I understand very well... however, I also understand that your OPINION does not equal FACT. Enjoy the crusade.

In this regard, I recall reading statements by a developer long ago (sorry, I can not remember what company it was). His goal was not to protect his games indefinitely (he knew it was impossible not to be cracked before or after). The DRM was added to prevent casual piracy on the 0-day release and shortly thereafter. He said that the game was not pirated in the first month (for the mass of avid gamers who do not wait to get a crack that worked properly) was enough to secure the necessary benefit.

It's not everytime the case. So, why don't they release a patch after let's say two months which dissable DRM? What's more, some games even a few years old, on Steam for example, still have DRM. That's ridiculous.
That's only because people have no clue that GOG exists or they have never used it before so they don't see a point in signing up. If a game was on Origin and Steam, I would buy it on steam because I already use it. And when it is on GOG and Steam, I prefer GOG, off course.

Meh, personally I really don't care about this stuff. I prefer DRM-free and that is where my money is going to go. I don't care about big games like Skyrim, MW2, or StartCraft 2, I just want to get a fun game that I know is not going to install any additional crap on my computer. I know I'm not in the mainstream and I accept this. As long as I have a place that serves my needs (no-DRM) I'm not going to complain.

There is need to be condencending, and news flash we are out in the real world where there is choice. So what if the Witcher 2 may have sold more on Steam, at least CD-Project acknowledges that there is a market for those who prefer drm-free and offered a choice. For those that bought on Steam, good for them for buying and supporting the game developer and publisher instead of blindly pirating the game.

Some people don't care about DRM and I'm fine with that. What I care about is at least having the the choice to buy DRM-free one way or another even if it means waiting.

If there is no option for getting the game DRM-free and I want the game, all well. Looks like I'll just spend my money elsewhere. I can live without getting the latest shiny new thing, and word on the street is that there are smaller, indie developers who are selling their game without DRM ;)

Obviously or people wouldn't be buying music and DVDs (all single player experiences, btw). Yes, obviously for much of the buying public making shit "better" is enough.

You're right, but they also rent music and DVDs via streaming offers. So who knows what they'll like more in the end.

Music went completely DRM-free in a fairly short period of time - about 1 year. It didn't cause mass piracy. The truth is most people simply want convenience. If the most convenient solution is DRM-free but for pay, people will pay. They don't to scour pirate sites looking for copies. Gamers are however are more technology oriented demographic as opposed music or movies which are more generalist. This does mean a higher percentage of them know how and where to pirate. But that's changing. Everybody is buying games these days. Whether DRM affects piracy rates is questionable and many feel with good reason that it doesn't actually affect it at all. Now as to financial incentive to the companies, unfortunately business practices surrounding a product are a lot harder to regulate for customers as they have to forgo access to the content in order to make a statement about the business practice. That requires a consumer base that is motivated and organized or a truly heinous business practice.

I guess they think that once paid the DRM, why remove it? It could always play the role of discouraging some casual piracy. And removing it after a period of time, I guess they probably fear that some who are willing to wait a while to buy the game cheaper, might be tempted to pirate it.

Personally I do not share their reasoning (a game with any kind of DRM is a lost sale as I'm concerned), but I think it is interesting to contribute what may be the point of view of developers.

Btw Music went completely DRM free, but ebooks the complete opposite. What's the difference, I wonder.

Timing. eBooks have only recently started to become huge business. Digital music got huge awhile ago and the DRM, like with e-books today, was vendor specific causing lock-in. Eventually this swung to the opposite extreme of forcing the market DRM-free. E-books still have the potential to go the same way as music.

BTW I am not against DRM or streaming for books/music/movies/games/etc ... I think DRM and OnLive-like services can provide value that pure DRM-free cannot - rentals, internet radio/TV, resale, etc ... For me, one buys DRM-free for the things one will keep forever. One buys DRM'ed products for things one may want to resell or rent. One streams media to enjoy said media a la TV/radio are enjoyed. I think there is a place for all in the market and I don't think games going completely DRM-free is necessary for the consumer to be protected. What I want is more clarification and protections about what rights the consumer has (and doesn't have). I feel right now without a rock solid legal framework around digital goods, digital consumers exist almost in netherworld of legal protections and that means we have to rely on the good graces of companies like GOG. As much as I really like and really appreciate GOG's stance, I'd prefer the surety of a consumer-friendly law.

Renting is still a legitimate method to experience the content, not all rentals involve DRM, either, rented DVDs from Netflix or Redbox, for example, can easily be ripped and shared around. Likewise, double clicking a torrent is still probably easier, yet those services still profit (even if Netflix becomes a worse deal every year).

