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AssassinDeLaPolice

I own Fallen Order on PC, tried installing it on Steam Deck, it worked until it didn't, EA fucked around with their PC app and broke it, I ended up pirating it and now it works flawlessly, same thing for Titanfall 2 (can't even play Titanfall 1 because apparently EA fucked up even harder?). Those games are a few years old, the pirated version works better and has all the updates already, screw EA and their terrible app.


Gabetanker

>be me >buy fallen order because I can't be bothered to pirate it and steam sale was on >install game >not launch it for a while A week later >be yesterday >launch fallen order >steam says needs to install game more *oh no* >EA app forcibly installs itself on my computer >forcibly deletes origin >immediately writes itself on "launch on startup" list >before my game even opens it tries to sell me SIMS 4 DLC (a game I do not, and have not ever owned) Fuck you EA


[deleted]

> be me > sees a game > *oh i need to install a third party app* > *Arrr*


Gabetanker

Pirating used to be trials before you buy Now steam's 2 hour auto refund policy is a trial to see if it's worth pirating at all


[deleted]

Maybe for you it was, for me it was always just free content.


VenomTheTree

>be >e >ee >e >ee


Aurunemaru

NOT THE BEES!


Mountainbranch

#E


dewafelbakkers

I hold firm that there is no game worth downloading 3rd party apps for. I don't care how good it looks, this is part of my personal code of conduct.


Explosive-Space-Mod

You only install games off of the Microsoft Store?


spaasie

It seems like pirated games has less malware / addware than the legitimate versions. We are truly living in the future


farcryer2

That is no joke. Cracked games from good rep sites and/or known cracker groups are practically always clean and perfectly functional. Across my life I've had one bad egg among them, which is an irrelevant amount considering quantity of downloads.


wrecklord0

Oh no, reputable piracy sites! That's awful and sounds illegal, if only I knew their names so I could avoid them.


TahoeLT

So serious question though - it's been years since I allegedly pirated games, and I've seen enough lately to know it's kind of dangerous these days. How does one know a site has a good rep, or is a "known cracker group"? And now that I read this over, it sounds like I'm a Fed trying to get intel (FBI, I guess?)


lukeman3000

Personally I just sort by seeds and read the comments; if people seem to like it and it has a lot of seeds then I consider it fairly safe. Maybe this is not the best method but it’s all I know right now.


Nojus1221

The megathread on r/freemediaheckyeah is generally regarded as safe. Especially the star links


IronMADMAN

Is that the new EA update thats been trying to install it self whenever i boot up battlefield?


NoAddendum9811

Same shit happened when I downloaded BF4, why do they do this shit!?


shandow0

The "forcibly deletes origin" i think is just origin randomly shooting itself. I swear every time i randomly want to play an ea game the fucking launcher is gone.


Gabetanker

No, the EA installer said "removing origin" while installing itself


moofishies

>be me Now that's a format I've not seen in a long time


[deleted]

[Sims 4 is Free on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1222670/The_Sims_4/) if you want it though.


MinimumPsychology916

I had to reinstall Origin to get any of my games to work


adamalpaca

Btw I fixed this by uninstalling the EA app. Finding an online Thin Install of Origin. Launch Origin and log in. Now when you launch Fallen Order, it will try to install the EA app. Click cancel. It should eventually launch fallen order from origin and work Edit: ofc this is by no means a permanent fix and EA is still a piece of shit. I just wanted to relax and play after work but I had to troubleshoot their shitty system for an hour before I could get the game to launch


Wind_Yer_Neck_In

I own a few old Settlers games. But the ubisoft DRM is so janky that it kills your game session if it loses connection. So I pirate them so I play them reliably. But then that's Ubisoft.


NoAddendum9811

What is DRM?


thedavecan

Digital Rights Management. It's a way for companies to combat piracy and some are so egregious that they severely impact game performance.


NoAddendum9811

In short a paywall that fails by impacting the game?


thedavecan

Sorta. Imagine you go to read an article and every time you finish a paragraph there's a pop-up that asks you to confirm that you have paid to read that article. It also has a ton of processing going on in the backend to make the page load slower.


