

Linux Game Publishing introduces DRM - Ubi take note - dirtbox
http://keyserver.linuxgamepublishing.com/about.php

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grogers
"If you change the password for one copy of the game, you will then be locked
out of all copies of the game, until you re-enter the new password for each of
them on startup."

I don't understand this. You do not need to be connected to the internet to
play, so once you install the game with a legitimate key/password, what
triggers it to require you to enter a new password.

Also, you don't need to be on the internet to install, so if a key/password
combination is valid for the install, and you can change your password - what
is to stop you from using any password you want?

~~~
ekiru
According to a link in an uncle post, the system doesn't require an internet
connection because it assumes that a user should be allowed to install or play
the game unless it can verify that said user should not. To prove that the
user doesn't have a legitimate copy requires an internet connection, so in the
absence of an internet connection, it lets you play without verification, but
when the game is able to contact their keyserver, it will only let you play if
it can verify that yours is a legitimate copy(with the key and password
combination that you entered on install).

~~~
tensor
So it can be circumvented just by unplugging a cable. I guess it can work for
multiplayer games, but then don't most of those require valid accounts some
where online in the first place?

At any rate, it's much kinder to legal buyers than most systems. Steam is also
an example of DRM done right.

~~~
sadiq
I'm not entirely convinced Steam is.

There's no ability to resell or transfer licenses (which this system provides)
and your entire games catalog is reliant on Valve, indefinitely, whatever
shape or ownership they may be under in 5 or 10 years time.

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gdee
Wow, they not only recognize (as we all know, many publishers, willingly,
don't) but they actually take steps to facilitate the effects of the "first-
sale doctrine"[1]. Hats off to that kind of treatment for their customers.
Never heard of them before. I feel strangely impulsed to become a customer
now.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine>

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harshpotatoes
I don't understand the negative comments towards drm in this thread. I thought
the problems with drm were: I can't play the game without the internet, I
can't play the game anywhere I want, I can't resell the game and treat it like
there wasn't any drm. Isn't this exactly what we want in drm?! Are people here
so angry about these protections they would refuse to shop at a store with a
lock on the cash register. Or refuse to shop at a bookstore which refused to
allow people to photocopy a book without purchasing said book?

~~~
dirtbox
Agreed. There is nothing wrong with protecting your work, just so long as that
aspect is at no expense to your customer, and that's exactly what this is
tailored to do. It's thoughtful, compassionate and convenient for everyone
concerned.

Nothing to argue against.

Sadly it's likely to be hacked and cracked open within days, but I sincerely
hope it gets the respect it deserves.

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Xurinos
Or don't use DRM at all.

Instead of relying on a single instance of a product making money for years to
come, focus more on new games or in-game content sales. Better yet, focus more
on positive features and bugfixes/polish for present games than on ways to
defeat crackers. Knowing your limitations, try social solutions for social
problems. Make your brand the trusted good source for awesome games of your
niche.

More elaboration on that last tip: Warez and hacker sites have a deadly mix of
people wanting to share things and people wanting to take advantage of
sharers. Sure, you can get some game for free, or you can apply some patch
that allows you to OPK people in an FPS, but you have to blindly trust whoever
submitted that game/patch to have your best interests at heart. You have to
ignore how, for example, some people playing the game of Combat Arms
unknowingly spam their server chat with advertisements for the hack site. You
have to believe that no one would put a backdoor on your system through your
game and have access to any account and credit card information you may have
stored via that game or on your computer.

In other words, the system is about trust, and if your brand matches or
exceeds its customers' expectations, you will earn and maintain their trust
and their loyalty. Sure, some people may be cheap, but at the same time, they
can be bought with a certain amount of guarantee of security. People are
concerned about their things.

Educate people more about these completely real and ongoing dangers -- most
people have no idea they are part of a botnet, thanks to a little sneaky thing
they thought they could do -- and litigate less. One makes you a hero, and the
other paints you as a villain. One makes you an expert, and the other turns
away customers.

~~~
rick888
"Or don't use DRM at all."

It's too late for that. DRM was invented as a result of rampant piracy. You
should be blaming the pirates rather than the company using it.

"Instead of relying on a single instance of a product making money for years
to come, focus more on new games or in-game content sales."

Now I know you have never tried to sell software. No product anyone sells
works like that. There is support, bug fixes, updates, and features. If you
don't keep this up, you will sell less and be forced to make changes. This is
how the market works.

I LOLd at the part where you said they should concentrate on "new games". If
their old games are getting pirated and making it difficult to support
legitimate customers, how would making a new game be any different?

"Better yet, focus more on positive features and bugfixes/polish for present
games than on ways to defeat crackers. Knowing your limitations, try social
solutions for social problems. Make your brand the trusted good source for
awesome games of your niche."

This doesn't work. No matter how hard you focus on new features, if you are
losing customers left and right because they are downloading it for free (or
because the people downloading it for free are making it increasingly
difficult to support your existing customers and they leave), you will go out
of business.

"In other words, the system is about trust, and if your brand matches or
exceeds its customers' expectations, you will earn and maintain their trust
and their loyalty. Sure, some people may be cheap, but at the same time, they
can be bought with a certain amount of guarantee of security. People are
concerned about their things."

If something is free, it can be found easily with little or no risk, people
will find a reason to download it over spending their hard-earned cash.

