DRM Refund Whitehouse.gov petition

Hey, they need tons more signatures for this. Spread the word, maybe something can be done about treating paying PC gamers like garbage.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pe...te-servers-and-drm-function-properly/nMy1wrtC

 

Not only DRM, but just refunds in general. You should not be able to pre-order without offering a sensible refund option, period. Every game purchased should come with some sort of refund guarantee even if it's time limited and/or pro-rated. 24 hours (or first business day after purchase) for 100% refund, 3 days for 75% refund, 7 days for 50% refund, 10 days for 25% refund, no refund after... that would at least give users some recourse and force developers to have day one release operational.

 

I don't know about 100% refund (forget about in a day, maybe even an hour), as a ton of people would just exploit this..

 

You don't need a law or regulation to fix this! If enough people don't buy the game, developers will either change their ways or go out of business. As long as you have enough sheep buying garbage like Sim City V, EA will keep using draconian DRM to continually abuse customers. Didn't anyone learn from the Diablo 3 fiasco how DRM and online trading stores can be bad for gamers?

I never buy games on pre-order. I never buy games with online-only DRM. C'mon, say it with me!

 

Yeah people hated D3 so bad and spread the word they couldn't even give it away to wow players who payed for a year sub. I got it for free from that and never even looked at screenshots.

 

And it makes it ok for companies to exploit consumers by releasing unfinished product? It would force publishers to release a finished product day one.

I agree with Greg partially. I don't pre-order at all, well unless the price is very good and a game I know I will play regardless (like I did with BF3, but got it on pre-order for $40). But constant online DRM for single player is ridiculous. I won't buy any game with that requirement and haven't.

 

While I agree with the sentiments, if you expect this to go anywhere, you're going to end up very disappointed.

 

well, you are right about this.. (aliens colonial marines must be wiped off the planet)

BUT, let's be honest, DRM came because of we consumers pirated the games, not because of their "oh gosh, I gotta make something that would make my games a pain in the butt.."

yes, it is to a ridiculous point right now, but a company spending 22m on a game that should have been crazily profitable (Crysis, PC exclusive = cutting-edge technology, DRM free) and barely escapes with some profit, will end up building either console ports (where the consumers won't pirate as much as us pc gamers) or DRM for their pc games for profit.. I said this a million times in this forum but it is still not sitting right with people..

Video game companies are COMPANIES. They are profit oriented. If they don't have profit, they go bankrupt. They are not charities that are supposed to produce AAA titles for our goodness sake. Yes we will pay for DRM, not because some silly company's sake.. because of the damn pirate who still downloads in millions without paying a penny...

Greg, if we stop paying (prepurchase is BS definitely, we shouldn't do that at all), they stop producing at this point, that simple.. games are not like pacman anymore (can be done by a handful of enthusiasts, or a grad-student for a class project). They are complex like damn operating systems. They cost to code (hundreds of thousands of lines) so they are made by serious companies. We cannot survive on a gaming community that tries a Kickstarter everytime a game will be made..

 

I see zero proof for what you're saying. The video game industry is heavily funded by venture capital (like Kickstarter, but one guy fronts the money, and he makes majority profit). The game gets designed and built before any profit is made.

If anything, low profits for companies will lead to a paradigm shift, away from hiring multi-million dollar voice actors and marketers, and towards gameplay redesign...but probably not.

 

Yes, that is what I said, game is built before any profit is made, so to secure the profit they introduced the DRM..

Also, NOT the majority of games are funded by Kickstarter (what have you been smoking? what happened to publishers of this planet...)

EDIT: Btw I think you mistook my point of publisher profit (like EA, Blizzard, unfortunately THQ back in the time) with designer profit (designer has nothing to do with DRM, DRM is designed by the publisher)

 

Except that's not how it works. DRM does not secure profits. It would seem you make the same stupid assumption as brainless investors do. Piracy does not equal lost sale. Those who pirate often never have any intention of buying, meaning if there was no pirated copy available, they just won't play.

So in the end, the only people who are affected by this DRM are not those who don't want to pay, but those who are willing to pay. Yeah... like I said, your reasoning and assumptions are flawed. Sorry but DRM does not retain profits, it only treats the paying customer like trash.

And for big title games, it's not the cost of development that is the problem, it's the marketing. You really think it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a 5 hour game? Please. Instead it goes to all the advertisement on TV. I don't know about others, but as a gamer, I play games, not watch tons of TV. If I do watch something, it's online or just youtube vids. They spend all their money on getting good reviews, when I think most gamers get their reviews from youtube. They spend tons of money on billboards and signs, in front of department stores. Yes I bet gamers get the latest news on games in front of Macy's EA advertises games the same way movies were marketed 20 years ago. If EA doesn't recoup costs, that's their fault, completely their fault.

