DRM a slightly different viewpoint

[IanC]

Originally Posted by wetwarev7

It's like the gaming version of GLOBAL WARMING.

Global warming is very real my friend. But I'm guessing this will take us off topic... I do agree with you about the rest though.

edit: ok I just realised you could mean it both ways, sorry

[janh]

Originally Posted by IanC

Global warming is very real my friend.

Global warming is unfortunately very real, ask the poor pals whose houses in Northern Canada or Alaska starting sinking into mud that was for ages frozen before. Or look at how the navies rally to make use of the almost ice free seas in the arctic region. Those are very good indicators since they are easy to characterize, and studied for many decades.

But back on topic: Here some more interesting reading from a very credible source: U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) working out data for the Congress: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10423.pdf

I assume this report is probably going to be cited soon or already on many of the major US news papers. In Germany it made it right away into them. In summary: "Damage due to filesharing strongly exaggerated, data sources and methodology used for estimation (by MPAA etc) not faulty and not meaningful". Enjoy the reading!

[captainprid]

Think this is going wwwaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy off topic and could descend into quite a row!! There are some very polarised views about this and I for one am staying well out of it!!!

[wetwarev7]

Originally Posted by captainprid

Think this is going wwwaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy off topic and could descend into quite a row!! There are some very polarised views about this and I for one am staying well out of it!!!

True!
Sorry about that, I wasn't trying to start a row about THAT particular issue.

I was just trying to make a point about how the losses due to pirating are impossible to track, and I just don't trust the game companies to be objective about it. (I've edited the post to maybe draw less attention to that other thing)

[Harmsway!]

No need to stay out of it. It makes sense to try to see it from their point of view. I certainly would like to know why they are doing this DRM stuff. Maybe if it made sense to me I could buy into it. But I can't make sense of it.

Even with everyone chiming in on this there is still one thing I hadn't seen talked about yet. That is this. What if (don't laugh) years from now SHV is the best dang subsim out there? Only UBI doesn't support it any longer and neither do they release a no DRM patch.

You can understand this. Many of us still play SHIII and will for years to come. But what if SHIII was release with DRM? None of us could play it today if UBI didn't support it.

Unless a patch is release to remove the DRM SHV future is sudden death.

[Tarnsman]

I think the whole piracy issue is overplayed. But I understand the need for some type of copy protection scheme, what I dont understand is why Ubi went for something so burdensome as this?

Is always connected to the internet really the best they could do? If I buy a music CD or movie DVD I dont have to maintain a constant net connection to enjoy that, so I really think something else is at play here. To me it feels like some kind of experiment and since Silent Hunter attracts a small but passionate following we make the perfect guinea pigs. Will this be the business model for the entire media industry going forward?

Also, why would UBi even want to store all saved games on their servers? That dosnt seem effiecient to me. I can easily store my games on my own computer, what purpose is served by remote game saving?

Let me pay my $50 bucks and walk away as friends, I dont need a long term relationship with Ubi over SH5.

[IanC]

Originally Posted by Tarnsman

Is always connected to the internet really the best they could do? If I buy a music CD or movie DVD I dont have to maintain a constant net connection to enjoy that, so I really think something else is at play here.

That's why some say it's not really about stopping piracy, but about stopping re-sales. They don't want anybody buying a used copy, everybody must buy it new.

[SubV]

Originally Posted by Tarnsman

Also, why would UBi even want to store all saved games on their servers? That dosnt seem effiecient to me. I can easily store my games on my own computer, what purpose is served by remote game saving?

Because that's the key point of their DRM. They constantly modify your saves to get the mission goals accomplished.

I read somewhere on the net about those who use pirated version of SH5... they cannot progress in campaign. They can't even complete any mission goal, because all the code that does it is server-side.