3 ms·

This fix is absolutely ridiculous, it should be in the publishers interest to remove the DRM on such games. And they also fully deserve to get bombarded with ne

This fix is absolutely ridiculous, it should be in the publishers interest to remove the DRM on such games. And they also fully deserve to get bombarded with negative reviews until they do so Shipping a broken product to a paying customer should be absolutely unacceptable regardless of the industry

judge2020 5y ago
It's more in the publisher's interest to prevent someone from creating a torrent with the files and anyone being able to use them to play the game without paying. The nature of DRM and this sentiment is exactly why online games are so lucrative - no DRM, besides anti-cheat, and microtransactions end up making way more money over the long-run if it's successful.
- lousken 5y ago
  Except that enough studies have shown already that piracy doesn't hurt sales. And I'd add my point myself - it's the decisions of companies that do hurt them - whether is releasing a broken product, limiting something to a particular country or TV channel (like the olympics) etc. Piracy is not at fault, it's just that you provide inferiour product (or straight up no product at all)
  - judge2020 5y ago
    In its current state, sure, piracy doesn’t detract from sales; but if copying was legitimately as simple as sharing the game files, and there was a website that hosted all these games, then consumers would have the choice of “pay on day one” or “get the game free on day one”/“split the cost of the game 15 ways between your friend group” and i can assure you we’d see a steep decline in sales for single-player games. It should be noted that the primary goal of game studios isn’t to create a great product, nor to create a product that everyone can play - its to achieve the highest return on capital investment, and that usually involves only supporting the biggest OS (windows) and not appealing to players looking specifically for DRM-free games.
    - lousken 5y ago
      Most games these days still use Steam DRM which is cracked on the first day, and games like cyberpunk were downloadable just like you said. And while I don't have the data to back it up, I don't think cyberpunk sales were hurt by being able to copy game files, but by producing unfinished game. If you hear reviews saying how the game's glitchy and unfinished - would you still waste your time on it? Singleplayer usually age like fine wine anyway, so playing it 1 year later could just be worth it more

judge2020 5y ago

It's more in the publisher's interest to prevent someone from creating a torrent with the files and anyone being able to use them to play the game without paying. The nature of DRM and this sentiment is exactly why online games are so lucrative - no DRM, besides anti-cheat, and microtransactions end up making way more money over the long-run if it's successful.

lousken 5y ago
Except that enough studies have shown already that piracy doesn't hurt sales. And I'd add my point myself - it's the decisions of companies that do hurt them - whether is releasing a broken product, limiting something to a particular country or TV channel (like the olympics) etc. Piracy is not at fault, it's just that you provide inferiour product (or straight up no product at all)
- judge2020 5y ago
  In its current state, sure, piracy doesn’t detract from sales; but if copying was legitimately as simple as sharing the game files, and there was a website that hosted all these games, then consumers would have the choice of “pay on day one” or “get the game free on day one”/“split the cost of the game 15 ways between your friend group” and i can assure you we’d see a steep decline in sales for single-player games. It should be noted that the primary goal of game studios isn’t to create a great product, nor to create a product that everyone can play - its to achieve the highest return on capital investment, and that usually involves only supporting the biggest OS (windows) and not appealing to players looking specifically for DRM-free games.
  - lousken 5y ago
    Most games these days still use Steam DRM which is cracked on the first day, and games like cyberpunk were downloadable just like you said. And while I don't have the data to back it up, I don't think cyberpunk sales were hurt by being able to copy game files, but by producing unfinished game. If you hear reviews saying how the game's glitchy and unfinished - would you still waste your time on it? Singleplayer usually age like fine wine anyway, so playing it 1 year later could just be worth it more