As seen in the latest iteration of the Gamer's Bill of Rights Stardock has been working with trusted partners to come up with a framework that would give PC gamers a better experience while still having a realistic chance of being adopted by publishers.
One of the issues that keeps coming up is IP protection. What we keep being told privately is that "Sure, your games don't need copy protection because your demographic is less likely to pirate but even if we agreed with your philosophy, we will never be able to sell DRM-free games to management".
This eventually leads to the issue that the alternatives for intellectual property protection are limited.
So what alternatives do developers have today?
SecuROM. This is what has been used by Electronic Arts in Spore, Mass Effect, and most other titles. Ubisoft uses it as well such as in Far Cry 2.
Pros: Makes developers feel their IP is well protected. It is quite effective at slowing down cracking of games, especially to on-line features (Spore was leaked day 1 but only the unprotected versions of it, you couldn't make use of on-line features). Cons: Apparently installs a device driver that stays behind. Developers have used it to hard-code a limited number of life-time activations (3 in Spore initially raised to 5 more recently).
Pros: Makes developers feel their IP is well protected. It is quite effective at slowing down cracking of games, especially to on-line features (Spore was leaked day 1 but only the unprotected versions of it, you couldn't make use of on-line features).
Cons: Apparently installs a device driver that stays behind. Developers have used it to hard-code a limited number of life-time activations (3 in Spore initially raised to 5 more recently).
Steamworks. Valve protects its games and offers to third parties the ability to protect their titles and gain the feature benefits of Steam.
Pros: Proven 0-day protection by installing the last bit of the game upon installation. Includes a ton of other features such as hardware tracking, updates via the Steam client, and more. Cons: Requires Steam (the client) to be installed with the game. Requires the user to create a Steam account.
Pros: Proven 0-day protection by installing the last bit of the game upon installation. Includes a ton of other features such as hardware tracking, updates via the Steam client, and more.
Cons: Requires Steam (the client) to be installed with the game. Requires the user to create a Steam account.
Starforce. Starforce is pretty well known in the industry.
Pros: Quite secure at making games harder to crack. Cons: Installs drivers on the user's system. Reported compatibility issues.
Pros: Quite secure at making games harder to crack.
Cons: Installs drivers on the user's system. Reported compatibility issues.
There are a number of others but those seem to be the most prevalent right now.
My opinion on the matter, reflected in Stardock's position on copy protection is that anything the inconveniences legitimate customers is unacceptable. The goal should be to increase sales, not stop piracy. Focus on the people who buy games and make them want to buy your game. Don't make them feel like chumps for buying your game (such as having them jump through hoops to get it to work while a pirate can just get a torrent).
One of the major philosophies of Impulse has been to try to change the way licensing works. Today, licensing tends to focus on the PC rather than the user. This makes the user feel like they're renting a game. If I buy a game, it's MINE. I paid for it. I should be able to use it on my machines as much as I want as long as only 1 copy is being used at once (unless it's a Stardock game where we allow multiple people on a LAN to play from a single copy).
So what could we make that might help gamers but still be acceptable to publishers?
I think, for starters, is that any IP protection should correspond with some user benefit.
Here are some examples:
a) Publisher wants Internet activation in their game. Okay, label that you require that but give the user the ability to re-download it.
Publisher wants to provide 0-day protection to their game. Okay, but be clear about that but also make sure you're giving the user the latest/greatest version so I don't have to hunt for patches on day 1.
In many respects, Steamworks takes care of a lot of this. But it requires the Steam client. A game that uses Steamworks can't be on Impulse or be sold in other channels where the website/store/distributor doesn't want to be distributing a competitor's store to people or having their customers create a Steam account. I have a Steam account and I like Steam but I don't think it would be a great thing if there was only 1 vendor. Particularly if the one vendor could potentially (and likely) be acquired by one of the major publishers down the line.
Impulse has the Impulse Reactor platform. The Political Machine, Sins of a Solar Empire v1.1, and Demigod use Impulse Reactor for multiplayer match-making and a variety of additional game and software functionality. Impulse Reactor has the benefit that it's free and is simply a DLL that users include with their game.
We could integrate IP protection features for developers who want to protect their IP and do it in such a way that is just as effective as other methods but a lot less intrusive. Because while Stardock itself can and will continue to release its retail games with no CD copy protection, other publishers have different needs and as a practical matter, they are going to use something. The question is whether they should have more alternatives?
What do you think?
But what would those features be? That's the big question. Protection itself isn't what turns people off EA, it's the kind of protection. If the alternatives mimic the existing protections but provide no clear benefit, then what's the point? If the alternative can provide the kind of security that so many publishers apparently feel with SecuROM, but avoid installation limits (one of the major issues) and installing all sorts of crap that's hard to remove, then it can be worth it.
