Xbox One One facet of DRM justification

[smerfy]

A lot of users here and elsewhere are upset about DRM. As a consumer as well, I can understand the frustration...but there are MANY legitimate justifications for DRM. Let's just look at one justification...Piracy. Most of you probably think that Piracy isn't a big thing...at least compared to the Dreamcast days. Well...yes and no. Here are some articles through the history of the Xbox 360 that will show that Piracy is a major issue.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122208-Microsoft-Threatens-Console-Bans-for-Gears-Pirates

"We are aware of isolated cases in which Gears of War: Judgment content has been propped on the web and are working closely with our security teams and law enforcement to address the situation immediately," said Microsoft in an official statement, adding that "playing pirated copies of games, such as Gears of War: Judgment, is a violation of the Xbox Live Terms of Use and will result in enforcement action, such as account and console bans."

http://gamer.blorge.com/2008/11/11/microsoft-bans-thousands-of-xbox-360-accounts/

Microsoft is cleaning house by banning every account that looks or even smells shady. This could be the reaction to the recent rise in piracy on the Xbox 360. Apparently, not only is Microsoft banning Xbox Live accounts, but also the physical Xbox 360, permanently.

Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2 are prime examples of recent big titles that hit the BitTorrent sites way before the actual release dates. Gears of War 2 is an EPIC Games owned IP but is a Microsoft published first party title. So you can imagine how mad the execs over at Microsoft were when they found out thousands of people were downloading Gears of War 2 for free from the web.

Ridiculous numbers of bans in 2009...

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/96037-Microsoft-Bans-up-to-One-Million-Xbox-Live-Accounts

The exact number of consoles affected by the sweep has been estimated at anywhere from 600,000 up to one million. While a million is still a pretty darn big number, considering that there are ~20 million Xbox Live users in the world, we're still dealing with less than 5% of the total - which would fit with Microsoft's claim that it had banned "a small percentage" of the total userbase.

According to Microsoft, the annual sweep detects consoles that have had the hardware modded to play pirated games, and adds them to a list which is then fed to Mr. Permaban. While the Xbox Live ban doesn't prevent the console from functioning normally offline, it does mean that if gamers want to play online multiplayer, they'll have to get a new Xbox Live account - and more importantly, a new Xbox 360.

Now that you see these articles, I'd like to show you an active pirating community. It has over 1 million registered members and has ISO access to hundreds, maybe even thousands of games along with tutorials on how to gain access:

http://www.xbox360iso.com/

Now you can find dozens of other articles, websites, forums about this topic, not only on xbox but on every platform...but let's end on an excerpt from a post by a 3d environment artist on Reddit:

What Microsoft is doing (limiting used sales, stopping piracy, allowing additional revenue streams) is as big a factor for next gen graphics as the new tech is. if you can't pay artists to fill the gigs of data with art, all that extra ram is just wasted. The industry is having a hard time paying 15 artists to fill up 200mb of data. How do you expect them to pay 35 artists to fill 8gb. The industry has to change to allow greater revenue, which allows more artists which allows more detail. Microsoft is trying to do that.

http://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/1gh0ja/some_perspective_from_a_3d_environment_artist/

Piracy is still a real problem in the console industry. Anyone who tells you it isn't isn't digging to the truth of the matter. If you were looking for a reason for DRM, this would be it right here. This is justification. Xbox live bans thousands of gamers every year, sometimes hundreds of thousands for pirating games. So think about that the next time someone says there is no justification for Microsoft's policies that they are implementing.

 

[VlaudTheImpaler]

Great job Smerf, it seems like every other day I hear stories of studios laying off workers and whole games just winding up in limbo with the development staff fired because the can't afford the development costs. But no one ever thinks about these people and their families. Most of us only think about ourselves and we critique the crap out of the smallest things in games not even stopping to think of the developers and if they had proper funding or not. These people are passionate about what they do and I don't think that they do this on purpose, as a fellow artist I understand releasing a product and never being fully satisfied with it. But sometimes you just don't have the time/resources to just keep going and deadlines are just really freaking stressful to meet, so sometimes something might get pushed out there that you aren't completely satisfied with but you have no other choice but to try and make some cash just to stay afloat.

