Insane PC Game DRM Drove Me To Piracy

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Does this guy have a legitimate argument here or is this just another excuse to pirate a game? One thing is for sure, it is pretty damn sad that we even have to ask a question like this.

What I had to do instead is pretty sad considering I paid for a legit copy- I went to a torrent site and downloaded a cracked exe that let me bypass the security check and play the game the online portion of it.
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He did what many people do: he broke the law, yet he didn't do so in a way that deprives the developer/publisher. I don't see a problem with this.

The guy purchased a license to play the game, so the method he uses to install the game is largely irrelevant. If he were to sell his boxed game and keep playing his pirated copy, then obviously that's where it becomes a problem.
 
Hard to blame him. Going 1mph over the speed limit is breaking the law too. Not purchasing health care will be against the law too.
 
I would NOT have done what he did. As soon as I saw that crap come up I would have downloaded the crack. I wouldn't have called anyone I wouldn't have given them a second thought and I would not buy a game from what ever company did this again.

I have a few rules before I buy any game.

1. If there is no demo/free trial you don't get my money
2. if I am forced to be connected to the internet to play my game you don't get my money
3. if I can't install it on any damn pc I want you don't get my money

If I pay money for something IT IS MINE TO DO WHAT I WANT WITH!

simple as that :)
 
WinSomeLoseNone said:
Fucking socialism bullshit.
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Shut up :rolleyes:

Anyways, I've read a lot of stuff online where people talk about getting bounced back and forth between the developer and publisher for technical support. So this mans story just joins the list.

This problem particularly reminds me of this one where the guy points out his issues with DRM and how it can turn customers into pirates.

The bottom line is, it shouldn't be harder for a paying customer to use your product than it is someone who steals it.
 
Paying for a legit copy and doing that is one thing, yes. It still remains that people will justify not paying for a game outright, with any excuse up to and including DRM. Obviously, he isn't one of them.
 
I recently installed Stalker: Clear Sky on my new laptop that I purchased through Amazon and kept getting, 'Incompatible driver" in Windows 7. I went to Gamecopyworld, downloaded the crack, uninstalled their DRM drivers, and didn't think twice about it. I legally purchased the software, I don't feel I did anything wrong either.

95% of DRM implementations just don't work.
 
If the DRM is too difficult to bear, just don't buy it. There is plenty of software and games out there to buy or download that has acceptable protections.
 
If the game is worth 50 bucks I will pay for it. If it's not. Well, I think you all know what happens next. :p


Also if games have draconian DRM on it. Ya not buying that game. Fuck those single player games that require you to be online. :mad:
 
It reminds me of when the Gears of War DRM expired and everyone that payed for the game couldn't play it. Yet the people the pirated the game could. Makes me wonder if other games will all of a sudden stop working because the DRM will become expired.
I do feel that some DRM is overkill, like Assassins Creed 2, although I haven't noticed any problems with it. It sometimes doesn't sync the save file, but it usually fixs it when it starts up next time.
 
Yep, hes justified. Its a damn shame he even had to do that, and shouldn't have had to do that.
 
You shouldn't steal games, as it leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth and is the wrong way to go about "protesting" these issues. I see no problem with using "cracked" .exe's to get more enjoyment out of a product though. Really, after a game has been out awhile, say two or three years, developers should release an EOL patch that disables CD-checks and all of that bullshit.

Overall, I just look at it as a "value" adjustment: DRM, especially severely crippling/oppressive DRM, degrades the value of the product. Sometimes it ends up being so bad (e.g. Assassin's Creed II) that I place the game in the "$10 budget bin" pile and will wait until then. On the bright side, when I go get around to playing it, it'll be patched and drivers will be flawless :p.
 
I think he did what he did as a last resort. Back in the day I used to download cracked exe's so I didnt have to insert the damn CD all the time. I owned the games but didn't want to be bothered all the time to insert a CD. Is that wrong? Some would say yes but who knows.
 
i don't see a problem if he already bought the game, he may not of known how bad the DRM was when he bought the game. good for him.

its hardly illegal to make a backup copy of a game, music cd, or a dvd movie. i don't see this as any different. he bought the game and therefore owns a right to that material regardless of how it is accessed. i fail to see how any law is broken here.

but i agree, its really sad when we have to ask the question about this.
 