It doesn't matter what people end up preferring, I'm only pointing out that DRM is in no way necessary to ensure profit in the media industry.
Nothing other than how it's played out so far. The commonality, ironically, has been Amazon.com in each case. With music they forced iTunes by launching a DRM free service of which Apple was actually afraid. With eBooks publishers perceive they are losing their power to direct the market to Amazon, partly due to Amazon's ability to lock in the market to their devices and DRM, so the publishers are the ones pushing the issue in this case.

Eh ... sort of. The move towards DRM-free music had more to do with Apple's dominance. Apple negotiated selling DRM-free music with the labels before Amazon launched its service - which came as a surprise to everyone because if I remember right Amazon didn't negotiate switching their music to DRM-free with the labels (which labels were not happy about). What Amazon did force Apple to do was sell the DRM-free music at that same price as the DRM music where previously Apple's price for DRM-free music was 30 cents higher. It also sped up Apple's negotiations with the remaining labels to sell the remaining music DRM-free. While I completely agree with the last statement, keep in mind that with physical media one has to go out of one's way to rip the content on the DVD/CD/book. With purely digital media, to behave more like physical media, one needs a DRM solution to inactivate a copy after the rental period has expired. A customer could still go out of their way to rip out the media content anyway just like they can with physical media, but again I see DRM for rentals and resale as ensuring the equivalency of digital and physical media when ownership expires or changes hands. Again, I don't believe DRM-free is needed to ensure profits, but there is a philosophical/technical difference between DRM on physical and digital media.

Also I don't have Netflix, but in fairness to them much of the reason their deal becomes worse every year has more to do with content partners wanting more money as they see Netflix get bigger and Netflix not yet being quite big enough to have the negotiating power of an Apple or Amazon.

Either/or is easily circumvented with a couple clicks of readily available software on all major platforms. Also, it's been quietly known for awhile that most library ebook checkout software fails to do anything to delete the book or inactivate the copy you have "checked out" after the check out period. So while most people will think "duh, of course you need DRM for digital rental!" it's actually not quiet 100% true in some real world systems that actually are in use right now.

Also, streaming itself is not DRM and probably doesn't necessitate DRM on top of it to stop most people from keeping a copy (and those wanting a rip will get one anyway).

Well, I know what you're talking about and that's not entirely Netflix's fault. However, negotiating their stupid "28 extra days before they rent DVDs" after the DVDs have gone on sale and sending out "Rental Copies" which include more unskippable ads and will greet you with an infuriating "This is a rental copy, please purchase a copy to enjoy the full experience" should you have the audacity to try and select any special features (like deleted scenes or director's commentary) IS THEIR FAULT.

That make the point of paying a price, that gets higher every year I might add, less and less attractive over just torrenting shit. Yes, I know, moral right, blah blah. You make it a shitty enough experience for me and I will pirate out of sheer convenience, because the convenience of the experience is why I'm pitching in money in the first place.

That sounds more like a bug in the library e-books :)

I'm not necessarily saying that the DRM needs to be onerous, but I view streaming and DRM as essentially a way to ensure that single use or by-service media remain single use or by-service by default - even if that which is ensuring said behavior is easily circumventable. It's not so much ease of circumvention, but rather the default behavior of the digital item.


Yeah that does sound annoying, but again that may be at the insistence of the studios because I can't see any benefit to Netflix to annoying their customers. However, given the popularity of Netflix's DVD service, I am surprised they weren't able to negotiate better deals on rentals. Again, I don't use their service, but I can see how that and price increases would be annoying. But mostly I see those things as the studios worried about the continued disruption to their business models from new technology rather than seeing the opportunity it affords them.

The studios can't dictate these things in the US, but they can offer low priced DVDs to Netflix if Netflix agrees to comply (aka sells out its customers). Redbox used to thumb their nose at studios constantly by showing up on release day to buy stacks of DVDs at Walmart (the boxes were franchised, so the franchise owner did the work for their boxes). They did the same, agreed to restrictions to get cut rate DVDs.

So, while yes, Netflix isn't doing it simply to annoy me, they sold me out for cheaper DVDs. I wouldn't gripe about the price increases if I was receiving the same, or superior, service along the way, but I'm not, I'm getting a shittier product and paying more for it. If the Netflix copy is going to be literally no different than the torrented copy (in fact, probably worse, because I can get a higher def torrent) then I start to lose any financial or convenience reason to actually pay. What's left? I guess you can argue morality, but it's hard to want to be moral when I'm raging just trying to get my fucking movie to start so I don't have to see 20 irrelevant ads for lame shit I don't want (or already watched ages ago).