This has gone on for years and it's only getting worse and since no one else seems to be trying to do anything about it, (I'm looking at you SONY) I am glad that MS has the balls to step forward and at least do SOMETHING to try to help the developers. I think that because of this we will see more innovation in games because developers will be less wary to try different things rather than just sticking with what they know will sell well. Furthermore, I would rather play a game that was created by people who had genuine fun creating it and not by people who were stressed and depressed the entire time constantly wondering if they are going to still have a job the next time they come in to work. Also, I believe that prices will go down eventually since now the developers will be making money over the entire lifespan of their product instead of just the first couple of months.

Most of all I think that because of this WE as gamers will benefit more than we can see at the moment. A lot of us just need to take off our hate/fear goggles, calm down, and look towards the future.

 

[smerfy]

Great job Smerf, it seems like every other day I hear stories of studios laying off workers and whole games just winding up in limbo with the development staff fired because the can't afford the development costs. But no one ever thinks about these people and their families. Most of us only think about ourselves and we critique the crap out of the smallest things in games not even stopping to think of the developers and if they had proper funding or not. These people are passionate about what they do and I don't think that they do this on purpose, as a fellow artist I understand releasing a product and never being fully satisfied with it. But sometimes you just don't have the time/resources to just keep going and deadlines are just really freaking stressful to meet, so sometimes something might get pushed out there that you aren't completely satisfied with but you have no other choice but to try and make some cash just to stay afloat.

This has gone on for years and it's only getting worse and since no one else seems to be trying to do anything about it, (I'm looking at you SONY) I am glad that MS has the balls to step forward and at least do SOMETHING to try to help the developers. I think that because of this we will see more innovation in games because developers will be less wary to try different things rather than just sticking with what they know will sell well. Furthermore, I would rather play a game that was created by people who had genuine fun creating it and not by people who were stressed and depressed the entire time constantly wondering if they are going to still have a job the next time they come in to work. Also, I believe that prices will go down eventually since now the developers will be making money over the entire lifespan of their product instead of just the first couple of months.

Most of all I think that because of this WE as gamers will benefit more than we can see at the moment. A lot of us just need to take off our hate/fear goggles, calm down, and look towards the future.

You're absolutely right. Developers/publishers have somehow been made into the bad guy in this situation and it's really disheartening to see it get to this point.

Development costs a lot. Building engines from scratch for AAA titles aren't cheap. But there's so much talk right now about how it's the publisher/developer's fault for failing. No. There's a lot they can do to bring down cost, sure, but it's not like we're helping out are we?

Every attempt to protect their product is met with disdain, hatred, and even boycotting. Makes me glad I'm not a dev.

 

[Esperahol]

Sorry, no I don't agree with this. You are taking the position that piracy is what is tanking developers rather than shoddy business practices. Is piracy a problem? Sure, but that's like saying Hollywood is suffering because I can watch a film on YouTube. Even if I and a million other people watch YouTube films instead of going to the theaters that is only potentially a lost of 12 million. I say potentially, because there is no guarantee that I would ever have watched the film in theaters. Movies cost too much for most people to see most films and thus many films lose upward of 30% of potential watchers right there.

It's the same way with video games - you have a new game at $60 dollars. Let's say the publisher gets an easy 50%, the retailer gets their 35%, and then the dev team gets 15% to spilt as best they can. [And yes I'm making this percentage up, but stay with me]. So already the dev team is getting screwed, not by the players but by the publisher - and consumer piracy has nothing to do with that. Anyway so if a million games are so that's 60,000,000 dollars which ends up with being -13,000,000 after the cost of production are taken care of. So dev team gets nothing, but then again neither those the publisher or the retailer. You could say that is because of piracy or you could say that given a choice between Untried IP and Call of Duty 4000 with both being at 60 bucks... most folks went with the game they knew.

And that's the real problem - not piracy, but getting gamers sufficiently invested in a game as to put out a fair bit of money for something they've never tried. DRM is not going to save dev teams or make life easier for them; it just means that even fewer folks are going to get the chance to experience their work and so become invested in them. A dev team that can get folks to like them and their work, is a dev team with fewer worries - team ICO, Grasshopper, etc. Many of the folks I now get 1st day I originally became invested in via used games I picked up on the cheap. So no they didn't get an initial pay-off from my funds, but they recouped that on later releases.