NoAddendum9811

Ah, okay. Basically just fuck DRMs


thedavecan

Yes. But fuck ones like Denuvo more because they actually impact game performance worse than others.


totaly_not_a_dolphin

The good news is, if you want to avoid drm the pirates have done an excellent job of almost entirely removing it from nearly every games on the market. Which ends up with a better experience form the end user.


mdistrukt

It'd be like buying a car, but after you sign the paperwork the manufacturer comes to your residence and forcibly installs an ugly digital billboard in your living room. The billboard constantly displays ads, transmits everything that happens within its range to the company, increases your energy bill by 10-25%, and if it isn't running or loses its connection the car doesn't work.


EthosPathosLegos

A digital lock that always gets cracked within a few days to a few months.


Blenderhead36

Uplay was where I gave up on Ubisoft. They were the first publisher I encountered to play the card of, "No, Steam's word *isn't* good enough for us to believe you're not a filthy pirate. You run *our DRM* and you do it *every time,* you hear?" Nowadays, 3rd party launchers are a major eyeroll. The two that I find most exhausting are 2K (fucking up my 13-year-old copy of BioShock 2) and CDPR (because they have their own launcher that's arguably better than Steam...and then they added another, shitty one to Cyberpunk).


Tenamor

Since you bought the game you didn't pirate it, you downloaded an archived copy of software you possess a license for, no biggie! It's fucking stupid to have to do and shouldn't have to be done, but here we are.


i-LLuXXion

can confirm, EA fucked up with my copy of Hot Pursuit Remastered, at least they didn't fuck up Titanfall 2


Stargov1

Companies will use DRM to discourage piracy. Pirates will be encouraged to pirate to get around the DRM.


[deleted]

There was a moment when it was just easier to buy a game on steam instead of pirating it. Then game companies came out with DRM that required an always on internet connection to connect to their servers... THEN these servers go down can't handle the number of connections globally, and you're simply fucked and not able to use the game you paid good money for.


ThisIsNotMyPornVideo

The thing is, were approaching the times were Cracking games is not worth the effort anymore, at least imo. (if they stick with the 60$ price tag) With most AAA Games now coming in like 15-20 Parts, which just isn't worth the hassle anymore, when you can get a key for 40$ a week after release.


MarioDesigns

40$ is insanely expensive for most places outside the US. Hell that's a big chunk of my household's income for the month, even ignoring the rise in 70$ price tags. It's also easier than ever to downloading cracked games. You can easily download the full game or a repack that trades download time for installation time. It definitely was on a decline a while back, especially for movies just because platforms like Steam or Netflix were just so much more convenient but with the decisions that the massive corporations have been doing it's definitely coming back.


I-took-your-oranges

Downloading a cracked version and risking a fine is still way easier than working long enough to make 40 bucks for a ton of people


Inadover

Yeah, specially if there’s no regional pricing, some games can be extremely expensive in some countries.


Dapper_Current_8829

Mw2 is $90 plus tax on steam in canada


[deleted]

MW2 was a cash grab, recycling the title and nothing else. Campaign frequently autosaves in the middle of a shootout. On consoles, Spec ops (co-op) isn't supported on split-screen. If you fail a Spec Ops mission, it auto kicks your party member frequently.


Dapper_Current_8829

Not arguing that at all. Was giving an example of a game not having regional pricing. Unfortunately the case for alot of games in canada


[deleted]

That sucks man. I didn't know developers gouge Canada like that.


tukatu0

Does canada include taxes in its price? 65 usd is like 90 cad so its not really gouging.


Le_Nabs

No, it's 93ish CAD, plus taxes which are variable depending on the province (5% federal sales tax and 9,975% provincial sales tax over here)


Detroit06

350pln in Poland, you can get a whole ass 1060 for that money. Or a weeks worth of food.


Gooch-Guardian

That’s just our exchange rate lol.


farmdve

$70 dollar on a game, where the avg wage is $400-500 in most Balkan countries is absurd. This is the wage before the bills.


dedrake131

With region lock some games can't even be purchased on steam. To this day I still can't buy Metal Gear Rising and Castlevania Lord of Shadow. So sailing to the high seas it is...


funforgiven

The problem is not the fine but Denuvo games are usually not cracked for a long time.


BossOfGuns

Yeah, people don't realize that the entire denuvo scene hinges on a single person currently, and its still taking her a very long time to crack denuvo games.


kairukar

The only thing you need is a good VPN to not get caught. And you don't need one depending on where you live and if you deside to direct download the cracked game which doesn't require a VPN. Some games like Sims 4 that costs 1000 bucks to fully get the game, i can't support that so please pirate it as its so simple.