The question then becomes, how do you convince the other publisher to use your protection and not one of the existing ones? Will it be cheaper (if it costs anything to begin with)? Will it get them more sales? Sure, you could probably say that less-intrusive DRM will make people happier and thus would make more of them willing to buy the game, but I'm pretty sure all the business people in those companies will want at least semi-hard market data rather than a common sense statement. So, some big publisher somewhere is going to have to take a leap of faith on a big-name game.
In general, though, alternatives are good if they are attractive for both the customers and the publishers. If only one side is satisfied, it's unlikely to work. EA may be satisfied enough with SecuROM to keep using it, but you know well enough how the customers respond to it. Likewise, you know how customers respond to Stardock's no DRM on discs policy, but yourself concede that it won't work for other publishers. Can there be an alternative that pleases everyone?
EXACTLY.
What can be made that will provide publishers with the security they need without the downsides of DRM?
aren't all online features pretty much invulnerable by just having a cd-key? so what good is securom for online features? (I hope me is not being naive here)
I guess a starforcelike protection without all the bugs, performance problems, security issues and which is easily uninstallable. would be nice but I'd think if it was that easy the starforce developers would do it themselves. Less intrusive means less secure most likely but when games are cracked pretty easily and fast anyways it doesn't make that much of a difference how secure it vs hackers. So a basic which just makes it harder for people than just burning the files on a DVD (without a crack) might be nearly as efficient as securom/starforce.
I mean games have that sort of copyprotection where you need a crack for more than a decade or even longer and the discussion about it began only when Securom and Starforce began to mess with our system and limited the installs.
People don't mind a copy protection as long as it is not noticeable, it was just the nasty things Starforce and Securom did which made DRM look bad in general.
Well, I'm probably not the best to answer this since I don't have technical knowledge of exactly how a lot of the schemes work.
But, if you were to provide alternatives that would be more or less in-line with Impulse, I would say these things are worth exploring:
- Requiring Impulse to run. This would be similar to Steam, and I imagine it would allow for some extra assurances for the publisher. Impulse itself isn't a resource hog, and with an "offline mode" being able to run these games, it may not be so bad. After all, Steam does have a huge user base. Some will still not like it, but I imagine a good portion of those who just hate SecuROM installing junk and limiting activations would be okay with it. So it would convert some from each side.
- Having a universal "Impulse ID" tied into the games. To buy something on Impulse, you need to have a Stardock account, and serials are automatically stored. Impulse can already handle activations under the hood, adding a check that the user has a Stardock account with a valid registered key for the game could be added on. Basically, a sort of system like Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, only less cumbersome since one Stardock account will work for all games protected by Impulse Reactor. This would obviously require and internet connection, but may not necessarily require Impulse to be running.
The basic principle behind it is this: since people are going to be buying digital downloads on Impulse, having to be online is essentially a non-issue for the vast majority of the customers, since they sort of have to be online to buy it in the first place. Because of that, tying the protection somehow into the Stardock account is a logical place to start exploring options. It doesn't need to install anything besides Impulse, which by itself is not intrusive and needed to download the game. So this wins points with customers who hate SecuROM/etc installing its own stuff. At the same time, insuring the person trying to play has a valid registered serial for the game by checking their Stardock account would probably make the publishers happier as well. Can't install from an Impulse archive without having a valid serial, can't play without a valid registered account and having both of these checks be at least semi-transparent to the user seems like a fairly good deal.
I think, in general, that the alternative protection needs to be based around valid serials/cd keys, like in the good old days. It's proven. Even pirates can't reliably generate working keys, because the publisher has full control over which keys are accepted by the system. Forget worrying about strict activation limits, hardware changes, installs.. just tie the serial in an account to the protection You can keep checking under the hood if a particular account is used to activate too many copies too quickly, but a more forgiving way of doing this would work better than a strict hard limit (ie, an account that activates 10 copies in 6 months is unlikely to be a pirate of consequence, but one that activates a thousand in a few days.. yeah)
Serial codes backed up by a login system ala Steam/Impulse is my best bet.
Especially like the way SD does it, gating the updates, then making meaningful patches common.
BTW - Brad, Securom is worse than you make it out to be. It 1) requires players to connect to the core server before playing, even singleplayer. This overloads the server on popular titles (FarCry, Spore) and results in paying customers not playing. It also installs its drivers onto Ring 0 (aka the kernel) of the computer, giving it more access than the user. It installs without the user being notified. This can mess with drivers, and has in my case (and many more) totally bricked a CD-Rom drive. It also flags any user running any form of CD-emulation software as a pirate, making them uninstall other software to use software they bought.
Securom has more in common with malware than software.
Yeah. This is the basic principle behind my suggestion, and I think this is one principle most people can readily get behind.
