How? The industry behemoths like EA, Activision, Blizzard and Bethesda should fail so hard that they won't even have money to pay their asshole-CEOs out. They we could rebuild this fucking business with indie groups and truly gaming-focused developers like CD Projekt RED.

No really, you can't save "this" industry: the morons just think about their Wall Street quotations and how to squeeze their "users" (ie slaves and dumbed-down consumers)...

They see DRM free as an honor system, and companies hate honor systems. We all know it's an honor system either way, but whatever.

Anyway, the best way to kill DRM in gaming or hold off the inevitable always online future would be to find a way for games to have alternative revenue streams like movies and music do (i.e. concerts and theaters).

Don't ask me how though.

You're much to idealistic here. Once the indie groups become big they will behave exctaly the same like the behemoths of today. They want maximal amount of money and who could deny this from them and not all customers want to pay. Only possible solution is always online like a mixture of Steam and OnLive. DRM free only for niche. You'll see.

One also has to remember that many indy games are actually very unprofitable. Many are very small teams (even down to just one person) and take years of development. Further they are often developed whilst the developer(s) maintain an existing form of primary employment. As such this does lengthen their production cost, but also means that the developer isn't relying upon their whole living income to come from the game itself.

Once anyone goes professional with gaming as their main income they've got to get their bills, rent/mortgage, medical (US), food, transport, other living costs, business costs (electric - equipment - software - etc...), tax and a lot more besides. Plus deliver a profit ontop of all that.

All that drives up their running cost and thus drives up the delivery price on the product. Which is why "casual" games are so popular - mass market means not only that the company can make additional profit, but also consider reduced prices (more customers).

Sadly games are a little like the music and DVD markets in that the release is a big hype, but followed by a faster devaluation. For games the market is pretty unstable - just look how many companies are forced to close and sell-out their assets and how many more merge up with others to provide additional security from a combined effort. Many long term studios are often quite rare today - and a good few exist only in marketing terms (original teams bought by larger companies and slowly shifted around till it really it just a name).

Getting back to the original question - educating the masses.

I see it as a wider issue than simply DRM in games - to me that is just another symptom of a larger problem.

Society today is largely about "me", "having stuff", "having as much stuff as possible", "getting my stuff for fee or as cheap as I can", "having stuff because I see someone else has it and that means I am entitled to it - by definition" and "having more stuff than everyone else".

That is why I fear the potential snowballing of casual copying if DRM didn't exist - and, no, that does not mean that I see DRM as an answer to that problem. I see DRM as a response to it and now one of the things which re-enforces that attitude. DRM being there validates the: "the Man is trying to stop me getting my stuff for free, so I am going to beat the system .. look at me, I'm a hero" mentality.

Actually that's the target group that companies should focus on, because it's probably the largest one and the one most willing and able to pay (not retrogamers, but passionate gamers in their 20's-40's). Schoolboys and -girls won't suddenly be more willing and able to pay just because you put DRM on your software. And someone who's not passionate about gaming won't go to the trouble of downloading illegal copies anyway. The success of Witcher 2 (and several popular indies) is proof that DRM-free could be a valid alternative even for new games. (Success is measured in sold copies, not pirated ones.)

And I dare say that people who claim "if there was no DRM there'd be no piracy" are next to none-existant, IMO that's a strawman argument. The actual argument that people use is that it won't make much of a difference, because most people who buy games do so because they want to, not because there's DRM on it. And it's the people who buy games that matter, not the so-called pirates. I don't believe there's a secret formula to force people into paying for your stuff if they're not willing to do it or don't have the money.


Isn't that part of why shops like GOG and Steam are so successful? ;)

I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of gamers actually buys more games than they play.

I agree with your last statement though, DRM is a good excuse for people to feel good about pirating, while I bet hardly anyone would boast about pirating GOG's games, unless they're proud of being jerks and pissing other gamers off.

We're talking about a massive demographic that, by and large, shares next to nothing in common aside from pirating. So no. A few comments here and there don't really add up to much either way.

I've never seen anything that would suggest that DRM made the game seem less 'free' to pirates. If anything it's justification for pirating it in their eyes (note: I'm not one of those people who confuse downloading cracks for purchased games with piracy).

If WoW wasn't online with many things protected server-side, I can tell you that exactly 0 of the few hundred players from Macedonia that I know would have bought the game. The only reason they bought the game was because they were pissed off for not having a more-or-less bug-free game (when they were playing on emulated servers).

I strongly believe the future is filled with more server-side protected software, with 'installable' software acting merely like a client and a way to distribute files and code of huge size.

To answer the actual question, I don't know what will happen if DRM just goes away tomorrow. Although, I expect pirates to go on a pirating spree with heavily DRM-ed games pirated to hell and back... hell, I would do it if the games didn't offer any multiplayer. Since I would get the games for 0 EUR, I wouldn't care 1 bit about the publishers and developers, as the games would hold no value (in money) for me (just another way to waste my free time a bit).

What's more important than removing DRM, is providing convenience. Steam, Battle.net, XBOX LIVE are all great examples of that.

Yes and Yes. I know I buy more than I can play - at least recently, because I can afford to due to the lowering of prices through GOG and Steam sales. By lowering the cost they get more out of me because at the higher price points I have to think about every single purchase - and generally don't bother any more.

The marketing/investment men on AAA products struggle to grasp this - because they are not in it for the long term - they want to get the initial investment and profit out as fast as possible.

But I don't know that that is necessarily a good thing - or the "correct" answer - the whole "greed is good" aspect of it makes me uncomfortable for the long term. Witness the current economic mess, caused largely by greed, and our (in the UK anyway) leaders telling us to solve this by "buying more stuff". Way to learn from your mistakes guys.

Physical merch as an integral part of your game. You cannot seed cloth maps, figurines, or 300-page spellbook with ring bound and faux-leather cover on the Pirate Bay.

But how do you want to make these things an integral part of the game? Integral means that without them it doesn't work at all.

Map with knowledge that your character has, that is only available as physical good.
Spellbook with description, costs, and usefullness of spells, with that information not appearing ingame.
Lorebook with all the background knowledge about the world, that your character is already familiar with.
For the other physical goods, I guess Catshade meant them as "Goodies" that even if they have no use ingame, you do like to have them, like the Witcher's Medallion.

That, and I also mean 'integral' as 'part of your regular Standard edition', not just the overpriced Collector's/Limited/Augmented/Legendary edition or preorder bonus.

Sorry, I don't like the physical merch idea.
I like being in a digital world - in both senses:
- I like being able to get my games digitally and
- I like my game to be complete in itself, huge manuals and cloth maps don;t do a whole heap for me.

To put that last point a little differently - I don't want my focus and concentration broken by switching between the screen and a book.
P.S. Physical lore, maps, spell books, etc would be scanned and placed online pdq anyway - which just leaves figurines, medallions and such which have no in-game use.

Sorry, this is not what integral means but only goodies. You can digitalize and circulate all these informations easily.

What you mean is adding papercopies of manuals. Kind of transforming every game into a collectors edition.

But many people nowadays do not need or want printed manuals and such stuff. I am afraid it will only drive prices up but fail to attract more paying customers.