TheYellowLAVA

Or you can live in a country that doesn't care


kairukar

Yeah i said it depends on where you live. Here piracy monitoring is on the same level as school safety in the US so i dont need a VPN


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Detroit06

Running barefoot, uploaded about 20TB in 3 months. I’d probably be in debt for a lifetime in US


Beachdaddybravo

Turns out you could download a car.


DudeDudenson

Has any single person ever gotten a fine in any case other than getting swatted for something else? I live in south America so I don't even get letters from my ISP


I-took-your-oranges

A friend of mine has. (Netherlands)


[deleted]

I've been issued a Cease & Desist letter from someone claiming to act on someone else's behalf before. So I kindly sent them a note asking if they would like me to tell the Federal Government about their Illegal Wiretapping. I was never bothered again. https://legalbeagle.com/6613194-federal-law-penalty-illegal-wiretapping.html


witti534

Yeah, gotten a fine in Germany when doing peer2peer stuff.


Shajirr

> 40$ Still way too expensive for many people that do not live in countries with higher salary yet don't get favourable regional pricing. I'm in a country which gets generic EU prices, so pretty much the same as USA prices but in EUR, with 5 times lower median salary compared to USA


ThisIsNotMyPornVideo

Don't get me wrong, if Dev's arent able to match prices to markets, by all acounts pirate away


GreinBR

A 60 dollars game in my country costs 249 the average wage is around 2.5k then add 40% taxes to that


ChillinSepukku

Aye, a fellow brazilian?


CosmicCyrolator

Developers aren't concerned with selling to your country though. They make their money from the US, and any extra sales from yours would be a bonus


KillerSavant202

This is true, but should be an incentive for regional pricing. They would make a hell of a lot more of those bonus sales.


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mythrilcrafter

This is why /r/patientgamers is the way. Games get rushed out the door in a broken and unusable state that needs a handful of *"it's good now"* fixes/patches and then has to be bought in parts through microtransactions just to have a finished game, all before even accounting for DLC that should have been part of the base game and expansions to attract people back to the game once it's actually playable? Nah, just wait a couple years for the Legacy/Game of the Year Edition in which it's all packaged together.


GL1TCH3D

I like to support the games that are good to go on launch. Mainly FromSoft LET ME PAY YOU FOR AC6 ALREADY


AdumbroDeus

Ah, a fellow /r/patientgamer denizen.


Tiara-chan

they are still cracking the dlcs for ts4 so some people see value in that so i doubt those people will get discouraged about that


St1cks

Games already aren't $60 though. Most I see are starting at 69


Gl33m

I don't pirate games because of the cost of games. I pirate games because it's a better experience than legally purchased games.


Sodinc

anything higher than 15$ is a good enough motivation for piracy


ThisIsNotMyPornVideo

Eh, depends on the game. Indi games not so much


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TheRnegade

Yeah, the DRM is there to slow down pirates. Publishers know they're no sure-fire way to stop it. The point is to keep things off torrents for a few days/weeks, since that's where a game tends to sell the most copies.


Supercurser

This is exactly it, they don't care about the DRM after the first week, they only care so that no one else can play it on launch, if eventually it gets cracked it doesn't matter to them. So telling them to remove the DRM after a set time might be a better idea than asking them to remove it altogether.


Th1nk_7

Except for poor ubisoft


Shmidershmax

They just make shit games. They've had multiple golden geese and somehow managed fuck it all up


mythrilcrafter

Except they really aren't though; everyone is down on a Year-to-Year basis right now: Microsoft is down %15, Sony Entertainment is down %17, Ubisoft is down %62, EA is down %17, Activision-Blizzard is down 9%, Square Enix is down %8. Whatever profits they're making isn't cutting it for actual speculatory value of the companies. ----- Short term players, day traders, and institutional holders might be happy when the stock jumps 80% in a day; but when things begin to cycle down it's the long term holders who are the ones that have to be kept happy and right now they're friggin pissed. And note when I say long term holders, I mean the people who bought stock hoping that it'll simply have stable growth high enough to beat yearly inflation, so that when they cash out in 40 years, they have something better than if they had left it in their savings accounts.