IP protection is a myth. Crackers will crack and pirates will pirate. DRM is the TSA of the software world; it gives an illusion of safety for those too stupid to look too far into it.
Using a Stardock.net account to store and manage serials as described by annatar11's 2nd post best fits the bill of acceptable protection.
That's like saying that seat belts are a myth of protection because if you get into a serious car accident you can still get hurt.
Sure, software gets cracked but there are different levels of protection.
My problem with most DRM schemes is that they cause a net LOSS of customers because more people choose not to buy a game because of it than the number of people who buy them because it was more difficult to pirate htem.
Did people refused to buy games 10 years ago just because they couldn't burn their game on a CD and give it to a friend (without a crack)
I doubt that so it isn't the DRM per se, its the implementation.
A fair DRM which doesnt has silly install restrictions like Securom has and which doesn't tamper with your system, is contained into the game and doesn't install drivers on your system would hardly be a reason for anyone to not buy the game. If you as legit customer ever get a message from the DRM software or the DRM causes your game to slowdown/crash the DRM scheme fails.
There is no protection that actually works with the exception of making it easier to buy and play purchased software. Stardock, you have mastered this already, changing it will only break it. Publishers and developers who believe otherwise, well, I don't know what they are thinking, but speaking as a life long gamer and game consumer with 20 1/2 extensive (18+ hours per day untill last few months) years gaming, I can tell you without any possible shadow of a doubt that they are wrong.
I used to buy about 15-25 gamers annually, but after repeated problems with copy protection, including "non-invasive" protection, I now buy barely 2-3 games per year. I do not have any confidence whatsoever in the software that comes with any copy protection, and refuse to even consider looking at them, let along buying them. Stardock's no DRM policy and current protection manners are more then enough to keep me looking and (when I have the time and money) buy from Stardock.
Stardock's current protection of making the consumer want to buy the game, rather then forcing on any level to even run the game, is what works best. Changing this will only break it for many Stardock fans, such as myself. Please do not change this.
You misunderstand the point of Frogboy's post. Stardock is not changing how they publish/protect their games.
They are instead considering giving other publishers alternatives to protections like SecuROM/Starforce/Steam by creating their own scheme.
So Stardock's games will stay the same, but hopefully if they do this we will start seeing fewer SecuROM games and more Impulse Reactor games
Warnstaff I think he doesnt speaks about changing it for stardock products just providing a protection scheme for other publishers who want to sell via impulse.
Well there is security and then there is false security and I think we can all agree what the giant publishers have. Anyway to address your question, honestly I think the system that SD uses now is the best thing going and has been for many years. In short, to taint the customer experience with other DRM systems would only reflect badly on SD in my opinion. If they use your distribution system then they should use your DRM system.
My response is short since like you I think that the real issue is not stopping piracy but servicing customers. For the big publishers to see that would require a big huge paradigm shift and I'm not sure that will happen any time soon especially because I don’t believe that most the honchos at the publishing companies are gamers at all. Since if they were they would understand gamer psychology and I'm not talking about 10 to 14 year old kid mindset that many seem to think constitutes the majority of gamers. If they did then they would have the necessary sense of security to be able to do things the way SD does it.
This is a truth, and I think this is why Stardock should try to bridge the gap with their own protection scheme that will give the big publishers alternatives to what they use now and at the same time won't make the gamers spit in disgust.
It's not going to be easy for most publishers to take a huge leap of faith into Stardock's current system, but one that's somewhere in between would be much more attractive. And let's face it, while we can all agree that Stardock's current system is pretty ideal, we also wouldn't terribly object to a more rigid protection scheme, as long as it doesn't make the same mistakes of SecuROM and Starforce. At least not enough to boycott buying games, which is the goal here..
Brad, I don't suggest that we do nothing (in regards to DRM or the TSA ). I'm suggestingthat we do something meaningful or if we can't that we perpetuate the myth with the least impact to the consumer.
I have a hard time imagining that the heavy-handed protection people will believe in a unobtrusive system like Stardock has now without concrete proof that thier stuff is successful or that Stardock's is not. Having said that, I've never seen piracy stats that I thought had a kernal of truth in them.
BTW: I used to buy about two games a month. I changed this habit in 2000 and dropped down to one game a month. Then after some shitty encounters with StarFuck and SuckRom and others of that ilk and a damn near total lack of support from big publishers my purchases dropped to about four titles a year. In 2005 it dropped even more mainly thanks to Ubi & EA. Now I'm to the point where I don’t even care anymore. Oddly enough I could easily afford to get a new game a week every week even if I played them or not I would not care since I would be supporting an industry I consider to be a form of art. But the entire experience is now so frustrating and fraught with issues and near zero support (free at least) that it simply is not worth it for me anymore. I really want to see the big players go out of business - Sad but true....
