Me and my friends pirated stuff that we didn't feel for, and if we hadn't been able to pirate them we wouldn't have bought it.
We didn't buy games to get a copy, we bought games for ownership, we wanted to own them and cherish them. And that is exactly what DRM games don't want to give you: ownership.
Yeah especially MMO's, there are private wow servers people have setup but they really don't compare to the experience you get on the real ones.
DRM period isn't a waste of money. DRM as it's commonly practiced is.
DRM always entails a hit to the customer's convenience. If you're not giving the customer more convenience in a different way, then you're fighting an uphill battle.
When you implement DRM, please be aware that you are engaged in an asymmetric conflict, and that you are the underdogs. The subset of the internet community interested in cracking your DRM most likely outnumbers and outguns whatever department in whatever company you're at. But asymmetric conflicts can be won:
DRM always entails a hit to the customer's convenience. If you're not giving the customer more convenience in a different way, then you're fighting an uphill battle.
When you implement DRM, please be aware that you are engaged in an asymmetric conflict, and that you are the underdogs. The subset of the internet community interested in cracking your DRM most likely outnumbers and outguns whatever department in whatever company you're at. But asymmetric conflicts can be won:
- concentrate on detection, bias to false negatives
- separate by a significant interval in time the
detection and any consequences of detection
- never do anything that looks like a bug
- never fight where you are weak and the enemy is strong
> DRM period isn't a waste of money. DRM as it's commonly practiced is.
Not necessarily disagreeing, but DRM would always be a waste of money if it wasn't for the anti-circumvention laws that prevent disseminating DRM work-arounds.
The law serves to raise the bar on just how annoying DRM has to be before most people are willing to work around it.
Not necessarily disagreeing, but DRM would always be a waste of money if it wasn't for the anti-circumvention laws that prevent disseminating DRM work-arounds.
The law serves to raise the bar on just how annoying DRM has to be before most people are willing to work around it.
Not necessarily disagreeing
Actually, part of my point is that DRM doesn't have to be very annoying at all. It's just that most companies are short sighted in how they apply it, which is foolish. Those companies are annoying their best customers the most.
Actually, part of my point is that DRM doesn't have to be very annoying at all. It's just that most companies are short sighted in how they apply it, which is foolish. Those companies are annoying their best customers the most.
- separate by a significant interval in time the detection and any consequences of detection
Why?
Why?
The consequences of detection are also the validation step for people cracking your DRM. They won't release something until they can confirm they've broken it.
It's much harder to work through removing DRM if you have to play the game for half an hour each time you want to test a partial solution. Games that dump you before even showing the title screen are actually making this confirmation activity easier.
It's much harder to work through removing DRM if you have to play the game for half an hour each time you want to test a partial solution. Games that dump you before even showing the title screen are actually making this confirmation activity easier.
It's much harder to work through removing DRM if you have to play the game for half an hour each time you want to test a partial solution.
Actually, I think it's best if the time interval is something like two weeks. Shift much of the revenue to downloadable content and online multiplayer. Make the consequences for having been detected completely invisible until then.
This gives the pirates two choices: either they can release their crack early, and their customers will be screwed, because even if a new crack is released, those users will already have been identified, or they can wait until well after the release, when the downloadable content comes online, in which case, you've won a reprieve where there are no sales lost to that pirate.
Actually, I think it's best if the time interval is something like two weeks. Shift much of the revenue to downloadable content and online multiplayer. Make the consequences for having been detected completely invisible until then.
This gives the pirates two choices: either they can release their crack early, and their customers will be screwed, because even if a new crack is released, those users will already have been identified, or they can wait until well after the release, when the downloadable content comes online, in which case, you've won a reprieve where there are no sales lost to that pirate.
See also an early scheme by Microsoft. "The Tree of Evil Bears Bitter Fruit" - there are differing versions of what was actually happening.
(http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OC8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA8&#...)
(http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OC8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA8&#...)
To reduce false positives.
Consider the case in which an app has to connect to an online server for authorization. Well, what if the Internet connection is down? What if your server is unreachable for some reason? What if your server malfunctions?
In such a case, triggering an error right away may punish legitimate users. And this is the biggest problem with DRM and why I think it is fundamentally flawed, making piracy totally justified - any draconian DRM scheme that's effective against piracy will also punish legitimate users.
Consider the case in which an app has to connect to an online server for authorization. Well, what if the Internet connection is down? What if your server is unreachable for some reason? What if your server malfunctions?
In such a case, triggering an error right away may punish legitimate users. And this is the biggest problem with DRM and why I think it is fundamentally flawed, making piracy totally justified - any draconian DRM scheme that's effective against piracy will also punish legitimate users.
any draconian DRM scheme that's effective against piracy will also punish legitimate users.
I disagree. Draconian schemes as they've largely been practiced do punish legit users and drive more piracy. I contend that not enough emphasis has been placed on the economics of producing cracks and not enough care has been taken to avoid the unproductive punishment of legit users.
Basically, do subtle things to drive the cost of pirate software engineering through the roof while being as kind and attentive to your most faithful customers as possible.
I disagree. Draconian schemes as they've largely been practiced do punish legit users and drive more piracy. I contend that not enough emphasis has been placed on the economics of producing cracks and not enough care has been taken to avoid the unproductive punishment of legit users.
Basically, do subtle things to drive the cost of pirate software engineering through the roof while being as kind and attentive to your most faithful customers as possible.
I pirated Paradox's Europa Universalis II when I was a poor student. I later pirated the first version of Europa Universalis III and Victoria, both of which I didn't much enjoy at the time, because they sucked at the time from a technical/gameplay and gameplay perspective respectively.