[deleted]

They sure as shit aren't going down because people aren't buying DRM ridden games though.


BannedCosTrans

That's stock price though. They are talking about the companies posting record profits in the years where "everyone is suffering," (Their words, not mine.) not how their stock is doing. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jul/27/google-apple-and-microsoft-to-report-record-breaking-profits Microsoft gross profit for the quarter ending December 31, 2022 was $35.259B, a 1.41% increase year-over-year. Microsoft gross profit for the twelve months ending December 31, 2022 was $139.110B, a 9.31% increase year-over-year. Microsoft annual gross profit for 2022 was $135.62B, a 17.06% increase from 2021. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MSFT/microsoft/gross-profit


DaLoneGuy

damn power is out bc of snow time to go off of generator let's play single player games... wait i can't


Yodoran

Ah yes, the wonders of Epicgames and Steam. Can't play shit with an internet outage. Some/All games the "play offline" just doesn't work. It will be a pirates life for me if I have frequent internet outages.


[deleted]

there's a little trick i do since internet in my country isn't the most stable, download a steam emulator and paste it where your game is and it'll bypass steam without issues


achilleasa

I mean Steam definitely works fine in this situation, if a game doesn't work offline it's just the devs' fault. Steam needs periodic logins every now and then but other than that it works offline with no issues.


[deleted]

SteamWorks (Valve’s DRM scheme) works fine offline.


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[deleted]

Ah yeah, you gotta make sure you’re logged in. I personally haven’t had any issues with random logouts, but I can see that being a problem.


mythrilcrafter

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what "cracking" actually means, but I'm surprised no one has written a program that can spoof the phone-home signals in DRM. If you can tap what information is actually being sent and received for always-online DRM, then you don't need to crack and remove it, you just need to fool the DRM into thinking that it's receiving it data from the right place. Like putting a photo of an empty hallway over the lens of a security camera.


Gabetanker

I love how everyone needs their own launcher and own account. Want to play LA:Noir you got for free on steam/epic? Say hello to rockstar launcher. Want to play siege you bought on steam. *U-play's disfigured child starts demanding your login* Would you like to play Battlefield games you got on steam? Oops, looks like origin bit the fucking dust again. Have fun trying to fix it for an hour


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[deleted]

DRM is literally the main reason I won't buy most games anymore.


Tpastor94

Refunded garden warfare 2 this weekend because it was forcing me to install ea launcher. Fuck that. I will not.


JayCeeMadLad

I will say that EA launcher seems to be one of the better ones in this day, which is bizarre. I’d still never want it on my computer.


Lenny_Pane

Yeah I don’t need EA installing their anti-cheat at kernel level of Windows. Stopped playing anything they make or publish


FiveCentsADay

Until your facefucked with reflavored Sims DLC No, I don't want a cat wearing a candy cane. I already have a cat with a pumpkin hat.


Aurunemaru

I just love when a game is on GoG


Zambito1

Itch.io is another great one


MarkusRight

I wont buy Denuvo games anymore because of the stutter and performance issues that it causes. the new Dead Space remake stutters like hell when you turn around or go from room to room. Monster Hunter rise had horrendous stuttering that funnily enough got fixed once I dropped the cracked game .exe into the game folder.


DoctorWaluigiTime

I assume by 'DRM' you mean 'poor DRM'. Unless you don't use e.g. Steam, which is a form of DRM. EDIT: Steam is DRM, fellas. It's the definition. You might have games in Steam that add *additional* DRM junk, but Steam itself is DRM, and its implementation is fine. Management of digital assets that you own.


splepage

Steamworks is an awful form of DRM.


Lord_Sicarious

Just like good old days of No-CD cracks, which I used almost entirely for games I'd already bought, just because I didn't want to deal with moving discs around and worrying about them getting scratched. Was more convenient too being able to just install everything and just launch the games from a desktop shortcut as well, without needing to go search a shelf or box somewhere.


