A pirate, by the very definition, is not a customer.

A customer is usually used to refer to a current or potential buyer or user of the products.

Thank you for this detailed comment.

Well, as far as A goes:

It allows them to check if said user actually owns Garry's Mod before banning the account



as for B:

While a warning may pop up in the rare case of A, them reporting it can resolve the issues of a false positive. So it should not happen too often.



and C:

Legal users don't ever need to know about the hidden feature that will not hurt them. And in the end it doesn't hurt them (See A)



and for D:

So long as a few pirated users have a Steam ID account, they have been successful at catching pirates.



The whole list seems to rely on A, that it could catch legitimate users, however not knowing the underlying mechanics of what it looks for you can't conclusively say that it can or can't report false positives. And in the end it doesn't affect the game outside a silly popup on startup. All it does is coerce them into volunteering for a review of their ID for potential piracy issues.

is funny because this kind of protection and other bugs for real customers turned a mixed review of the product, aka = buggy game.

Many people I've seen trying to make pirating software ok tell you that they buy a legit copy AFTER they give the pirated copy a test run, same with movies or CDs. They don't pirate because they're cheap. They pirate because they can. They won't play a pirated copy long enough to miss out on extras, or they'd just buy a real copy after a while if they really wanted the stuff.

I dont to create a hot argument about such a sensitive topic. Its just that i am trying not to fall into a black & white "Arggghhh ... ya Filgthy Pirawtessss" or "Free Software for the Masses , Pirates are Socialist Heroesss" perspective. In a first place i divide people who use pirated software in two sets : a) People who wont buy the software anyway even if this software is available ( as a digital download or in physical hardocopy ) or/and its being sale at a resonable price ; and b) People who will buy the software but they doesnt has the cash or its not available for them.



In the subject of publishing companies i would try to gain insight into their development quality procedures , How much time they dedicated to achive excellence in a game ( I trully believe Blizzard did the right thing pushing Starcraft 2 until they got the best polished product they could ) , If they fall into HHRRR abobinationations like offshoring and outsourcing , If they avoid game-testing Horrible Mistakes like a "Known - Shippable" bug.



In any case i am trying to be as much objective as i can be about the subject.

I'm not expert, but as a consumer, your proposal unfortunately goes against everything I would tolerate in DRM.



For a start, it forces (that the important word here) the owner to do anything that is not operating the game with the equipment necessary to operate it, the activity outlined above is solely for the developer/publisher and not the person who bought this game to play for themselves. Why do I have to become a member of your system, you 'club' for buying a product?



Then it breaches the owner's privacy by taking serial number of his equipment, then throws it through an isolated encryption service. If this service fails for any reason then likely the game will not activate or worse the system send s a message accusing the owner of breaking license, the owner has so far still not played the game and may not be happy.



"d) Client Run his well paid Game."



This sentence gets on my nerves, is the customer these days playing a game? No they're play their 'well paid game.' Nobody has fun just playing any game, they only have fun playing it if they paid for it, the paying even may be the most fun part!



"Well , if your client can paid a 150 uS$ or more AAA publisher game , well , then he can SURELY pay a broadband internet connection."



Don't make assumptions about your customers like that. In fact the only reason to make assumptions is to create groundwork for understanding something we have no facts about yet. The only way this assumption could really work is if the game is online multiplayer, since the game cannot be played without it.





"Well , thats what support fourums are for right? . If he can login into his account , then he can probably handle enough information to certify his identity and arrange for his DRM encrypted files to be re-issued with proper account tracking."



The owner performs a legitimate action and is not being accused of breaking license. They are a busy person with only so much time to enjoy playing games, they now have to spend some time proving to some company that they are who they are just to play a game they know they own.



"Your game is supposed to be a single license game. If they want more licenses , well , they can allways contact the publisher site for more well paid ones , right?."



Not only are we assuming that this person at a private lan (which of course may not necessarily have internet) is somebody who wants to break copyright and play cracked copies with everybody at the lan. Not to mention that if everybody needs to buy a copy to play, that's a lot of money for everybody to spend for a few hours gaming. The way in which the current gaming landscape treats private LAN is what upsets me the most. It is most innocuous and niche part of PC gaming to have any kind of measurable impact through piracy. If somebody in the group doesn't have a copy then nobody plays your game, less people enjoy playing your game and maybe less people will be motivated to buy it. The people who go to these LANs are usually tech-savvy types who will know how to pirate games, they fall into the very "You CAN'T stop piracy" boat and the "They wouldn't have bought it anyway" boat. Why give them even less reason to buy your game? What matters most is that they are playing your game instead of your competitors.

I am not an expert either , in fact i am consumer just like you. Most of all , i totally agree with every single thing you stated.



I believe you must feel confused. Let me explain ( from a gamer/client point of view ).



A sentence like "Pirates are thieves" ( wich was the point of view i assumed in the last post ) its utterly extreme , no person can state such a black and white idea . So i am gonna try to analyse some conflicting points :



a) Price Tag : I have heard many times friends of mine stating , "God , this game its too short" when what they are really saying is " God , this game is too short for the amount of cash i spent on it , i expected much more hours of fun gaming for my well spent cash". True is , some gamers just feel ripped off if they dont see their a sane amount of fun return for their money investment. Many developers and publishers will say "If you want to Test Drive the game you can play our Demo Version" , but then again , a Demo sometimes its not a "proof" enough for a gamer their money invest will have its "Ad promised" return. I guess thats one of reason some gamers preffer to test pirated copies of a game first.



b) Distribution and Logistics : I totally agree not every person in the world owns a broadband connection , wich it would be an assumption ( as you know "assumption is the mother of all f**k ups" ) , and probably a very wrong one. True is , Distribution + Compliance policies cand be a big headache for gamers. Now , i am gonna make an educated guess about it. Lets say you live in france , and lets say you know are a native english speaker who dont have an online connection at home , who preffer American based games in their most original form. Now , why on earth do you have to play the entire game , in french , just because a local france law forbidds games ( among other media ) to contain english text ?. You see ? . Thats a Distribution Issue. In that case , if you want to play a "well paid game" you have to 1) play it on french or 2) play a pirated copy.



c)Security and Privacy: Most Common clients and tech-savvy clients are concerned about security and privacy. In fact , i would agree most people does not agree with Ubisofts Startshield's anti-piracy rootkit methods. And even though , a well implemented zero tolerance policy can become a sucessful bussines model ( I am thinking on Apple on this one) , i dont consider Ubisoft policy a sucessful one. So i wouldnt consider many people ( even legit owners ) turning into Starshield's cracks to protect their privacy an ilogical behaviour.



I know there a couple more of conflicting points , i kinda dont have enough time or memory capacity to treat them right now , but i am sure there is gonna be some other time for them.

Ohhh yeah .. now i recall ...



d) Speculative Losses and Game Genre Competition ...



Damn ....