Dear publishers and developers, an open letter.

[BloodRayne]

Dear Publishers and Game developers,

I hereby respectfully request you to refrain from using my $300 SATA DVD-Ram drive as a dongle for your software. In this open letter I will give you several arguments to show you that this is not part of an honest business plan and puts unnecessary stress on the hard- en software of your customers. In this open letter I will use the game 'Gears of War' as an example. But really, these arguments can be applied to nearly any game that uses my expensive hardware as dongle.

Having played Gears of War in the past without any hitches and remembering I had a fun time I tried to play it again recently. Unfortunately things did not go as planned as my original CD apparently has suffered from data loss in the last years as I keep receiving the following error, even after applying the latest patches:

DVD not found, please insert the original DVD in order play Gears of War

Let me state the obvious, it is the original DVD. It's just 3 years old. Now I wouldn't want to do anything illegal (like download a no-cd patch) as that could mean banning of my Live accounts (or worse trojans and viruses). So I had very little other options besides returning to the store. The store owner told me that he was not responsible for this kind of damage as it is not part of any warranty or other support program. So I went to the support department and made a support ticket and received no answer. Currently this means I cannot play this game anymore, just 3 years after I initially bought it and paid $75 for it (in Europe we unfortunately pay 30% more for game software, which is a whole different 'open letter' entirely).

But there are other issues as well with using my $300 SATA DVD-Ram station as a dongle.
The spin-up and frequent usage of the disc means extra wear and tear on my hardware and the original DVD. Because publishers have decided that it's good practice to spend as little money as possible on the actual discs themselves the protective layers become thinner and thinner with each new game meaning about half of the games I originally bought are unplayable due to my drive not reading them anymore, some of which are only several months old.

But there are more issues still.....
Because much of your DRM solutions see virtual drive managers as potential security flaws I cannot have PowerISO or any other virtual drive manager like Deamon Tools installed on my system. This means that when needed I cannot mount the images I receive via sites like MSDN to install new software, nor make backups of my own system. All because you needed to use my $300 SATA DVD-Ram station as dongle and subsequently disallow virtual drive manager software.

There are even more issues to consider here..
Namely, the lifespan of the games that use CD verification. If either the disc stops working, or the DRM implemented requires activation of new hardware this means extra measures need to be taken when DVD hardware is changed. Most often in such cases support departments ask the customer to reinstall the game, which takes time.

Because of all of the before mentioned reasons I hereby respectfully request you to reconsider your DRM measures to exclude this method of verification.

Sincerely,
A 35 year old Gamer who has been supporting your market since day 1.

[Wulff]

There are programs that mask the virtual stations from DRM solutions, making them appear as real physical drives to them.

Also, no-CD/DVD patches are highly unlikely to get you banned.

[BloodRayne]

Thanks, but that is not my question. I should not have to (keep) jump(ing) through hoops to make standard software work because of DRM measures. Don't bother me with DRM. Bother pirates with it.

Some European laws state that software should not interfere with other not related software due to competition laws. e.g. Who is to say that Securom doesn't make deals with Nero about their virtual drive software? It's illegal for that exact reason.

[Lola Lufnagle]

Why are you posting this on our forum?

[BloodRayne]

Because you seem like a bunch of fun people, or rather 'tits or it didn't happen?'.

No, srsly. I'm posting it here because this is a forum that developers/publishers do visit every so often and there are very little other options available for customers to voice their complaints about this. Another reason is that I am trying to find likeminded people who are also getting sick and tired of being duped by companies because of DRM.

Seems like the other forums it would be off-topic so this seems like the best place to post about it.

[Azura]

Give up and let the **** hit the fan. It will be more fun to watch when publishers see their tactics backfire.

[Sjosz]

Dear customer/consumer,

The people who decide these things don't read these kind of forums.
Sincerely,

Developer.

[Bi()ha2arD]

Just don't buy it if its DRM infected. Pirate it if you want to play it anyways.

[anaemic]

tl:dr

[Big-Al]

well welcome anyway... but WHY THE HELL DID YOU SPEND 300 BUX ON A DVD DRIVE????

[togmkn]

I agree with your post entirely. The fact that you have to have the game disc in to play when all of the required data is on the local disc is irritating. I use NoCDs for all of my games for the convenience. (Which is not illegal, by the way. It is a violation of the license agreement, but not against the law.)

I've been thinking about something. When a game is pirated, people are just downloading one copy of the game, then using some kind of keygen to get individual CD keys. But instead of having formulated CD keys that are accepted if they have the right pattern, what if each copy of the game required a specific key? The game would then only install if you entered the key that is printed on the game disc itself. Wouldn't that make it more difficult to pirate, while not having any inconvenience to the consumer?

*EDIT: Oh, and welcome to the forum. Hungry?

[Sine Deviance]

Originally Posted by togmkn

I've been thinking about something. When a game is pirated, people are just downloading one copy of the game, then using some kind of keygen to get individual CD keys. But instead of having formulated CD keys that are accepted if they have the right pattern, what if each copy of the game required a specific key? The game would then only install if you entered the key that is printed on the game disc itself. Wouldn't that make it more difficult to pirate, while not having any inconvenience to the consumer?

The logistics of having unique CD-key programming for every copy of the game you press is a total nightmare and it's just not feasible. That's why nobody has done it yet.

[togmkn]

Originally Posted by Sine Deviance

The logistics of having unique CD-key programming for every copy of the game you press is a total nightmare and it's just not feasible. That's why nobody has done it yet.

Yeah, I figured it'd be hard to mass produce.

[Big-Al]

i do like the way steam works!

[Kantham]

Originally Posted by Sjosz

Dear customer/consumer,

The people who decide these things don't read these kind of forums.
Sincerely,

Developer.

Yet hardly if they'll read their own.

[Azura]

Originally Posted by Sjosz

Dear customer/consumer,

The people who decide these things don't read these kind of forums.
Sincerely,

Developer.

Dear customer/consumer,

To translate this, the people who decide these things are only interested in your wallet and we're basically fecked.
Sincerely,

Another customer/consumer.

[KaL976]

Originally Posted by Big-Al

i do like the way steam works!

I was thinking the same thing however I haven't tried to move my steam bought 'virtual' games to a new machine yet.

Having to have a disc in the drive has always been a pet hate although according to the industry we won't be able to buy physical discs fairly soon anyway as they're keen to move to a purely online distribution model.

No need for DRM/dongles at that point.

[Capt.Toilet]

Originally Posted by KaL976

I was thinking the same thing however I haven't tried to move my steam bought 'virtual' games to a new machine yet.

Why would you need to move them? They are tied to your profile, therefore all you have to do is login, choose game and install. Thats what I did when I had to reformat my rig.

[FireSlash]

Sadly, there has to be SOME kind of protection, or friends will let friends borrow discs.

The amount of stress put on an optical drive for a quick spin up, read, and spin down is so absurdly minimal that it's not even worth mentioning. The fact that your disc failed is unfortunate, but rare.

I'd personally suggest buying games through Steam. It's not perfect, but it's DRM that has, so far, only made things easier for me. I'll let you do your own research to see if it's good for you personally, but in the mean time I suggest you contact Epic support, many companies will happily replace defective discs.

[SirTahngarth]

I was thinking the same thing however I haven't tried to move my steam bought 'virtual' games to a new machine yet.

Your steam games can be installed on as many machines as you like as often as you like. They are tied to your account, not the machine you install them on.

The steam method of DRM is stilL DRM obviously, but it is not invasive and generally does not interfere with the ability of a legitimate user to play his legally purchased game.