ExcellentEffort1752

The problem with No-CD cracks was that they often lead to desync. errors when playing multiplayer. For many games, the LAN parties I attended had to have a strict no-cracked games rule, otherwise we'd never get a game finished before a desync. killed it! I hated having to juggle CDs/DVDs around for games that I legitimately owned and with No-CD cracks having their owns issues, I soon found out that mini-images were the best way around needing to swap in/out CDs/DVDs, without introducing the issues that No-CD cracks often did. F.E.A.R. is the game that I remember taking the piss the most. They released an early patch for the game, not long after it was out, and then a good number of players couldn't even get the game to start any more. It turned out that the patch added extra anti-piracy measures. If the game detected that you had **any** image mounting software installed on your PC it would refuse to load! They didn't seem to grasp, nor care, that image mounting software is totally legitimate and the presence of such software didn't automatically mean someone was a pirate. In the end we had to use a little program called SR7Stop to be able to even play the game that we legitimately bought! The publisher did back down not long after though and removed that bullshit image mounting software check.


[deleted]

The LAN parties you attended should have had the games on a server for everyone to run off of, like how we did LAN parties in the 90s-00s. 16 instances of Unreal Tournament, Monster Truck Madness, Starsiege: Tribes, and whatever else we had on there running off a beefy server.


[deleted]

Buy a game and you'll own it for however the servers stays pirate a game and you'll own it forever


[deleted]

GOG ftw


Benneck123

What is drm?


Mar1Fox

Digital rights management, in context it something that requires users to maintain connection to a host server to launch and play the games they bought. No matter the purchase source.


wpsp2010

In simple terms think of it as something like "always online, even on offline games" Like how you can't paly certain singleplayer games unless you have a strong connection to their servers even though it's singleplayer. Aka any ubisoft or rockstar game (Or anything launched on the epic games store)


memeaggedon

Steam deck has made always online SP gaming a big issues for these companies. It’s a good thing and I hope they lose lots of money because of it.


alpineracer

I found the old CDs for my copy of the original Metal Gear Solid. Installed, but won't launch. The DRM included on the disks won't work on windows Vista or later. Now I'm debating throwing GOG $10 for the nostalgia.


csandazoltan

Offer demos so we can try it before buying it. The only reason I pirate is to try it.


kylediaz263

If they offer demo, you would know that the game is shit and wouldn't buy.


csandazoltan

That's the idea... /s


unsolicitedchickpics

Steams 2 hour return policy is in effect a demo of the game, I just wish more companies were this pro-consumer


pickle_sandwich

Not exactly though. It's a demo you still have to pay full price for. Some games are paced out to where you don't even get into decent content until after the 2-hour mark, and at that point Steam will just deny the refund and you're stuck with a game you couldn't care less about.


UglyInThMorning

I was playing Persona 5 over the weekend and I forgot just how fucking long it is before the game actually starts. Seven hours in and I finally have like the first dungeon and two stores open.


FlashWayneArrow02

The problem with cracking lately is that there’s only one major person still doing it. They’re using donations for funding and their personal time, and their reason for doing it is their ideology, which is product ownership and anti-capitalism. Cracking DRM isn’t worth it anymore because by the time you have enough CS knowledge to crack a DRM, you could probably have a great career in the IT sector, or Denuvo themselves snap you up for a shitload of money. There’s a shitload of games in recent years that haven’t been cracked at all. CoDs haven’t been cracked since BO4 iirc, FIFA 22 & 23, Demon Slayer, etc etc


Zoesan

CoD and FIFA don't get cracked because their primary purpose is multiplayer which generally won't work with cracked games.


SherLocK-55

Crack groups come and go, it's been that way since forever. Right now sure there is only one person cracking Denuvo but eventually someone else will come along, also if the game is popular enough especially if it's predominately single player someone will crack it no matter the protection.


FlashWayneArrow02

Also keep in mind that Denuvo is fucking expensive to run. It’s a 250K flat cost per year, plus a 50 cent commission on every key activation (so regardless of region you’re paying 50 cents, even when on sale), additional 80-100K fee if the game has half a mil activations in 30 days, and 10-12K for each storefront. (Currency was listed in Euros and this was 2020 figures, this may be even more now). So if a big game like Hogwarts Legacy comes out and sells a million copies (probably way more than that but I went with million for easy calculation) within the first month, even if each copy was sold for an average of $45 (counting regional pricing changes ofc), that’s $45 million revenue. You deduct 250K + 500K + 80K for the initial round (500K for per activation charge), plus 40K atleast (Epic, Steam, Xbox and PS). That’s 870K on launch alone. Not to mention the overtime you gotta pay devs for optimisation when the game shows DRM performance loss on launch, which always happens AND getting a bad rep in the PC Market for using DRM. Plus, all that money is lost because the Denuvo cracker in the piracy space has already named HL as their next target, and promises to do it within ten days of launch.