@Annatar - I would have no problem with an additional reg check for any games I got from SD by a different publisher and even getting the same check again for any updates but other than that I really cant see another "bridge" system that would not cause issues for SDs customers. Customers that SD worked long and hard to get. I really don’t want to see SD sour the milk even a little to please people that don’t live in the culture or really care about the customer.
Oh, OK. I stand corrected them
I agree.
Let's take a look at Spore. What did its copy protection accomplish?
It's easily downloadable and playable from the usual suspects. But you can't play online with it. If EA had included an online check instead of its silly SecuRom, the situation would be the same. You couldn't play online when pirating the game since you lack the serial number, but you could play singleplayer.
Since Spore's attraction is in large tied to multiplayer (other player's creatures, sharing your own, etc.) pirates still would miss on the core experience. But with the system they've used, they've also inconvenienced the normal customer even more and accomplished nothing.
So imho the problem is not "real", it's mostly psychological. The protection doesn't work, but they feel good about it since "they've done something". So how can you change that mindset? Personally I don't think you can.
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As for my buying habits. Around 1995 to ~2003 I've bought a game every second month. I often played the demos of the games and if I liked it I bought it. I had also pirated copies of games shared through friends at LAN parties, but that only mattered in theory since I didn't had the money to buy more games anyway.
Then came StarForce. It single handled destroyed two cd-burners of mine. I got if from games I legaly bought. Oh and the copy protection for music CDs which I couldn't play on my stereo or computer anymore. So I stopped buying music CDs and got cautios with games. Then we got DRM for demos to protect the .exes. So I stopped playing demos. And since I couldn't try the games anymore without demos, I stopped buying games.
I pirated some games out of spite and got my hands on the original GalCiv. I liked it quit a lot and began searching for strategies about it on the net. Then I've found StarDocks homepage and learned about it's community and philosophy. I bought GalCivII on it's first day and have been a loyal customer to StarDock ever since.
If I'm treated with respect I'll return that favour. If not, no money from me.
(Btw. I didn't torrent a single game in the last two years. There aren't much games out there that I'm interested in anymore and I don't like giving the industry any excuses to treat me like a criminal.)
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Finally, what kind of copy protections I would agree with:
The StarDock system. Playable out of the box, but needs online authentication for patches and online content. Since this doesn't seem to be enough for those other publishers I could live with an additon.
A single activation after install could be ok, but I would insist that the developers would create a non-activation .exe that would be deposited at a neutral third-party which would release it if the publisher/activation servers ever get pulled off.
Ah who am I kidding, that wouldn't work with those publishers anyway.
In the end my only hope is that those publishers all go bankrupt and replaced with more reasonable companies, but that's a dream too, eh?
this
Make the system more resource-efficient than Steam (which is a hog) and keep it that way.
Longterm: People will complain about gatekeepers, but give them more features until they are living enough of their v-life inside your system that logging in is like logging into your PC. Link Impule to Netflix, iTunes, and Google; allow it to become an externalized entertainment OS.
Attaching the game to an impulse account also opens up the idea of proper demos - time limited demos, say a day installed and then Impulse won't let you play it anymore - enough time to get a feel of the game, but not enough time to complete it and no shafting of the customer with one mission out of 40 that is the only GOOD one.
This would solve a lot of piracy problems. But so will companies earning our trust again - I don't need a demo from Left4Dead, it's from Valve. I don't need a demo from Fallout 3 - it's from Bethsoft. I don't need a demo for Demigod, it's from Stardock.
Hell, I would put money in Brad's pockets for Not-MOM right now because of how well SD has treated me.
Steam games still install SecuROM. Where people got the idea it didn't is beyond me.
Steam and SecuROM are different things. Steam has its own protection, which Valve games use. But it is able to install games with SecuROM, much like Impulse is able to do it. Doesn't mean every game on Steam has SecuROM, or that Steam installs it for every game.
Well the implication I got from what I quoted was that people who tolerate Steam do so because they find the hassle of Steam DRM to be easier than the hassle of SecuROM DRM. I was pointing out that that was lunacy because pretty much every SecuROM game on Steam still gives you a steaming load of SecuROM.
If a game uses SecuROM, Steam still uses it. Same with Impulse.
Valve has released Steamworks which is an alternative to SecuRom that Valve uses on its games but it puts titles on Steam that still use SecuRom.
(like you said)
We're talking about protections themselves here, not distribution. The Steamworks protection is the basic "Have Steam running to play", which doesn't carry the 2-3-5 activation limit and doesn't install hidden software. That's what I was referring to. Steam DRM *is* better than SecuROM in that regard. That the Steam client installs SecuROM games is not what this is about
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