 

brainless? and you are the one who is "smarter" than people making million dollar decisions? yes, I totally buy that..

no pirated copy available?? do you even understand the concept of pirating? it is not provided by the publisher you know?

OMG, do you even understand programming?? YES the visuals in CryEngine3 is about millions of lines of code.. Do you think it is like "bool USE_ANTIALISING = true, USE_VEGETATION_SIMULATION = true;"?? get outta here!

EDIT: a good software engineers salary is +100k/year FYI.

 

Advertising and development are not mutually exclusive.

 

You are way too emotional to understand how ineffective DRM is and who it really hurts. Sorry you are too upset for reading comprehension. That or your english skills are horrific. I did not write anywhere that publishers provided pirated copies. And I don't care to debate who is smarter, but it is very funny you think just because someone makes millions makes them smart. If all who made money were smart, we wouldn't be in the global recession we are in, we wouldn't have the massive global poverty and starvation. We wouldn't be sending over 100,000 people to die in meaningless wars. As I said, you are way too emotional to comprehend what anyone here is trying to say. If you can't even understand the sentences you highlight, there is no point in having a dialogue with you.

 

oh kiddo... carry on.

 

There is zero evidence that DRM works. Games with DRM are still pirated by the droves. Honest paying individuals get the short end of the stick while those that pirate enjoy a DRM free experience. I'm not going to argue this with you or anyone else. I'm an old codger that's been around this block a few too many times. Grew up with 5.25" and 3.5" floppy disc games, heck even cassette tape stored games. I even wrote a few myself, back when you had 80x40 resolution with 16 colors it was easier, for sure.

Companies are protected by their incredulous, and in many cases illegal, EULA's that make people believe it's the written law, when in fact it is not, far from it. Customers have ZERO protection. None. No recourse. Once you pay for that game, if it sucks, if their servers don't work, if it is full of glitches that never get addressed, if it doesn't work right with your hardware... any number of reasons, you are stuck with $50-$60 out of your pocket with zero recourse.

Sure these companies are for profit, but at what stakes? At the expense of taking money while offering zero confidence in their product? No refund to me means no confidence. Any other product you buy, with the exception of consumable goods (and even those you can return to the store), has a money back warranty, guarantee, return policy, whatever. With software you have nothing. You spend, you're done.

If you offer a pre-order then you should either (a) offer a refund guarantee, (b) offer a free demo prior to release, and/or (c) offer an open free beta to everyone. This is no different than some ponzi schemes where you pay up front and get nothing in return. Somehow software made it legal to do so. It's a scam, a sham, a sham-wow, whatever. It slices, it dices, it soaks up the ocean. Until you get it and it's nothing more than a dirty towel.

 

oh don't misunderstand me HTWingNut, I am totally with you on this, it is a pain in the butt as of now (I just don't like "publishers start wars because they have big bucks" or "5 hour campaigns should have cost 10 bucks" attitude)

yes DRM is a pain, but please try to imagine same thing goes in your work. I am a scientist. If someone stole my research (heck, forget about stealing ideas, don't cite properly my ideas and use them) I would get angry! I would contact the journal, and ask for some correction of sorts. I don't know what you do for a living, but I guess similar thing goes right? Companies like Crytek / DICE really put considerable effort in for some beautiful visuals, neat gameplay and some realism (BF2 / BF3 and Crysis were developed for so long by an expert team of software engineers, in which, each and every one of them were paid a lot, paid by the publisher). Even though they know DRM is crazily inefficient way of protecting your product (these people are not stupid..), is there any other way if the crack comes out before the game is actually released (like old times)? The only way to make it harder for the pirate is to try to control it online, certainly creative mind of hackers always find a way to exploit, but you cannot say "hmm, terrorism won't stop, let's not protect our borders, after all they will do it, no matter what..." right?

 

Not even a close comparison. Corporations with 100% income of sales in their favor vs. consumers with no recourse. It's an everyone is proven guilty defense with no way to prove you're innocent. To use your analogy it's like saying everyone is a terrorist, but no way to prove otherwise.

I'm all for protecting one's creative work. I do freelance work myself for benchmarking, reviews, and even did some programming back in the day (before things got too complicated for my feeble brain). I'm now a full time engineer in something entirely unrelated to programming and gaming, but still a technical field nevertheless. But would I want my work "protected" by such draconian measures? Absolutely not. As naive as it may sound I believe the quality of your work will be rewarded with users paying for what they have confidence in and what they enjoy. Many games have proven that no DRM can still be a very successful product including the game Sins of a Solar Empire. Gog.com is very successful, granted they do sell older games, but they also are the talent behind the Witcher IP and that has been largely DRM free and been very profitable.