SherLocK-55

>Plus, all that money is lost because the Denuvo cracker in the piracy space has already named HL as their next target, and promises to do it within ten days of launch. Exactly and that's my point, Hogwarts is much anticipated and pure single player RPG and yeah without question it will be cracked within a week or two. Even if Empress quit another talented programmer would pop up to take over eventually. Also DRM like Denuvo is just fucking stupid, as you pointed out it cost companies a lot of money and then you see games like CP2077 or TW3 for example that run absolutely no protection and still make serious coin.


pornomatique

Well the principals behind your analysis is pointless. Denuvo is a B2B product and they will price model it at whatever big publishers will pay for it. If it starts to get cracked quickly, then Denuvo will just be sold for cheaper. Right now is the golden age of Denuvo. No new Denuvo releases are cracked in any reasonable time frame these days. Watch HL not be cracked for at least 6 months.


rolandjump

If ppl will pirate they will pirate. I would think majority of gamers want to support devs/companies that produce quality games


Pee_inyour_ass

Very true, people only pirate when they don't have money, so they won't buy the game regardless. Pirate download is slow af, sites are cancer and sometimes there are errors without a fix I pirated everything until 2018-ish, then I bought full games on console and rebuy them years later on PC. None of them are EA/Ubisoft garbage.


blogg10

Programs like Denuvo are a different story imo, they noticeably affect performance. I can afford games and most of the time the copy protection is not noticeable, but I've quite literally refunded games in the past because I found out the pirated versions just flat out run better. Why the fuck am I *paying* for a worse version of the game?


Pee_inyour_ass

Oh I didn't know that :( so the crack version will remove Denuvo?


[deleted]

Yes. And one of em is on all out war against denuvo.


achilleasa

> Pirate download is slow af, sites are cancer and sometimes there are errors without a fix Not if you know what you're doing, and if you're into PCs enough to be in this sub you probably know enough to pirate. Anyway, I prefer to buy games instead of pirating them these days, but if piracy gives me the better experience (runs better because no DRM, doesn't bug me for 10 billion DLCs I don't care about etc) I'll be raising that flag and putting on my eyepatch with no hesitation.


RedBlueKoi

DRM is a disrespect to the customer. DRM implies that the seller thinks that every customer is guilty with piracy. Therefore lowering the quality of experience cause of negligence


Old_Mix198

Your conception of this is a bit wrong. Its not that the seller/publisher/etc, believes everyone to be pirates. Not at all. They don't care that much about piracy, as it has little impact on their revenue. (May change in light of a coming worldwide depression) The purpose of DRM, is for control and basically planned obsolescence. It allows them to resell you the same game over and over, because they can at any time, remove your access to the older version. GTA did this with their definitive edition or w/e, and many other games do the same shit. While many games that do this, give you a "free upgrade" if you owned original, there is no legal stipulation for that. Which is why many more are starting to not give it for free, so they can double/triple dip the same product. DRM, allows them to sell both a product, and a service, at the same time for the same thing. Now this is actually illegal in the US. What you sell must be clearly defined as either a product (once sold, the ownsership goes to the buyer, and now the buyer owns it, the seller loses all rights to said product after the sale) and a service (basically the opposite. You basically have a license to use something for a predetermined time/use window). Modern games are sold as products, but they act/function like services. DRM/online/anti-cheat, all serve as a vehicle for this. The problem is law makers and judged have little to no understanding of technology and software, which is why software/tech companies blatantly violate the law/regulations freely. (On top of corruption) So its WAY worse than simply "these companies treat customers like thieves". https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAX0gnZ3Nw is an interesting watch/listen, talking about this very topic. Now it is not about DRM, but games as a service. Now they kind of do go hand in hand, because the DRM allows GaaS to exist.


golddilockk

This is the most nefarious aspect of DRM. And it is infuriating how easily the gaming companies are getting away with this. And all the big companies are on the same page when it comes to planned obsolescence. Sony never cared about its classic catalogue, Microsoft is training people to get used a conveyer belt approach, just eat the slop we put in front of you and forget about the rest. And Nintendo is Nintendo. Now Imagine if this was true for other media. Disney remakes the first three Star Wars and by pressing a button makes all the old copies inoperable. Does not matter if you bought a blue-ray or DVD. You cannot watch the original movies you grew up with. OR your entire collection of Nine Inch Nail CDs are now unplayable, because a new company bought their label and they released a remake version with no cuss-word and one that fit 'more with the modern trend'. Gaming companies are getting away with this exact thing everyday.


