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2D Boy's Carmel: PC Game DRM Utilized To Prevent Game Resale?
by Staff, Paul Hyman
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May 11, 2009
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PC game publishers have been using DRM to restrict the reselling of games as much as to prevent piracy, 2D Boy co-founder Ron Carmel has been musing, as part of a larger Gamasutra discussion published today.
Referencing the recent public backlash on 'restrictive' DRM in games such as Spore, "I definitely believe this is all the result of a change in the public perception of DRM, a sort of grass roots uprising," Carmel observes.
"Gamers are much more vocal about it than they used to be, perhaps because they are so accustomed to downloading music without too many restrictions."
Carmel believes that the extent to which a game is pirated is approximately the same whether it uses any of the DRM technologies or not. If it is that ineffective, he asks, why use it at all?
However, he says that DRM is used not so much to thwart piracy -- since it's not very good at that -- as it is to combat the used game market.
"Publishers aren't stupid. They know that DRM doesn't work against piracy," he explains. "What they're trying to do is stop people from going to GameStop to buy $50 games for $35, none of which goes into the publishers' pockets."
He particularly notes: "If DRM permits only a few installs, that minimizes the number of times a game can be resold."
But with a very small percentage of his company's sales coming from physical retail, and other philosophical and practical reasons not to get restrictive: "DRM is a waste of time and money for us," says Carmel.
"It takes time to wrap the game in DRM and you have to pay the DRM provider a percentage of your revenue. Not only doesn't it work but, ironically, if your game gets cracked, then the person with the cracked version has a better gaming experience than the person with a legit version who has to enter a registration code to play."
And so, when 2D Boy shipped its first game, World of Goo, in October, there was no DRM aboard.
"People have actually written to tell us how much they appreciate that," Carmel recalls. "Even though they hadn't intended to buy the game, they bought it just to support us. So there's an element of good will involved in not using DRM too."
In a recent blog, he reported the methodology he used to determine that 90% of the copies of World of Goo that exist are pirate versions.
"Many people who are resistant to accepting the reality of DRM read my blog and said, ‘Oh, that's bullshit!' But I'm telling you," says Carmel, "we found 10 times more player IDs and 10 times more IPs out there than there were legitimate licenses sold."
Nevertheless, Carmel says he's not complaining; he says he's made good money off of World of Goo.
"I'm convinced that we lost very few customers because of piracy," he says. "People who pirate the game are people who wouldn't have bought it anyway. I don't know anyone who would try to find a cracked version and, if they can't locate one, they say, ‘OK, since I can't find it for free, I'm going to go out and buy it.' I just don't think that happens."
The bottom line is that Carmel doesn't intend to use DRM protection on his next game -- or on any of his subsequent games.
The 2D Boy co-founder's comments came as part of a larger Gamasutra discussion on PC gaming piracy and DRM, with comments from Stardock, EA, Ubisoft and the ESA on the extent and effectiveness of game protection on the PC.
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The only exceptions to this are small digital games like Everyday Shooter or games that I will never sell like Wipeout HD.
I don't know of any brick and mortar store (Game Stop included) that sells used PC games.
So I think that part of the DRM argument is invalid.
However, I fully agree with the rest of the post. DRM is not worth it when it hurts the customer experience. And DRM will not convert pirates to purchasers when they can get it for free anyway.
"Carmel believes that the extent to which a game is pirated is approximately the same whether it uses any of the DRM technologies or not. If it is that ineffective, he asks, why use it at all?"
The only evidence that is offered to suggest DRM is ineffective is Carmel's belief! EA/Ubisoft/etc aren't going to suddenly stop using SecuROM just because Carmel *believes* piracy isn't affected by DRM. There'll need to be some harder evidence.
Good luck getting that hard evidence. All evidence both for and against DRM is speculative. There is no hard evidence either way.
I really see no way to get that evidence. So I am with Carmel and Stardock, it is best to work to please the people who are going to buy the game rather than fight those who most likely never will.
@ Mike,
I use to work at EB Games and have spoken to the managers at several Vintage Stocks, and the reason they do not carry used PC games is exactly DRM. There is too much hassel in varifying that a game will work when traded in. Someone could use up all the installs provided by DRM, sell the game to the store, then the customer buying that used copy would not be able to play it. It is not worth it to the store to have to deal with that Customer Service nightmare.
If PC games had no DRM at all ever, then that would be a different story.
Reality trumps idealism. It sucks that these limitations exist, and that sometimes gatekeepers can enforce things like this. However, unless you enjoy tilting at windmills, it's something you have to take into account in your game design. If your design doesn't travel down any paths occupied by DRM-insistent gatekeepers, that's great, but don't be too quick to criticize others whose design brings them into contact with the gatekeepers.
Tell me, does anyone really think that Guitar Hero could ship DRM-free with the library of music it currently has?
The contractual obligation element isn't one I had thought of before, thanks for mentioning it.
