DRM Discussion and Questions

What do you think about DRMs?

My Questions:
(All appliable to macs and Not PCs)
1) Why is SC2013 For Mac Coming So late?Is it DRM-Porting Stuff?
2) Can DRMs Terminate your game or slow Your Mac Down?
3) Why is DRM so Hated?
4) Is Origin an DRM?
5) I found out that the Simcity CD edition is basically an CD to assist you download the Digital Edition.Is that True?

DRM = Digital Rights Management.

Why a program would come to Mac later - Software generally is OS specific and certain parts have to be recoded entirely in order to be compatible with a different OS. This is especially true with games where Mac uses OpenGL for 3D rendering, while Windows uses Direct X. While Windows can use OpenGL for rendering, developers prefer (not entirely sure why except for the few features it has over OpenGL) to use Direct X on Windows.

DRMs terminating games or slow down - DRMs likely won't slow down overall system performance since they're only run while the game is run. However, DRMs can be buggy and, yes, can terminate a game, or prevent a game from working should the DRM consider your install to be fake.

Why DRM is hated - It makes it harder for legit players to install software and use it as intended. This is because it's basically accusing ALL users as being pirates, while generally not actually helping with the prevention of pirating. It adds additional steps to the installation or usage process (example: Diablo 3's always online model) which might hinder someone's usage of the softawre.

Origin - No clue.

A lot of the time now, DVDs only contain a launcher and some of the game's files. The launcher will install what ever files it's able to install from the DVD, then it'll proceed with updating the content.

5) Probably? In the end, it doesn't matter. The only reason EA releases physical copies of its games is to increase the potential market. Since you require a persistent Internet connection to play SimCity, it's not actually a big deal if you require one to download SimCity. It is a big deal in that it negatively affects EA's image, and in that it ruins the experience of playing a game from a brilliant franchise, but within the already BS situation, it couldn't make anything worse.

4) There are a lot of reasons why Origin exists. It's partially a misguided attempt to thwart piracy (misguided because it fails completely in that department). It's partially because EA is arrogant and thinks it can do a better job than Valve. And it's partially because EA does not want to give Valve any money (which would make sense, if they didn't spend more money maintaining the service than they would have had to give to Valve). A small company would never get away with making Origin. But because it's EA, and people are willing to wade through a lot of BS just to play some of their IPs, they can pretty much do whatever they want.

3) DRM is hated because it's inappropriate. It's like if fast food restaurants forced you to eat their food inside their restaurants and in a limited amount of time, in a specific spot. It puts ridiculous restrictions on something which you paid for. The concept of reducing piracy in and of itself is not a bad one. Publishers and developers (especially independent developers) suffer immensely from piracy. That's why there's such a massive push for free-to-play games lately. It's easy to prevent piracy when the only things that consumers can purchase are solely available through micro-transactions. Piracy is bad, defending your copyrights and IPs is not evil, but needlessly restricting the freedoms of your customers is just bad PR.

2) DRM, as far as I know, does not slow down your game's performance. But I guess it depends on how the DRM is implemented. If a game is running slow on your Mac, that's because it's a Mac. Apple uses outdated hardware in their systems, so when a game which was developed for Windows machines (which developers know have better hardware and are better optimized for system-intensive tasks) is ported to OS X, it's not always the greatest experience.

so,you mean DRMs are a Cage locking you in there if you want to play it?

I am bored.

Anyone answering the questions?

Also,Does Online Connection Required means AODRM?

SadKingBilly, on 17 May 2013 - 05:43 PM said:

3) DRM is hated because it's inappropriate. It's like if fast food restaurants forced you to eat their food inside their restaurants and in a limited amount of time, in a specific spot. It puts ridiculous restrictions on something which you paid for. The concept of reducing piracy in and of itself is not a bad one. Publishers and developers (especially independent developers) suffer immensely from piracy. That's why there's such a massive push for free-to-play games lately. It's easy to prevent piracy when the only things that consumers can purchase are solely available through micro-transactions. Piracy is bad, defending your copyrights and IPs is not evil, but needlessly restricting the freedoms of your customers is just bad PR.

Only if the food you bought at the fast food restauant could be cloned infinite number of times and consumed indefinitely.