I see nothing wrong with his actions. Absolutely sucks when something happens to keep you from playing a game you bought. I have actually gone this route a few times now, almost always after an OS install/re-install where I would lose the disc to a game. Lose the disc: dl the full game from a torrent and drop the key I have lying around in. I always manage to keep track of the keys and lose just the disc for some reason =/ Though I imagine if you lost the key or both the key and the disc I would still find it morally acceptable and justified to just torrent the game/key. This is of course why I love steam for keeping it all together and organized under a username / password in the cloud. <3

Nocd-patches are always nice to grab as well, especially when losing all those discs or when you install a game on a laptop and cant be arsed to keep your entire collection with you at all times when moving around.

Side note: Piracy is wrong and should remain illegal however less aggressively pursued because it really is a grey area as to just how wrong it is. Entertainment companies really need to give it a rest on blaming piracy for all their woes as well; this article is a rather good example as to why blaming piracy for reduced sales and trying to counter it only perpetuates the problem.
 
A few years ago I unfortunately bought Medal of Honor Airborn. Anyway, the game refused to even install. Tried it on several machines and always the game errored out during the install. Called EA and was told to return it and replace it with another copy. Did that and the same thing happened. Called EA and was told the same thing. I explained I had already tried this and they said i had a bad DVD-ROM. I explained it would not install on any machine and they said take it back and get another copy.

This time I returned it. Waited 3 days and then returned the unopened box for a full refund. Downloaded the torrent and played the cracked game. Played it for all of 2 days and realized what a waste of time it was.

I continue to legally purchase games. Except for EA games and I refuse to play them. DRM will be the death of PC gaming.

Those companies that decide that DRM is detrimental to the customer and put out a good product will dominate in the future. EA was once a giant. I see them falling hard in the next few years.
 
DRM has its place in the world, even in games, music, movies ect, but the paying customer should never notice it. If its become an issue for a legit paying customer using it as intended, its gone too far.

I feel like many business, even many game developers/publishers, aren't adapting to changing technology and business models. Forgive me for not knowing the details, but my Friend studying patent law told be about a case study where a publisher released a soccer game in a country where piracy is rampant. The game only sold around 10,000 copies even with heavy DRM. The following year they did a different approach and released the next iteration for free, and focused on microtransaction purchase in game bonuses (score x goals and the ball moves so much faster for y seconds). They were much more successful in terms of sales.

This escalation of piracy/drm only hurts paying customers in the crossfire, publishers need to change their approach. I'd take DLC and microtransaction based games over heavily DRM games like AC2. I've bought every expansion for Borderlands without hesitation because I enjoy the game. I bought the deluxe version of DA:O based on developer reputation to deliver good content. Even if Borderlands and DA:O have DRM, it's never bothered me.
 
Buy the game and if you have problems with the DRM use a crack. Best of both worlds.
 
DRM is a failure as a concept. It does not stop the hardcore pirates and crackers, and the average user that just wants to use what they paid for has to jump through one hoop after another. The whole concept of "managing" rights bothers me. Any time you manage something that means you're restricting something. I'll manage my own rights, thank you.

There is a basic concept in commerce that if you pay for something you should be able to use it. A toaster or microwave that does not function as advertised is considered defective. It can be returned, or a mechanically savvy owner could possibly repair the unit. I don't see why software should be any different. If the user cannot get the software to function as desired out of the box, then making it work using alternative means is no different than opening up a toaster and rewiring it. Morally I don't think this guy did anything wrong. He cracked it so it would work. How is that different from the publisher issuing a patch that fixes a crash bug? It did not cost the publisher a sale, and the user can play his game.

A note to software publishers reading these forums. I do not condone piracy, but if you make your product a pain to use then people who would not otherwise look for hacks and cracks will do just that. That presents another problem because sites advertising hacks and cracks also tend to host trojans and other malware. Besides annoying a customer, it adds to the growing problem of infected PC's. Instead of using the stick, try the carrot approach instead. Offer nifty stuff that someone can't get through pirating the game, like T-shirts, posters, and other kinds of goodies. You'll never stop the hardcore pirates, but you can increase your sales with swag, and not loading a game up with annoying DRM that breaks the experience for the user will keep this sort of thing from happening. An annoyed customer is a lost customer. Giving someone a little extra as a "thank you" for being legit will make everyone happier. Think about it.
 
There was a game from EA that I had purchased and could not get to work on Vista 64bit, and the box said it worked with Vista. The people at EA tried everything to help me. They ever GAVE ME a free download-able copy to see if perhaps that version would work over the disc version. It didn't.

I then had idea of downloading the patch that allows you to play without the disc (without DRM) and voila! it worked. I told EA I did that, and they said "whatever works". Now I am sure, that was not an official EA endorsement of DRM removal, but it showed that if you have a legitimate copy and just cannot run it, they are less concerned about the details of how you get it to work.

