Blizzard concedes that DRM is a losing battle.

Fighting PC game piracy with restrictive copy protection is "a losing battle", Blizzard has said.

In recent months some publishers have begun using digital rights management (DRM) that requires players have an active internet connection at all times.

Ubisoft's new DRM system forces PCs to be connected to the internet in order for games to work - even single-player games.

Earlier this year gamers reacted angrily to the strict DRM used by Ubisoft in the PC version of Assassin's Creed 2 and Silent Hunter 5. Attacks on verification servers made it impossible for some gamers to play their new purchases.

StarCraft II developer Blizzard is taking a different approach.

StarCraft II, due out on July 27, requires a one-off activation and a registered Battle.net account. Once completed, players will be able to get started with the game's single-player campaign in offline mode.

Blizzard hopes the new and improved Battle.net service, which connects players from across Blizzard's stable of games, will be attractive enough to convince would-be pirates to buy the game.

" If we've done our job right and implemented Battle.net in a great way people will want to be connected while they're playing the single player campaign so they can stay connected to their friends on Battle.net and earn the achievements on Battle.net," Frank Pearce, Blizzard co-founder and executive producer on StarCraft II told VideoGamer.com.

"The best approach from our perspective is to make sure that you've got a full-featured platform that people want to play on, where their friends are, where the community is," he added.

" That's a battle that we have a chance in. If you start talking about DRM and different technologies to try to manage it, it's really a losing battle for us, because the community is always so much larger, and the number of people out there that want to try to counteract that technology, whether it's because they want to pirate the game or just because it's a curiosity for them, is much larger than our development teams.

"We need our development teams focused on content and cool features, not anti-piracy technology."

Source:
Blizzard: DRM a 'losing battle' - for News - VideoGamer.com

Something many of us have been saying. Nice to see it validated by an industry insider.

 

And yet there is no LAN in Starcraft 2. What a bunch of hypocrates.

 

There Is No Lan Multiplayer In Star Craft 2? Are You Kidding Me?

 

I think there is LAN but you need to login to Bnet first to use it.

Most games right now remove LAN since LAN is one of the primary reasons for a high piracy rate, remove LAN and piracy rate will be low compared with LAN.

Sad to say but most games are headed to that direction.

 

Yeah except...they didn't validate it all. There's still no LAN because of "piracy concerns" and then there's this nugget:

Soo...basically the much-maligned Spore DRM, or at best Steam without, you know, any of the benefits conveyed by Steam. Yeah, I guess that is a step forwards if you compare it to the new Ubisoft DRM, but it's still a massive, massive step backwards compared to "no DRM", which is kind of what you'd expect a company that actually believed DRM was useless to implement.

This just proves once again Bobby Kotick is a giant [censored] who believes gamers are idiots. And sadly, the sales figures will probably prove him right.

 

Pretty much sums up drm. Though, the initial activation is reasonable and expected... I'm not really sure there is a brick/mortar that would carry today's games and be in an area of no net access.

 

So basically they're trying to herd me on to Battle.net? I could care less about keeping in touch with random players or unlocking their stupid achievements. I want LAN play damnit. How do you NOT have lan on a RTS game in this day and age? I have to register with battle.net, log in through there and play with my friends on their servers?

Uh, I'm siding with all the hitler parody videos on this. No more 1st day buy for me, I'll wait, pirate and play when there's a lan patch that allows play over Hamachi. Seriously Blizzard? Real sleazy move. People are going to pirate your game anyways, and instead you force paying players onto battle.net, after giving us delay after delay...

 

What I mean by validate is that we've (many like-minded) been saying that DRM is a losing battle. They confirmed it.

Also, others have proffered that if companies offered more value for the product, piracy might decrease. They look like they are acknowledging that fact.

 

John Spartan. You've been fined 10 credits for violation of the verbal morality code.

 

Great. Now I have to eat Taco Bell for 50 years.

