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> I think your argument can be rephrased in a way, that multilayer games require third party arbiters (server admins, GMs and so on), who should be able to ban

> I think your argument can be rephrased in a way, that multilayer games require third party arbiters (server admins, GMs and so on), who should be able to ban violators of game rules, reconcile conflicts and so on. I fully agree, but I don't see why it should be equated with using DRM for the actual software. GMs do not have the power to that job, unless they have something that's approximately equal to DRM. Catching a subtle cheater is a much, much bigger job than cheating. If someone cheats every day, you'd be lucky to catch him once a month. To actually stop cheating from happening, you need penalties that are high enough to make that once a month count -- so permanent global (so they won't just move on to the next server) bans (and ip bans don't cut it), or failing that, monetary punishment. Tell me how your third party arbiters achieve that without essentially implementing DRM? > And to single player games this issue doesn't apply at all. Except when there is publicly visible scoring/achievements system that you want to keep pure. >90% of new games on the market are either mp or do that.

shmerl 14y ago
I still think using any kind of DRM is an unethical overkill for controlling the MMO..G and the like. Firstly, the game can be designed better avoid (some) exploits. Secondly automated mechanisms can be built on the server side to prevent cheating (monitoring unnatural stats boosting, unrealistic mods and so on). I agree, that it's not easy to do it manually. So, write server side protection code for that. It's not DRM, and not some kind of client targeted kill switch. If the user is caught - ban will follow. Let them register again, and get another ban if they want to waste their time. And if that cheating is so hidden that it's not even unnatural IG - who cares (i.e. it's still not fair, but at least such user doesn't have big impact). From the player perspective, I'd choose a multiplayer game based on the community. Sometimes community can identify cheating just by observing something unnatural, and those users will quickly be boycotted. So GMs are needed to intervene when human decision is necessary. They not necessarily have to detect the issue themselves first.

shmerl 14y ago

I still think using any kind of DRM is an unethical overkill for controlling the MMO..G and the like. Firstly, the game can be designed better avoid (some) exploits. Secondly automated mechanisms can be built on the server side to prevent cheating (monitoring unnatural stats boosting, unrealistic mods and so on). I agree, that it's not easy to do it manually. So, write server side protection code for that. It's not DRM, and not some kind of client targeted kill switch. If the user is caught - ban will follow. Let them register again, and get another ban if they want to waste their time. And if that cheating is so hidden that it's not even unnatural IG - who cares (i.e. it's still not fair, but at least such user doesn't have big impact). From the player perspective, I'd choose a multiplayer game based on the community. Sometimes community can identify cheating just by observing something unnatural, and those users will quickly be boycotted. So GMs are needed to intervene when human decision is necessary. They not necessarily have to detect the issue themselves first.