~~~
tetsuo13
_It's too late for that. DRM was invented as a result of rampant piracy. You
should be blaming the pirates rather than the company using it._

People were sharing programs long before p2p became popular. Only difference
in recent years to accessibility to the copying mechanisms. Blame it on the
Internet taking off and creating a world where bits are no longer a scarcity,
where purchasing a physical media containing those bits is becoming legacy.
With the Internet making it easy for anyone to copy anything suddenly those
that made those physical copies weren't needed as much. Certainly their value
has been questioned.

DRM became widespread as a way for the content distributors to maintain their
status quo without having to change their business model in any way.

~~~
rick888
"People were sharing programs long before p2p became popular. Only difference
in recent years to accessibility to the copying mechanisms. Blame it on the
Internet taking off and creating a world where bits are no longer a scarcity,"

The bits were never a scarcity. The creative work and thousands of man-hours
that it takes to place those bits in a specific order is the scarcity. If this
were not the case, anybody could create (not copy) an application like
Photoshop.

"where purchasing a physical media containing those bits is becoming legacy.
With the Internet making it easy for anyone to copy anything suddenly those
that made those physical copies weren't needed as much. Certainly their value
has been questioned."

A dollar bill is just ink and paper. But it's worth much more than that.
Paintings are worth much more than the sum of the items used to create them.
There are many more examples like this. I know you aren't this dense.

"DRM became widespread as a way for the content distributors to maintain their
status quo without having to change their business model in any way."

How are they going to make money? A service? We see how well people like that
with assassin's creed 2. Advertising? works very well with all of the
adblockers out there.

Companies aren't going to change their business model because they don't need
to. The games are still just as good, people are playing them, they just
aren't paying for them.

If the community really wants to change the business, they need to actually
compete. This means developing real applications and games that are better
than the ones already out there. But this will never happen because it's
easier to just copy games and tell everyone why you deserve to get it for
free.

~~~
Xurinos
_The bits were never a scarcity._

Software sellers have attempted to make them so with the use of legal wording,
sternly-worded threats, and excellent politics. Before it was easy to transmit
things electronically, we had to pass around physical media that held them if
we wanted to share with others.

Excepting people trying to inch out that extra cent out of people, nobody
thinks there is something wrong with this sharing. You can borrow a car,
borrow a book, borrow an NES cartridge, even borrow a whole computer, and this
is seen as socially acceptable (we learned the value of sharing in
Kindergarten). Sometimes you determine that you want this item for yourself,
so you buy it, and you might not have bought it at all had it not been for
your exposure to and enjoyment of it.

The problem with PC software is that unlike these other works of art, it is
trivial to copy. That should be a warning flag that a business model around
software needs to approach things a little differently. Sure, a good
percentage of people will look for something for nothing and feel no guilt
over it, will not try to compensate for it; in this medium, they will often
succeed, too. This is a fact of the technology.

 _The creative work and thousands of man-hours_

This is noble, but do you really expect customers to offer up money for
software because of the actions of somebody behind the scenes of that
software? I know when I browse games on the shelves, I am not thinking about
the programmers, the artists, the voice actors, the publishers, or anyone else
involved. I am thinking of how fun I expect that game to be and if I can
afford it this month. I am also thinking of the brand of that game; for
example, Ubisoft has disappointed me enough times with their MMOs that I
refuse to be fooled again, no matter how cool it looks. On the other hand, I
am a consistent sucker for games by Square and Bioware. Your average consumer
does not place the same value on the workers as the workers place on
themselves.

 _Companies aren't going to change their business model because they don't
need to. The games are still just as good, people are playing them, they just
aren't paying for them._

This is a contradiction. Admittedly, DRM is one way to change the business
model. It is working for some companies in the way it is implemented. As you
mention later, competition can demonstrate this model's weaknesses, but that
is also the nature of business: you must keep evolving to meet the challenges
of the times.

------
dirtbox
Some more detailed info here
[http://blog.linuxgamepublishing.com/2009/02/27/answering-
the...](http://blog.linuxgamepublishing.com/2009/02/27/answering-the-lgp-drm-
questions/)

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patio11
Note point #5. There are variations on this which are _very_ effective at
limiting casual piracy. (I personally like "For your convenience, any computer
you put your Registration Key into automatically gets to see your saved data."
Obviously, you want to think through the security implications of that
verrrrrrry carefully.)

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sfgfdhgfdshdhhd
If you're "forced to implement DRM", it's because you forced yourself into a
position where you can't do anything better.