 

I have read sensationalist articles, and this is one. Where does Blizzard agree to a DRM losing battle? They will require activation and multiplayer will be available on dedicated servers, that is DRM. Now, whether people judge this level of DRM is acceptable or not is another story.

 

Yes, it is DRM, but it's not extremist DRM.

Blizzard has used cd-keys (a form of DRM, you can't argue) since starcraft and it's worked exceptionally well. Now, for blizzard to let players play with just one purchased copy via LAN is ridiculous. Battle.net is THE top online gaming service, and no other game can touch it. For Warcraft 3, the GUI was simple but effective, and match making was quick and effortless. Sure there was a problem getting to play with people that know what they're doing, that exists in every game.

Blizzard will succeed with their method, and I agree with their method as well. The game is going to be epic, and Blizzard is smart by taking every single step possible to drain more money out of the game.

 

Blizzard is one of the few companies that really doesn't have to worry about hardcore DRM. Ever since the first StarCraft, their games were made and marketed for online play, which is fairly easy to un-intrusively protect from pirates. The first Starcraft still makes yearly sales better than many new releases that use copy-protection, and all Starcraft had was a measly, easily-bypassed CD key for protection (seriously, there exist Word documents with lists of serials for this game). It won't get you Battle.net play unless you buy it, though.

Unless I'm misinterpreting the concept of "one-off registration", this sounds extraordinarily similar to the copy protection on one of the most shining anti-DRM victories of our age: Galactic Civilizations 2! Stardock's prodigy child had one tiny difference, and that's that you could actually play it without registering - but you couldn't get any patches or updates, which were sort of important for fully enjoying the (quite well-supported) game.

I don't understand how you could be pissed at Blizz for this?

 

I'm mainly pissed for lack of local LAN. For single player it's a quick phone home and then you're off. But it's a constant connection for even a LAN game. If they even have traditional LAN? I hate to have to worry if Blizzards servers are up and running, or have a bad connection, etc to play. Don't say it doesn't happen because it does.

 

This method of DRM doesn't worry me too much and I don't see it as a reason to avoid a purchase like I did with Assasins Greed. Whether it is to please the publishers or just on paper, some anti piracy method will be used but as long as it is non intrusive then I am not too concerned. Of course, I would prefer it to have no DRM but who am I kidding.

Edit: I only play single player so this may be different for people who want to play LAN.

 

I don't mind if Blizzard simply requires log in only for online play, i mean, almost every game requires log in or will authenticate your CD key for online play so it's not unreasonable at all. Moreover Bnet online play experience is the best I've seen for single player based games.

The lack of LAN part I don't think will be of any problem, it's very easy to have a loader with simulated lan if you want to, though Bnet is still a better platform IMO.

Then again, I saw on my beta client with "playtime ends on xxxxxx", maybe it's just for end of beta test, but if they sort of start charging monthly fee for Bnet, like what they are doing for WoW, then it's another story.

 

Beta was going to end May 31, not it is slated to end June 7, go down for 3-4 weeks while they make hardware and software updates, and then back online for a few weeks until around retail launch.

LOL @ both of you! Dammit now I have to go and watch Demolition Man AGAIN! Is it even available on Blu-Ray yet? I love that movie as campy as it is!

 

Well, online activations, especially ones like this that lock the game to a specific account or hardware configuration, are blatant violations of first sale, but I suppose it's not even worth trying to make people care anymore. It's just like this xkcd, though; when in a few years your CDs or DVDs or car or appliances or whatever have similar systems and you discover you can't sell them, don't come whining and expect any sympathy from the EFF/FSF/people like me.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

 

they claim they're not selling a game, but licensing it for you to use

 

Hmm... LAN play... yes, I can see how the lack of support could suck, because I could see some situations where you'd want to avoid Internetting all the computers in a room and just LAN them. But with how ubiquitous decent-speed Internet is becoming, I don't see this as a huge downer. Certainly not of the same magnitude as if they were to try and pull that crap 13 years ago.