I had made every effort to get it to work, and they even offered to refund the price for my disc and still keep the gift of the online copy (for my trouble). I refused simply because I didn't feel it was the honest thing to do.

I did notice, however, that the "Vista Compatible" was gone from subsequent offerings of that game.

Does this mean I support piracy? No, nor was my patching of the software "piracy". I paid my license. I just had to use drastic measures to get the thing to work.
 
the responses over at the consumerist have been in large part much more intelligent, I lol at this

also, I'm all for it, he tried his best to do things the legal way, and when nobody could/would help him, he did what he had to do.
 
I think that in the future, we should call the act of making a game we got with our cash work an act of MODDING, not piracy. It is ridiculous that we must MOD our games so that the games that we paid for will actually play is a sad state of affair indeed
 
E.A.&#8217;s most recent experiment with free online games began two years ago in South Korea, the world&#8217;s most fervent gaming culture. In 2006, the company introduced a free version of its FIFA soccer game there, and Gerhard Florin, E.A.&#8217;s executive vice president for publishing in the Americas and Europe, said it has signed up more than five million Korean users and generates more than $1 million in monthly in-game sales.

Players can pay not only for decorative items like shoes and jerseys but also for boosts in their players&#8217; speed, agility and accuracy. Mr. Florin said that while most users do not buy anything, a sizable minority ends up spending $15 to $20 a month.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/technology/21game.html?_r=1&ref=technology
What happened to these games?
 
Bought GTA 4 on steam sale - counted 10 lots of screens and logons I had to do (Windows Live, Rockstar Social Club and then Steam of course).

So irritating I don't want to play it
 
@cliche: I got my copy of GTA4 boxed because of exactly that annoying fact. It's still just as annoying thou, since you must sign into Windows Live just to load up your saved games! (rage mode on)
 
piracy in this case isn't quite the right word. breach of license agreement in the EULA, but by no means broken a law. could he be sued? i suppose, could someone call the police and have them pick him up at his house...very unlikely. Say he had purchased one of Slysoft's Game Jackal Pro and made a legitimate backup of his game and then stripped the DRM off of the backed up version; would that be piracy, a breach in the license agreement, breaking the law?
Question, ummm why did he tell anyone about this? Did mommy and daddy not hug him enough and now seeks the attention any way he can get it? I wonder if he operates machinery when taking prescribed medicine and then calls his doctor to tell him so....hmmmmmmm.
 
Parmenides said:
I'm not sure what you're referring to there. I'm definitely far from being a socialist if you're talking about me. Laws can certainly be absurd.
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I think he was referring to the mandatory health care purchase.

Timeline:

Generation X/Y runs up huge dept.
Generation X/Y creates medicare/medicade to force the next generation to pay their healthcare because they just didn't bother fucking saving in the first place.
Generation X/Y bankrupts their healthcare system.
Generation X/Y re-writes health insurance laws to FORCE insurers to lower their rate, and compensate by raising the rate on.... guess who? The exact same people these fuckers have been stealing from for the last 30 years.

Everyone who has held a place in congress, the senate, or the white house in the last 40 years should just be executed for treason.
 
Can you guys please take it to GM?

I think once you purchased a game you have the right to do whatever you want with it. If they want to continue with the always online DRM theyre going to have to figure out how to support it.
 
Hard to blame him. Going 1mph over the speed limit is breaking the law too. Not purchasing health care will be against the law too.
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Actually, it won't be against the law. You will simply have to pay a tax penalty if you do not purchase it. The same way you have to pay a tax "penalty" if you don't install energy efficient windows.
 
the last drm/tied down game we bought was gears of war for the pc.

we paid 120$ i think at the time when it came out or 100$ for two copies.
both copies, none of the promo codes for live worked, so we went with the free version which missed out on alot of the gold features or silver.

it would constantly crash... my wife's copy woudlnt install. so we had to get a bootleg to install the shit... then use our serial keys

what a joke. last microsoft game i bought.
 
Reimu said:
@cliche: I got my copy of GTA4 boxed because of exactly that annoying fact. It's still just as annoying thou, since you must sign into Windows Live just to load up your saved games! (rage mode on)
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thx for the heads-up. So we are being screwed no matter which route we purchase from
 
Freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength!! DRM = lol

using cracks is perfectly fine IMO

i don't pirate games but I have no compunctions on what actions I decide to do AFTER that

they have my money, fuck them if they don't like what I do next.
 
piscian18 said:
Steam. It's the answer to everything. Here have some koolaid. :D
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You're joking, right? Steam might solve DRM issue, but someone can steal your account.

My steam accounted got hijacked last week. Never thought it would happen. It's worse than DRM.:mad:
 
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