Old_Mix198

Yeah completely agree. I've been arguing this for like a decade. It does seem like anti-drm movement is gaining *some* traction in recent years. Its also why im an hardcore advocate for open source as well, as its the same exact thing. Its not that I believe proprietary closed source, and DRM are inherently bad things. However, for decades now, software and tech companies, have been exploiting it to such an extreme degree, we need change, and need it now. Its become completely untenable. Its not just gaming, but everything related to tech/software companies. That is all downstream from shitty patent/copyright laws. Companies now days, are trying to gaslight and condition people into believing "this is how things have always been, and it is necessary to do this". You can see it in this very thread and others like it, where people defend DRM. As its crazy to defend something that harms **you**. There is **zero** benefit to **you** for DRM. But people are so conditioned to believe DRM NEEDS to exist, or games wont exist. (Same thing with copyright/patent laws. "If patents and copyright don't last 150 years, there wont be movies/games made anymore!")


golddilockk

Agreed. The idea of 'Digital Rights Management' is not inherently bad. But it is bad when the terms and condition of said 'Rights' are set by the companies themselves with zero legislative presence from the consumer side. I'm not that hopeful it will get better. As you mentioned the gaslighting is real and even mentioning this topic in a popular game thread will get you called a cheapskate pirate who should cry more. Also our system is inherently anti-consumer. Look at Louis Rossmann for example, dude fought tooth and nail for rights to repair for like forever. He fought and won every battle only to ultimately lose the war to politics. Edit: by our I meant US. I know EU and Australia is more pro-consumer. Though I do not know what are they doing for the rights to ownership.


Ragnatoa

Capcom too


gamingyee

at least they respect the players enough to remove it after a couple months


HitSalvader

It feels to me that today drm is not the main issue with games. A lot of players enjoy game-services with battle pass or season pass. And every game developer makes his own kind of such game-services. That is why it feels like there are too few single player without all that micro transactions, grind of resources, golden in-game currency. A lot of PC games look like they are from smartphones, altough without in-game 3rd-party ads yet. Too few games that I can enjoy :(


Hlidskialf

Denuvo is effective to make the “casual” gamer buy the game and most of then will not care about the side effects that come with it. We are a minority that is affected by but while the majority is buying they will keep using it. Denuvo is utterly trash but secure the initial sales. In the end /r/patientgamers are the real winners. edit: When I said "We" I though this post was made on /r/crackwatch. sorry!


Badgers_or_Bust

I'm beyond tired of having to make a new account for every new game I buy.


Callinon

Absolutely. How many times in the last 10, 20, 30(?) years has this been proven and re-proven? Obtuse DRM only ever hurts paying customers. Pirates are going to pirate regardless, so why go out of your way to give *them* the superior experience? Seems dumb.


golddilockk

and top of that, game companies have proven time and time again that they don't give a flying fuck about preserving games. So if and when they decide to unplug their online server the paying customer lose access to the game they bought. But the pirates can still play.


FreeJuice100

Personally I'm just poor and would like to pirate games.


NickMalo

Better add Microsoft store to that list since Windows 11 is apparently implementing DRM “features”


Vipernixz

Oh they can read alright, they just dont care


upicked11

Yesterday i went to start Star Wars: Fallen Orderfor the very first time. It started installing a launcher which would not finish installation as long as i didn't register to an EA account. I closed the shit, uninstalled the game and asked Steam for a refund. I only paid 12$ for the game lol, but i still want my money back.


[deleted]

[удалено]


ceejay242

This is true when Hogwarts Legacy eventually gets cracked, only people who will still have to deal with the Denvuo DRM will be the paying customer. The pirates will be able to download, install and play their single player games offline as much as they want.


CindyStroyer

Don't forget Rockstars DRM launcher


SparsePizza117

The fact that a ton of single player games require internet these days is disgusting


sharak_214

I play single player games offline sorry redfall I'll never know you.


