Why Not Digitial Distribution?

[Gandalf Parker]

Im amazed that anyone thinks "its pirated so why bother" works as an argument. Thats like "thieves get in so why lock your doors"

Besides there are many pros and cons of DD.
You should see the impact on Shrapnels servers when a new patch is released.
Can you imagine the load when a long awaited full version sequel.
Even the demo of such a game is a problem and thats with many other servers helping make it available.

Also, one of the many requests for DD comes from people overseas who dont like to wait or dont like the questionability of their postal service. Do you think that overseas download will help that or create a digital version of the same problems. And as Ive said, tracking broken downloads to allow restarts is a major problem.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Im amazed that anyone thinks "its pirated so why bother" works as an argument. Thats like "thieves get in so why lock your doors"

The lock argument is equally flawed. You lock your doors so it takes longer for them to break in or it makes more noise so they are more easy to detect. It also depends on other social values. A locked door in a large busy city is good anti theft prevention. In the middle of nowhere a lock will not prevent thieves. The locks are only part of the security.

But of course you know that you shouldn't compare locks to copy protection. Pirates (or the better term would be hackers/crackers) have all the time of the world to work on a crack. They can do it from their home. No chance of detection. So in the end they will crack it.

I don't know if you have noticed the recent GTA debacle? They had some very advanced and nasty copy protection in the newest GTA. With a lot of stealth copy protection, after a few hours the controls would freeze, or act wierd. And a lot of other different things. But the game is also very buggy, I'm not saying that these bugs are related to the DRM. But it would have been better to spend the money that was now spend on the DRM, on improving the game. It took the pirates a week to crack this new copy protection.

But there is no doubt that piracy costs sales. I only wonder if copy protection really helps to prevent this. If cp is cost effective. I personally don't think so. BUT, I'm an industry outsider. And I have no data to back up my claims. And I don't really trust the piracy numbers that some companies use as an anti-piracy argument. (The music industry piracy losses are so high, that piracy caused the current recession)

More ontopic, of course the position of shrapnel on digital distribution has been clear. And they used the best arguments possible, imho. They did the math, it would not be profitable. They used science! Science, it works *****ez! I think this could be more clear in the FAQ.

I like the hat colour quote, Gandalf. My experience with youth and younger adults (>30) differs. Most either pirate, or use open source products. The crack site line, does not really exist here. But that is of course my experience. A lot of people still like to pay for stuff that they use. And I know a lot of people who donate money to open source products, help with open source products, and buy stuff they pirated before because it is that good. Of course, my experience is mostly university students and graduates. So I guess your hat really gets whiter when you grow older. (And as long as I still am a student of my university, I can use a lot of different software packages for free).

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

A locked door in a large busy city is good anti theft prevention. In the middle of nowhere a lock will not prevent thieves. The locks are only part of the security.

I have personal experience from living in the middle of nowhere, and I can say that a lock will do a great deal to prevent unwanted visitors. They COULD break in when no one is home, no problem, but only people who can think "I'm going to break in and take a look" do that. Most people don't want to think of themselves as burglars, so they won't do that. Going in to "see if anybody's home" and "I thought nobody would miss this" isn't an actual "theft", it's just, well, something that happened.

As Gandalf was saying, locks and copy-protection might only slow down a professional law-breaker, but for the common man, it both marks the difference between legal and illegal and forces them to take their time and think if they really want to break the law.

[lch]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

And as Ive said, tracking broken downloads to allow restarts is a major problem.

Only for games which require that you may only install the game exactly once with the copy that you bought and which adopt a DRM scheme for that. This game allows you to install and play the game on more than one machine, but not at the same time - you will get penalized for that in MP gaming. So, for this game it's not an issue at all.

While I can understand that Shrapnel doesn't want to provide direct download options because they don't have the technical means or because it's not profitable, there is no technical aspect that would be a problem to make the Dominions series available via direct download.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by lch

Only for games which require that you may only install the game exactly once with the copy that you bought and which adopt a DRM scheme for that. This game allows you to install and play the game on more than one machine, but not at the same time - you will get penalized for that in MP gaming. So, for this game it's not an issue at all.

Except in implementation. If you provide a code which allows a person to download to any machine, then you are back to allowing "casual copying" between buddies which has always been the main reason for DRM. Not pirates. As people say, you cant stop pirates.

Same with the docs as pdf thing. Just because pirate sites have it doesnt mean its worthless to protect it. As long as pirate sites openly declare themselves to be pirate sites then they arent much of a concern. But making it possible to get it from non-pirate sites would be disastrous to any effort to control it.