Since then I purchased, because I initially pirated them, For The Glory (effectively an EU2 final edition) and EUIII Complete and its two expansion packs, including one for twenty dollars. I also purchased Victoria II.
DRM doesn't work, and because Paradox put all the effort that they'd put into DRM into their game engines instead, I'm buying their products and am utterly addicted to EU3 in particular.
For every seed and peer on BitTorrent of a Paradox game, I'm happy, because it means that the community will grow larger and that there will be more paying customers in the future. It helps that the parts of the forum with Technical Support, Patches and Mods are only available to registered customers :)
There's only a few things that bother me with Paradox, and they are that Victoria II is not much fun, because one has as much control over that game as a leaf in the wind, that EU3 needs another dozen expansion packs and that not everything is available for Steam on Mac when it should be...
If EU3 had three-time install only DRM, I'd have pirated it, and so would have most others. Instead, Paradox seems to be a publisher that loves its community, as the forums alone prove.
Since then I purchased, because I initially pirated them, For The Glory (effectively an EU2 final edition) and EUIII Complete and its two expansion packs, including one for twenty dollars. I also purchased Victoria II.
DRM doesn't work, and because Paradox put all the effort that they'd put into DRM into their game engines instead, I'm buying their products and am utterly addicted to EU3 in particular.
For every seed and peer on BitTorrent of a Paradox game, I'm happy, because it means that the community will grow larger and that there will be more paying customers in the future. It helps that the parts of the forum with Technical Support, Patches and Mods are only available to registered customers :)
There's only a few things that bother me with Paradox, and they are that Victoria II is not much fun, because one has as much control over that game as a leaf in the wind, that EU3 needs another dozen expansion packs and that not everything is available for Steam on Mac when it should be...
If EU3 had three-time install only DRM, I'd have pirated it, and so would have most others. Instead, Paradox seems to be a publisher that loves its community, as the forums alone prove.
Indeed. We never seriously considered DRM as an option for For the Glory, nor will I again in the foreseeable future. If I would hate something as a gamer, it's a good bet I won't be doing it as a developer.
Yeah, EU3: Complete is fantastic (I heard it was substantially worse before the In Nomine expansion). I really, really wish Steam would offer the other expansions currently available for the Mac, I'm always puzzled why they only have the PC version up when they have the Mac versions of some of the other expansions.
"But people who purchase a game should have just as easy a time as those who pirate the game, otherwise it’s a negative incentive to buy a legal copy."
I thought this was a key point in the article and one that has been lurking below the surface in the SOPA/PIPA discussion. In order to 'prevent piracy', technical solutions are worthless compared to providing a quality service where your customers' willingness to buy is on par with your price. As noted by the author, DRM decreases the quality of a service, and often carries an increased price [at least for company in production/support/etc].
For some industries, the price does not align with expectations. I can think of retail Blu-ray for instance [the price is too high].
For others, the DRM encourages piracy to some degree. Often with Windows this is the case. While I own legitimate copies, often a pirate copy is easier to install [no key/activation] or find [no cd to track]. This is especially true for quick n' dirty VM builds.
Finally, I believe in expressly Anti-DRM approaches, ya know.../trusting/ users with content. Encouraging users to purchase in order to support their favorite [movie, game, software, comedy special] is the way forward. Piracy will not go away, the game is converting pirates to customers by convincing them that your product is worth their money.
I thought this was a key point in the article and one that has been lurking below the surface in the SOPA/PIPA discussion. In order to 'prevent piracy', technical solutions are worthless compared to providing a quality service where your customers' willingness to buy is on par with your price. As noted by the author, DRM decreases the quality of a service, and often carries an increased price [at least for company in production/support/etc].
For some industries, the price does not align with expectations. I can think of retail Blu-ray for instance [the price is too high].
For others, the DRM encourages piracy to some degree. Often with Windows this is the case. While I own legitimate copies, often a pirate copy is easier to install [no key/activation] or find [no cd to track]. This is especially true for quick n' dirty VM builds.
Finally, I believe in expressly Anti-DRM approaches, ya know.../trusting/ users with content. Encouraging users to purchase in order to support their favorite [movie, game, software, comedy special] is the way forward. Piracy will not go away, the game is converting pirates to customers by convincing them that your product is worth their money.
I no longer play games, because of DRM hassles in the past.
DRM-free games are becoming more and more popular these days. Look at the Humble Indie Bundles, for example. You get 3-6 indie games which are completely free from DRM (and in some cases are open source!) for as much or as little as you care to play. Heck, you don't even have time to finish all of the games in one bundle before another one comes out.
If you want to play games, there's really no reason not to.
If you want to play games, there's really no reason not to.
iPhone store is DRM. It helps the customer in a way by preventing apps from breaking the phone. I don't like it personally but I have a higher knowledge level of technology than most people.
DRM is useful mostly to people who can't figure out anything in a technology product. They are more likely to break their products without it than with it. The big thing though is I wished companies offered an option to those who are willing to risk it all vs fighting them.
DRM is useful mostly to people who can't figure out anything in a technology product. They are more likely to break their products without it than with it. The big thing though is I wished companies offered an option to those who are willing to risk it all vs fighting them.
You are confusing DRM for the locking down of a product or platform. Apple locks down iOS for the benefit of the user (most of the time), but adds DRM to apps to prevent unauthorized code from being executed on the device and to prevent apps from being pirated (which Installous has proved futile).
As far as I can tell, there's absolutely no way around it except by having thin clients and running everything off the cloud. As long as the actual machine where the content is being run off is in the hands of the client, it can always be hacked, either through software or hardware. But things like streaming video and Louis CK are showing that people are willing to pay for content, as long as it's convenient enough and cheap enough.