And that's my two cents.

 

[FordGTGuy]

Sorry, no I don't agree with this. You are taking the position that piracy is what is tanking developers rather than shoddy business practices. Is piracy a problem? Sure, but that's like saying Hollywood is suffering because I can watch a film on YouTube. Even if I and a million other people watch YouTube films instead of going to the theaters that is only potentially a lost of 12 million. I say potentially, because there is no guarantee that I would ever have watched the film in theaters. Movies cost too much for most people to see most films and thus many films lose upward of 30% of potential watchers right there.

There is a giant problem with this argument and that is that movies not only have multiple forms of revenue but also a constant revenue stream over time. This is not true for games which have a single revenue stream on consoles with the current system.

It's the same way with video games - you have a new game at $60 dollars. Let's say the publisher gets an easy 50%, the retailer gets their 35%, and then the dev team gets 15% to spilt as best they can. [And yes I'm making this percentage up, but stay with me]. So already the dev team is getting screwed, not by the players but by the publisher - and consumer piracy has nothing to do with that. Anyway so if a million games are so that's 60,000,000 dollars which ends up with being -13,000,000 after the cost of production are taken care of. So dev team gets nothing, but then again neither those the publisher or the retailer. You could say that is because of piracy or you could say that given a choice between Untried IP and Call of Duty 4000 with both being at 60 bucks... most folks went with the game they knew.

The problem here that you are forgetting is that a game doesn't start making money until the money spent to make it, which came out of the publishers pocket, is made back which is hard to do with the current system and is also why there have been many developer closings in this generation.

And that's the real problem - not piracy, but getting gamers sufficiently invested in a game as to put out a fair bit of money for something they've never tried. DRM is not going to save dev teams or make life easier for them; it just means that even fewer folks are going to get the chance to experience their work and so become invested in them. A dev team that can get folks to like them and their work, is a dev team with fewer worries - team ICO, Grasshopper, etc. Many of the folks I now get 1st day I originally became invested in via used games I picked up on the cheap. So no they didn't get an initial pay-off from my funds, but they recouped that on later releases.

And that's my two cents.

Yes it will, it's clear you do not have a proper understanding of how the gaming industry works right now. Not only is the current system hurting publishers and developers it's hurting consumers that want certain games back. Why do you think games like Blur failed miserably even though they didn't sell that badly?

Please read this:

http://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/1gh0ja/some_perspective_from_a_3d_environment_artist/

 

[lindbergh]

Ahh, to he'll with all this. Are developers experiencing a net loss? No. That's why they still have the ability to make games. I'm not supporting piracy but the measures that Microsoft are implementing seem a tad too much. I may be short sighted on this issue but I can't help but just look at the side of the consumer. I won't purchase something that gives me a lot of restrictions here and there. If Microsoft doesn't let up, I'll just probably have to give up on the system.

 

[FordGTGuy]

Ahh, to he'll with all this. Are developers experiencing a net loss? No. That's why they still have the ability to make games. I'm not supporting piracy but the measures that Microsoft are implementing seem a tad too much. I may be short sighted on this issue but I can't help but just look at the side of the consumer. I won't purchase something that gives me a lot of restrictions here and there. If Microsoft doesn't let up, I'll just probably have to give up on the system.

Developers don't experience anything it's the publishers and when the publishers barely make any money or lose money on a game developed they will kill that game or the developer for good.

Why do you think publishers fire people after a game is created? Because they don't have a revenue stream to keep these guys hired until a new game is invested in.

 

[BlackSolaris]

I just think that DRM was never a good idea, specially intrusive as this one. Loyal costumers should never suffer for what pirates may or may not do with console, and what Microsoft is missing is that some people will end up missing the Xbox One because of how many limitations that thing is getting, which is a shame.

 

[FordGTGuy]

I just think that DRM was never a good idea, specially intrusive as this one. Loyal costumers should never suffer for what pirates may or may not do with console, and what Microsoft is missing is that some people will end up missing the Xbox One because of how many limitations that thing is getting, which is a shame.

DRM is a great idea it keeps the game industry from folding in on itself.

Unlike a car you can't just copy it so music, videos and games need DRM to stop how easy it is to exploit them.