nordlead said:
they inhibit casual piracy. Take your average consumer. They go into the store and buy a game. They want their friend to have a copy of the game. With decent DRM it prevents them from making a disc copy, or running without the DVD or installing. This successfully stopped piracy, and didn't hurt the consumer. However, this upper level of DRM only stops serious hacker for a few weeks tops, and then everyone downloads the torrents or cracks. This also stops those who know about torrents and stuff, but don't bother with it. However, the kind of DRM that they impliment does hurt the general consumer who bought the software. However, sucessfully stopping piracy for a single week could bring in thousands of extra sales, as the same people who pirate games aren't always the patient type and want the game now (or 2 weeks early for that matter). So, while I am against piracy, I am also against overly complicated DRM that can easily be cracked anyways. You'd think these large companies would hire some of the hackers to test out their DRM before bothering to even include it with their software. |
Le me quantify: I was referring to this type of DRM. A simple disc check etc might technically qualify as a form of DRM, but when I refer to DRM as such I am referring to the digital rights "management" aspect. Management implying a more invasive system that well.. attempts to "manage" how the users consume the product. I suppose its all sematics, and I may not be making proper usage of the language here, but yes, in a nutshell I more or less agree with your assessment.