Violation of First Sale, that looks like it gets a bit hairy. I'd like to see someone actually bring that to court. If only just to see how it went.

But again, I'm not super-upset. It seems (to me, at least) no different from buying from Impulse or Direct2Drive (except that Impulse will definitely let you sell stuff if you ask them nicely, and I guess Direct2Drive would let you sell someone your key and a software copy... not that you couldn't do that with your Starcraft 2, but then they'd be using your username and account history).

Oh, and @key001: they claim that they're licensing it to you in the EULA, but courts have gone back and forth about the verdict on the legality of that claim.

The latest verdict appears to be that First Sale applies to software, despite what is said in the EULA. However, it's still apparently up for appeal (which is to say, I didn't look further than Wikipedia to check on that...).

 

I'm buying this specifically for bnet so I'm not upset.

I am annoyed about the single player campaign being split into 3 though.

 

Frankly the resell thing has been an issue since steam became big. Its old news lol. And honestly i think LAN as a form of play is such a small % of its business that they took the DRM side rather then the LAN side. And really when was the last time we really did permanent lan play?

 

LAN isn't that uncommon. I do it quite frequently. My one buddy only has dialup and we usually meet at his house. Don't think we'll be doing any Battle.net with four PC's over a 56k modem. Heck you can't even all connect because it's a modem and not a router.

They did it so they can capitalize on the gaming tournaments and such.

And DRM is such a joke. With a game like Starcraft 2 that will already make billions of dollars, why bother?

 

I miss the old CD-Key measures, but as mentioned earlier the Galactic Civilizations approach is a superior one to keeping piracy down.

I like the Tropico 3 method as well, retain your CD-key and input it each time you wish to update the game. Blizzard's Bnet isn't the archetypal draconian DRM like that of Ubisoft so it's a measured way of dealing with the piracy problem.

 

Isnt SC2 LAN only require an internet connection just to log in??? then you can play LAN without even using your internet bandwidth???

I thought I read that somewhere

 

Nope. From everything I've read it's only battle.net. I think traditional LAN gaming is gone.

 

Honestly the only way to convince me to buy (all) games that I own is lowering the price. There are of course exceptions, if the game is worth it, it's worth it. I played some games, immediately fell in love, then bought it the next day. Blizzard has always forever fell in this exception and a few others. Thumbs up for them realizing that DRM just pushes players away.

 

same here.. miss the cdkeys.. i think blizzard's being reasonable.. as for ubisoft , they're going too far.. hopefully they're stupid enough to realise their folly...

 

Yeah, this is pretty much what I'm wondering. :/

I'm more interested in the singleplayer experience of Starcraft games (I'm not such a big fan of competitive RTS multiplayer), so the only way I could buy the game is if the campaign is long enough. 60$ for just 1/3 of a normal game would be a big no.

 

So is the SP game really short? I haven't been following the game.

 

According to their website each campaign will have 25-30 missions. Hopefully not short and not repetitive. Let's see if the price tag will be justified.

 

That's not bad.

Gotta love their cutscenes, they are the best. I remember almost spitting up beer when I saw the opening cutscene in SC1 and the Sargent goes face to face with the Alien...."Ahh s#!T"

 

I hate DRM. Even Apple doesn't like it and remove DRM from all their songs. I boycott all software that use DRM or Product Activation. They only punish legitimate users. People who don't want to pay would just download the cracked version.

 

25-30 missions but how long are each mission?

 

It's not. I dont get why people are thinking this. The campaigns are gonna be truly long. And think of each one more like an expansion.

 

That's the thing, they better really deliver otherwise nobody will care much to buy the other two. Also, I better get multiple battle.net keys that I can either share or use myself if I buy the other two, otherwise drop the price and offer single player only packages.

 

Most likely the other 2 will come in the form of expansion, so you will have no choice but to buy them.

