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Let's talk purely about piracy for a second, as a legitimate use for legitimate owners, based on something that happened to me a couple of days ago: I own two
by PostOnce 8y ago
Let's talk purely about piracy for a second, as a legitimate use for legitimate owners, based on something that happened to me a couple of days ago:
I own two copies of this game, From Dust (which is fantastic, by the creator of Another World), one of them on disc and one of them on Steam, separate keys.
I installed it from Steam because I don't have an optical drive handy and the key is not on the case for some reason. So the game makes me sign up for a UPlay account (in addition to having the Steam stuff), which apparently I did in the past, and not with my primary email. So I can't play because it's already activated... and installing it from Steam doesn't tell UPlay that I own it on Steam.
So then I go and email Ubisoft tech support and say I have this key and haven't played in 5 years how can I swap it over to my new email.
A day later I get a reply that they want me to go screenshot my transaction history and my CD Key (which I already sent them) in the Steam UI.
...meanwhile, I was able to download ("pirate") and install the game in 5 minutes, and it doesn't require either the Steam or the Uplay account to work. AND it'll keep on working 50 years after Steam and Ubisoft are both bankrupt (or keep working on your OS/vm/whatever when Steam and Ubisoft discontinue support for it).
So yeah, there's a use for bittorrent & piracy, since DRM ruins your ability to archive any-damn-thing now. Without bittorrent, playing that game would be a terrible ordeal, if it is even possible at all. Paying for it (twice) only made it worse.
- m_eiman 8y agoThis is one of the reasons I make efforts to buy games via gog.com rather than Steam (the other reason is that Steam is dangerously close to a monopoly, and that never ends well).
- djsumdog 8y agoGog and the Humble Bundle (if they offer a DRM free version; these days a lot of titles just have Steam Keys). You do lose the save game/cloud sync, but you gain copies of your game that will always work without needing to verify your licence over the Interwebs.
- m_eiman 8y agoLots of the games I've bought have cloud synced saves on gog too.
- WorldMaker 8y ago> Humble Bundle (if they offer a DRM free version; these days a lot of titles just have Steam Keys) I've been griping lately that Humble Bundle seems increasingly watering down their principles. Early Humble Bundle made it a big deal that they always included DRM free copies and more often than not full soundtracks or soundtracks at a discount. Today's Humble Bundle seems much more and more to "just" be a Steam Key reseller, without DRM free copies of many games, and without access to nearly as large of a percentage of game soundtracks. (I realize that last is a weird gripe, but there were a lot of games I picked up for their soundtracks because of artists I enjoyed, and sometimes I'd be surprised and really enjoy the associated game, but even if I didn't like the game I still got my money's worth from the soundtrack. I've now switched to buying from the artists more often directly from Bandcamp and rarely if ever buying the associated games, or just waiting for a direct Steam or Microsoft Store sale.) It certainly feels from Humble's emails that they are very deeply focused on their Monthly Pass, and it feels almost to the detriment of everything else, but then Monthly Pass things don't really appeal to me in general.
- icebraining 8y agoRelated, Gog recently started https://fckdrm.com/ https://fckdrm.com/
- sguav 8y ago> DRM ruins your ability to archive any-damn-thing This. People should realise this.
- thecatspaw 8y agoNo it would not, the analogy doesnt even make sense