The likes of Kickstarter have proven people want to support a hobby they enjoy. They want to give their hard earned money to entertainment that doesn't even exist yet. And you know what? Those Kickstarter programs probably end up with the most satisfied fans of them all, and the games are profitable to boot. They may not make gazillions of dollars, but they meet more than just the criteria of making money. They earn respect. They earn the confidence of their supporters. I hate how corporate America, well corporate globally, has become. It's all about maximum profit. Customer service and support has taken worse than a back seat, it's thrown out a rope for anyone who wants to be dragged along.

 

Yes my example is a bit extremist but, a country protecting their citizens (their profit) from terrorism is somewhat similar, no? Btw I think a recourse option maybe given for preorders (I think it should be given as I am already arguing with Steam over Aliens Colonial Marines refund). It should not be given for regular purchases after a game's release as it is easily exploitable over multiple accounts.

I am not so easy to give up on corporate America. Competition is so fierce right now that you cannot survive on something less than max profit (especially on software front, I have seen this over the last year in the field). I don't think DRM is draconian measure (BUT crazy EULA of Origin is something evil).. it is just a measure of control (and I think the only possible measure).

Btw I think Kickstarter-kinda ideas are amazing (I am supporting 3 of them right now and not on the basic level, you are also supporting Roberts Space Industries I assume ) However I don't believe it is the future of video gaming (because the profit margins are just plain simple low, yes some people will use it, but some needs the money for survivability) Anyhow, you would take the corporate America over Europe anytime of the day (next one going down is France..)

 

So you're saying a company that focuses on customer service will not survive? Total bunk. Customer service is a quality measurement of a corporation. And it has been proven time and again that a strong focus on quality maximizes profits. Sure you still have to have a solid product, but as it stands 95% of games released (number I pulled out of my butt) are all about pomp and circumstance before the sale and less about offering a solid gameplay experience and satisfying customers. Most are garbage to be honest. Companies take the easy road, the one that will pillage your pockets the fastest, not the one that will deliver a solid product that results in high sales and brand loyalty. That's because it's harder to do, but better for the company and the product in the long run.

But we're all to blame because we all buy this garbage over and over and over again only supporting the notion that it's ok. It's really a no-win situation because if a game doesn't sell well they just blame it on piracy. So if you don't buy it, then they don't get the point, they just pass it off as piracy, further enforcing DRM is the proper route to take. They can't look in the mirror and see how ugly they really are.

 

I will laugh so hard if anyone discovers that maxheap is in charge of some draconian DRM scheme at some software company.

If competition is so fierce, then stop making crappy games and overcharging. Max profits? You really thinking charging $60 + DRM is going to achieve max profits?

Whatever you are smoking, keep it away from the rest of us.

The rest of us will not cry for your martyr millionaire publishers. Sorry not going to happen. Especially when we know DRM only hurts customers. DRM has never been effective and has never stopped piracy. There isn't a single game with terrible DRM that has succeeded. Cracked servers for Diablo III, SimCity already cracked, COD crack servers, in fact COD MW on PC has dedicated servers only because it has been cracked, ironic. So in the end, DRM has no effect to deter piracy and only hurts the customers.

And there is also the one issue you are unable to understand. Piracy does not equal loss of sales. Maybe someday you can understand that. But you'll probably have to stop drinking the blood of your martyred publishers as they bleed crucified on piracy hill first.

 

yes yes, whatever kiddo, you are right.

@HTWingNut, quality product is not always success, that simple. Innovations are success, but not every quality product is an innovation. Better not to confuse the two.

 

I want to make some clarification as I thought to be responsible of some dispute in our community (and because I really do like our community long live notebookreview! )

I am misunderstood as supporting DRM. I am certainly not supporting DRM and I want to get rid of it as much as any in this forum, I also want a free gaming community where we can freely enjoy LAN games (maybe I am too old for that right now but I want the new generation to enjoy the endless LAN fun as we did back in the time with AoE and HOMM3), play single player campaigns offline and be provided with a sound finished / polished version of the game whenever it is released (not the simcity / d3 / colonial marines screw ups).

I just wanted to say, DRM is not implemented for no reason (I always have been a person of self-criticism and us gamers also did screw up a lot, like pirating games when we could have bought them and caused beautiful studios like westwood / black isle / ensemble go out of business). However it is a measure of last resort and screws up our fun. Hope we will get some international laws governing the video gaming sector as soon as possible! Again sorry for causing a small chaos in our community!