Yeah, I remember both of those articles. The fact that they both had roughly the same level of piracy is a big slap in the face for proponents of DRM.
But the truth remains, that is not definitive proof. I wish it were.
The sad truth is that the only way to 100% prove that DRM does not matter is to release a game with DRM. Measure sales and piracy levels. Then travel back in time and release the same game without DRM and measure sales and piracy. Then compare both results. Unfortunately, you would have an impossible job of trying to prove that you did travel time in the first place. So in the end it would only be proof for your studio.
Without time travel, it is near impossible to get good solid proof in a short amount of time. You can compare similar games, but there are so many variables that can effect each one in so many different ways that it cannot be definitive. The only other way to get something that is at least a little solid is to continually monitor game sales and piracy trends on a large number of games for an extended period of time.
On the other hand, every time a game comes out online for Steam or on Xbox Live or any other service I buy it. These are much much better alternatives to Gamestop.
So to all publishers reading this, the chances of me buying your game increase if I'm able to buy it and download it immediately online (because with Amazon the price goes up thanks to shipping :/), if it doesn't have secuROM and if you release a demo!
Also, @phillip, DRM DOES affect piracy. It provokes more. People are getting tired of being mistreated and stopping buying games. I won't buy anything with SecuROM on it.
About the second hand market: the publishers should stop being so fucking greedy and seeing that they are getting a big part of a revenue. If anyone gets a second hand game for $35 instead of $50, most of the times the seller will be buying new games with that money. The problem is when GameStop (for example) is buying those games for $10 and selling them for $35. But hey, if publishers want a part of that, perhaps they should start doing it themselves!.
When's the last time you purchased a used PC game... anyone?"
I did. Neverwinter Nights 2 Gold with Storm of the Zeheir off of EBay. I am very short of cash these days and EBay provides a good place to pick up games on the cheap. Lots of people legitimately buy and sell games on EBay all the time.
Sure, we need to make game design against pirates, so making only single-player games, instincting (your word) multiplayer...
Man... are you stupid? First, this is the worst idea that I ever saw, make a game design to avoid piracy, what do you want? Make only games that people that do not like to pirate play? This would never work, the only feature that you could ever do to enforce people to play the game, is like you said, multiplayer, but if you do not do multiplayer games, you are only losing sales to the someone else that is doing them...
I do not got it...
I have began, for better or worse, to trade games over bartering websites. It's a good way to get games inexpensively to try out and play. I have found this glaring problem only in PC games that are installed with Steam.
If you trade with someone for say... Left 4 Dead for the PC, and you attempt to install it with the key that is on the box under your own Steam account there is no way to do it. Steam will tell you that you are SOL, too bad. The game can only be installed under the original user's Steam account which is attached to an email account. So, who would want to give out their Steam account to someone they just traded with? I wouldn't. There should be a warning on all bartering sites to not trade Valve/Steam games because they are unplayable by anyone else but the original owner.
So Valve/Steam is basically pushing out single install PC discs and if you as the owner get tired of playing the game, you can't trade it because no one else can install it to play it.
That is, in my book, bad business. They of course call it anti-piracy. As gamers, it puts us all at a loss.
The current video game economy is bizarre. You buy a game for $60 play it and sell it back for $20 (net cost: $40). Then someone else buys it for $55 plays it and sells it back for $15 (net cost: $40). Then someone else buys it for $50 plays it and sells it back for $10 (net cost: $40). Then someone buys it for $45 plays it and sells it back for $5 (net cost: $40). Then finally someone buys it for $40 and keeps it. Wouldn't it benefit the developer more to just sell the game for $40 in the first place?
From what I understand, Stardock's Goo fixes that issue. It allows you to register the game under your account and at any time you can deregister a game in order to sell it. The person that buys it can now register it safely under their account.
For some reason, I thought steam had a gifting service of some kind. Where you could transfer a game from one steam account to another. I will have to look into it though.
If you have a cure to this mess I would love to try it out. Before I knew about this mess with Steam, I made a trade with someone and traded them my copy of The Orange Box for the PC. Same mess. They emailed me and said, you know, wait a minute I can't use the license key even though it's legit. Please let me know anything you can. And thank you so much for the reply.
Please email me if you can with any information you have. Dobie04@gmail.com. Thanks.
I just checked on gifts and guest passes on Steam. Again, it's a screw. You can only give a game as a gift if you purchase it specifically on Steam and download it from there. A guest pass is only good, again, for a limited amount of time and only if you download the game on Steam. If you purchase a game from a brick and mortar store and play it for a while and get tired of it, or want to give it to someone to play, you are stuck with it. So, Valve/Steam have totally taken trading or sharing a game with someone that you already own and licensed under your Steam account out of the eqaution. It's a terrible business model. Too bad they are making some of the best games now. Maybe others will begin to hold Valve/Steam to task for this insanity.