[Toran]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Same with the docs as pdf thing. Just because pirate sites have it doesnt mean its worthless to protect it. As long as pirate sites openly declare themselves to be pirate sites then they arent much of a concern. But making it possible to get it from non-pirate sites would be disastrous to any effort to control it.

Why does it make a difference where the file originally comes from? In the end, either legitimate customers will get it with their product, or they will pirate it from one of various different sources. Most copying this day isn't done "from a friend to a friend" (although you gave protection as a means to inhibit that one), but just by spreading it over the web.

Yeah, I know, the "casual copying" will be avoided, but then it's just again the old game: The "good guys" (that would maybe just hand a friend a copy) get their DRM/protection stuff, and the anonymous masses in the web use an unprotected version of the game....

That's not meaning I'm a big fan of digital distribution - I will sometimes consider it for "small" investments or "small" games/tools, but not for games/programs I might also use/"need" in the far future where I might rely on certain servers to activate my product. Yep, I know, there are different methods, but in the end I hate all DRM and tend to use cracks on my original products where they help me with "comfort".

Anything that is less comfortable than what the pirated version offers is a bad thing IMO. Treat the customer friendly, don't try to limit him.

[thejeff]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Except in implementation. If you provide a code which allows a person to download to any machine, then you are back to allowing "casual copying" between buddies which has always been the main reason for DRM. Not pirates. As people say, you cant stop pirates.

But the current version allows a person with the CD to install it to any machine as long as they have the key. They're allowing "casual copying" between buddies now. They can't play MP together, but that wouldn't change with downloading.
The only difference is that it would be easier for buddies who aren't physically close to copy.

Personally I don't really care, but some of these arguments are silly.

[lch]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Except in implementation. If you provide a code which allows a person to download to any machine, then you are back to allowing "casual copying" between buddies which has always been the main reason for DRM. Not pirates. As people say, you cant stop pirates.

Same with the docs as pdf thing. Just because pirate sites have it doesnt mean its worthless to protect it. As long as pirate sites openly declare themselves to be pirate sites then they arent much of a concern. But making it possible to get it from non-pirate sites would be disastrous to any effort to control it.

I don't understand what you're saying, or what your point is. The game as it is now does not depend on the CD as a physical medium to be present in the disc drive itself when installing. For machines that don't have an optical drive, I just copy the files on it over the network. The authentication of the game copy happens by the user when he starts the game the first time after installation, by typing in his serial code. Exactly the same could be done with a copy that has been downloaded over the internet.

As long as the game manual hasn't been made available for free download, other sites won't be able to offer it for free, too, and will refrain from doing so. Making it available then will be no less illegal than it is now.

What I've been saying is: There is no technical detail to the game that forbids digital downloads.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Except in implementation. If you provide a code which allows a person to download to any machine, then you are back to allowing "casual copying" between buddies which has always been the main reason for DRM. Not pirates. As people say, you cant stop pirates.

Stardock's system is actually exactly backwards from this. Since you must be logged in to your Stardock account to download/apply your patches, a pirate has a very difficult time enjoying their stolen product on even an SP level. Meanwhile, they have made statements that if someone downloads a game they purchased, on multiple machines in the same household, that it doesn't concern them so much if multiple people play off of that same purchase, though they "prefer" if only one person plays at a time.

Granted, unless you have an "always-on" internet connection like cable, there is some degree of inconvenience to this. However if you have constant internet access, then the DRM itself becomes hidden beneath the same patching process that you would endure for any game - but totally without requiring physical medium, or even a CD key.

I think that if it were feasible for Shrapnel to use that model, it could work fantastically for them. However, any company that doesn't make the leap to a system like that, is going to be in some way hampered by their need for some sort of DRM. One thing that I learned early on, with the Commodore 64, was that no DRM at all meant free copies for all. I was just a kid, but I learned very quickly that most games kind of sucked, and that I could never afford to wade out there and figure out which ones I liked, by simply buying every new $40 title out there.

Personally, I think that cost of media should relate to usage. So maybe it only cost you $5 to download something, then there would be an ongoing "subscription" fee, probably with a hardcap (if not a softcap that drops to a few pennies at the late end) at the eventual full price of the media. So if you grab a new game, and you find out that it is either incredibly shallow, incredibly short, or unappealing to you, you are not out a large sum of money, and as long as you use their web dialogue to uninstall, you won't pay full price for the title, and you can pick something else with relatively little risk. This would enable two factors to change the quality of games we see on the market - first it legitimizes the concept of "software returns", where your $5 initial download fee is like your restocking fee, but you aren't forced to eat a $60 loss for the worst game ever, and second it shifts the focus away from flashy, but stupidly short games, as if 90% of your players are just done with the game in a week, you will stop earning revenue very fast whereas a game with long term playability like Dominions would generate an ongoing revenue stream for years.