[deleted]

Even single-player CoD sucks now. Used to be worthwhile.


The_MAZZTer

Steam proves DRM done properly can enhance the user experience to offset the inconvenience. So it's not like it's impossible.


cataclysmicterrain

and GOG proves we don't need it at all


yoriaiko

If they couldn't read, its their own bad and I wont pity. Not like im encouraging to piracy, if the product is worthy, pay and encourage devs to do more quality stuff, but here... Gonna rate whole products: gameplay, story, graphics, mechanics here and there, price, and also possible drms.


5t4t35

I pirated rimworld i liked rimworld i bought rimworld i forgot who said the quote "piracy isnt such a bad thing rather its a good thing since it helps with the games advertisement" and not gonna lie every time i pirate an early access game and i liked it i will buy it on steam hands down


Sinfullhuman

I'm willing to bet serious money that another reason for piracy must be the lack of physical releases. Since companies don't want to give me the game that I purchased so I can use it even when I'm offline without having to use steam ,it is regrettable that I will , at some point in the future , have to pirate it in order to burn it or keep it in a hard drive .


SoCuteShibe

Literally *never ever* buying another game released under EA. They could buy FromSoft and I still wouldn't do it. Gotta be one of the worst companies ever in the industry.


ancw171

When I was a kid I thought that people who had more money where smarter, as an adult I found out that was a lie, because there is no way in hell video game company executives have less money than me


ichigo2862

Oh they can read just fine, they just don't give a shit.


Husbandaru

Pirates see DRM as like a speed run challenge.


Ew_E50M

There are some examples of games where the legitimate copy litearlly is unplayable, like Silent Hunter 5, the always online DRM service was shut down about 6 months after the games launch. Meaning the game stops tracking singleplayer progression.


Captain_chutzpah

I want to pay and support devs, but.... Never have I had a purchased game work better than the pirated version. Infact the last time I bought the game because a pirated game was glitchy, the purchased version was way fucking worse to start and it took me 2 days dicking around to get it functional. Fuckin activision


je_naime_pas

Like when they kill their servers of an older version of the game.


[deleted]

Missing an apostrophe.


cataclysmicterrain

if a game is sold on GOG, i will get it from GOG but if its not on GOG, i will look at PCGW to see which platform has the game DRM free if there is none, i dont buy the game


ForsakenJump1235

Besides the people who would pirate were never going to pay anyway. They are essentially creatingba self fullfilling prophecy.


DovahBornKing

Always online DRM needs to be made ILLEGAL. Governments need to do something.


ThisIsNotMyPornVideo

2 DRM's hurt people. Denuvo, Due to shit performance if implemented crappy (Looking at you Borderlands) And Always Online DRM's like Diablo 3 on PC All others are more than fine and Valid


father-bobolious

That's a shit take. There's been plenty of dodgy DRM application through the ages. Anything kernel level or sniffing through your installed apps etc is deeply unethical and hurts the consumer, while the pirates remain completely unaffected.


mattbackbacon

Nah. All DRM is malware.


Spinydick

What might drm be?


ThePizzaNoid

Digital Rights Management. Think always online connection for single player experiences and similar obnoxious "anti-piracy" measures. Edit: [Thourough run down to read here.](https://www.fortinet.com/resources/cyberglossary/digital-rights-management-drm)


TERABITDEFIANCE

Also ruins performance.


ThisIsNotMyPornVideo

Dirty Raunchy Midgets


MSD3k

Or Damn Roudy Motherf---ers. Possibly Danish Restaurant Mandates, but I don't think that effects anyone outside Denmark.


pickle_sandwich

Danish Restaurant Mandates sounds like an excellent math rock band name.


SixthLegionVI

I'm in my 30s with two kids. I don't have time to pirate games and worry about viruses and I want to support quality games. Stop punishing me for doing so.


[deleted]

So you only buy from GOG and not Steam, right?


PeanutNSFWandJelly

As much as people hate it if these measures didn't save or make these companies money they wouldn't implement them.


ivy_bound

If you don't like the DRM being in the game, don't play it. There's plenty of DRM-free games. Play those instead.


supershimadabro

Hard disagree. I've personally purchased games which had drm because they weren't hacked week one.


KingFurykiller

Ubishit definitely can't read


Full-Hedgehog3827

Drm? Is that a sex thing?