 

They say they don't care about DRM but they implement in. Its requires activation, well how awesome it that. Now they force you to have internet. There's also word that for you to play single player, you need to log-in to battle to keep your progress like mission and such. If you don't create an account it would be just playing as a "guest" without the progress saved. Blizzard is turning evil on my book. Despite that I'm still a hardcore diablo player.

 

I said "would be". I'm waiting for reviews to see how long is the campaign really going to be. I wouldn't be surprised if they are stretching the truth when they say 25-30 missions, its Activision-Blizzard, after all.

 

Linky?

10char

 

Apple loves DRM. But their problem is Amazon and few other sites have become popular for their 100% DRM music. They were forced to do this, not because DRM was against their principles. If Amazon and others weren't so popular, no doubt DRM would still be in intact. Apple absolutely hates competition as much as anyone as they have tried to force labels to not work with Amazon since Amazon has excellent daily deals and exclusive online deals.
- Apple now under investigation for monopolistic business practices by the Feds.
- I mean c'mon, Apple tried to sue other companies for using icons on their smart-phones.

It's the same with Blizzard. Activision loves DRM, and no doubt Blizzard execs love it also.
- But if you read earlier, Blizzard clearly stated, it's not cost effective and profitable.
- There are more people who want to crack their DRM than Blizzard has staff to dedicate to maintaining DRM.
- Ubisoft proved that server problems were detrimental to their game sales.

 

Oh you will, according to their website each campaing will include new units for multiplayer, which you will need to unlock with your battle.net account.

 

So people who buy the new "expansion" will have an edge over someone who doesn't in battle.net? That's just stupid. So whoever has the deeper pockets wins.

 

Just like WoW, you can still play, but if you don't buy the expansion, you can't get to level 70/80 = you are screwed.

 

Hopefully they will allow you to play against other people with the same content as you, so you aren't at a disadvantage.

 

I am not sure, it may even be even split (people who only has SCII, people with the 2nd campaing, and people with all campaigns). I have not read exactly how Blizzard will manage it.

 

Blizzard shouldn't really have to worry too much. Majority of the fun comes from playing custom games. However these games are only fun when the games are full, which usually ranges from 4 to 12 total players. (I've seen a SC2 map that even allows up to 14 players). Everyone who has played these custom games from SC, WC3 and SC2 would know exactly what I'm talking about and this alone makes it worthwhile paying for the game for, because you can only find all these on Battle.net.

Unfortunately, Battle.net 2.0 seems to be pretty horrible. Has anyone here used it yet? It feels like quite a step backwards. No chat channels, friends are impossible to add. Lots of privacy issues because now anyone who has you as a friend can find your Facebook and your name. The new custom map system only allows each user to publish 5 maps with a total size of 20MB. I don't exactly like the new style of hosting custom games either, although I'd admit it does have several advantages to it.

My biggest peeve with Battle.net 2.0 is that it's laggy and has a ton of useless menus that no one ever bothers about. It basically feels like Battle.net 2.0 runs at 25fps while the old one used to run at 60 fps. On top of that, every time when I click on a different menu, it takes about 3 seconds to load up the content which is annoying as hell.

Probably makes sense for it to follow how WC3 was like. WC3 and WC3:TFT users basically couldn't play with each other at all and they could only interact with each other if they were in the same server and in the same channel. However a WC3:TFT user could choose to run original game in order to play with the WC3 user.

 

The battle.net 2.0 is still in the beta stages as well. Which is why it isnt so seemless. Retail SC2 will prob have much improvments.

 

I like how Relic did it with the Chaos Rising expansion.

The expansion added the army of Chaos, plus new units to each of the existing factions. Even those who don't buy CR are given free access to the new units, and can play against and with those who own the Chaos units. It's seamless, and keep the player base united.

Hopefully Blizzard takes note.

 

So the only thing players lose out is the single-player campaign if not CR owners? That's not a bad ploy on the developer's part.