Dear publishers and developers, an open letter.

FireSlash said:

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.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I disagree. It's not a question of spin up or spin down the problem but repeated access to different parts of a disc. There's already enough wear and tear caused by loading on disc content when it should be cached but it's even worse if the drive has to zip from one part of the disc to another to find traces of the copy protection. This is especially the case when the protective layer starts to get worn and error correction starts to kick in. And contrary to what you're saying, the fact that protected discs don't respect standards means that they will fail earlier given the same conditions.

FireSlash said:

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

Click to expand...

CD key protection is fine with me.

Azura said:

Sorry, I disagree. It's not a question of spin up or spin down the problem but repeated access to different parts of a disc. There's already enough wear and tear caused by loading on disc content when it should be cached but it's even worse if the drive has to zip from one part of the disc to another to find traces of the copy protection. This is especially the case when the protective layer starts to get worn and error correction starts to kick in. And contrary to what you're saying, the fact that protected discs don't respect standards means that they will fail earlier given the same conditions.

Click to expand...

Ok, still not getting your point. Ok, so every time you start the game, your optical drive has to spin up, read a few random sections from the disc, and spin down. Once. The drive does this every time you boot, and every time any random application feels the need to peek at your CD drive (like explorer every time you open 'My Computer'. If your drive is really so frail that it can't take this kind of repeat use, maybe you should reconsider which brand you purchased. You DO realize that this is what the drive is designed for, right?

Maybe I'm just in the bizarro zone, but I've got a closet full of old optical drives that have seen tons of use over the years in this fashion and even worse. None of them have failed. Not even the cheapy Microcenter Special freebie drive has failed, and this is during the years when CD drives were even spun up and down as needed during gameplay. Yeah, modern optical drives are a bit more complex, but not radically so. I have one that won't reliably burn anymore, but that's unrelated to your complaint.

The only thing that's ever failed on my optical drives is the damn disc tray opening mechanism. Like right now I hit the open button on my dvd drive and it just clicks but doesn't slide open. Third time's a charm though.

Capt.Toilet said:

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.

Click to expand...

Yep. Even better was when I was at my in-laws for xmas last year and dl'd L4D onto their computer on a whim and was able to play. Being able to play anywhere on anycomputer so long as it's up to snuff and connected to the internet is yet another reason Steam is the greatest thing since ever.

I'm also amused by the whole reading a disk breaks my dvdrom argument, however. It's pretty bad. I'm with Fireslash on the argument.

~Jason

Sine Deviance said:

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.

Click to expand...

Actually that could all go away if they make the switch to USB flash storage. Also since it's a writeback format, you wouldn't need to install DRM on the computer -- as the USB key itself could handle all the authentication.

Terrible solution, true -- but it is possible.

USB mass storage drives arent made for constant read/write operations. They wear down quickly.

FireSlash said:

Ok, still not getting your point. Ok, so every time you start the game, your optical drive has to spin up, read a few random sections from the disc, and spin down. Once. The drive does this every time you boot, and every time any random application feels the need to peek at your CD drive (like explorer every time you open 'My Computer'. If your drive is really so frail that it can't take this kind of repeat use, maybe you should reconsider which brand you purchased. You DO realize that this is what the drive is designed for, right?

Click to expand...

The random reading isn't a problem in itself. It's when the disc has "aged" a bit and there's a certain amount of surface damage that becomes a problem. Either the game fails to recognize the disc or it causes a series of repeated reads in an attempt to find the modified sectors. Also, depending on the copy protection, the disc could be verified on each access which can cause some needless reading if content is restricted to a disc. This goes beyond the polling that explorer does when accessing media. Having checked life expectancy of leds, that shouldn't be a problem as they should go to 50000 hours but the same can't be said of the cheap electronics in the rest of the drive. Empirical experience from the cave of ali baba you have in your closet may say that drive failure is unlikely but that might not reflect the same experience other people are getting.

Azura said:

Empirical experience from the cave of ali baba you have in your closet may say that drive failure is unlikely but that might not reflect the same experience other people are getting.

Click to expand...

I'll go ahead and reverse this actually. Show me some data that says drives are croaking left and right due to excessive wear. Since half of your argument is on drive wear, surely you've got some kind of evidence to back that claim up.

As for the discs themselves, that's still up in the air, but it's generally accepted that the life of the disc will, under proper care, exceed the life of anything that can read it. Writable discs are an entirely different story, but 'disc rot' is generally only an issue in substandard discs, defective discs, or ones which have been poorly kept. There is no practical wear on the disc from being used.

http://www.itl.nist.gov/iad/894.05/docs/CDandDVDCareandHandlingGuide.pdf and http://www.uni-muenster.de/Forum-Bestandserhaltung/downloads/iraci.pdf are interesting reads on the disc life subject.

My netbook does not have an optical drive. I can plug one in to install something but there's no way I'm going to lug around a 5 1/4 inch PATA DVD drive, a USB adapter, a power adapter and a wall socket to play games on it.


And no, getting a mobile USB powered drive just for dongle purposes is not an option either.
Currently I don't play games on my netbook. If the need ever crosses a certain limit there's only one way how that will work.

No, I don't mean Steam.

FireSlash said:

I'll go ahead and reverse this actually. Show me some data that says drives are croaking left and right due to excessive wear. Since half of your argument is on drive wear, surely you've got some kind of evidence to back that claim up.

Click to expand...

I have a dead Toshiba here that hardly qualifies as frail. Oh, and the drive on my Macbook Pro doesn't sound very healthy. Exceptions that confirm the rule ?

As for the discs themselves, that's still up in the air, but it's generally accepted that the life of the disc will, under proper care, exceed the life of anything that can read it. Writable discs are an entirely different story, but 'disc rot' is generally only an issue in substandard discs, defective discs, or ones which have been poorly kept. There is no practical wear on the disc from being used.

Click to expand...

Copy protection is reducing the lifetime of a disc since checking can't do it's job properly. In fact, some copy protection schemes use false "scratches". Whatever care is advised is irrelevant since this is a purchased item and it appears more and more that software companies are behaving in such a way that you are basically borrowing their work while denying any possibility of replacement. That is wrong because it's basically saying that an expensive game is equivalent to a cinema ticket, albeit that it can used for longer. That is why on-disc DRM should qualify as the worst invention of all time as it's just a disguised way to tread over consumer rights.

Azura said:

Copy protection is reducing the lifetime of a disc since checking can't do it's job properly. In fact, some copy protection schemes use false "scratches". Whatever care is advised is irrelevant since this is a purchased item and it appears more and more that software companies are behaving in such a way that you are basically borrowing their work while denying any possibility of replacement. That is wrong because it's basically saying that an expensive game is equivalent to a cinema ticket, albeit that it can used for longer. That is why on-disc DRM should qualify as the worst invention of all time as it's just a disguised way to tread over consumer rights.

Click to expand...

The strange thing is, both films and games cost a lot of money to produce these days, with development team headcounts exceeding 100 or even 200 for really big games. Film companies miss out on quite a bit of revenue thanks to movies being pirated, and somehow game developers are wrong for wanting to protect the product they have made for paying customers.

The irony lies in the fact that some legitimate customers will experience more problems with the product than people who decide to pirate it. At the end of the day though, I end up siding with the developer side of things. People call out for DRM'd product to be mass-pirated as a boycot, but essentially that's us developers getting robbed of our income.

The point of my post is that you are wrong in stating that (on-disc) DRM was invented primarily as a way to tread over consumer's rights. It is often done to protect the products we make from people who are willing to steal our income from us.
It's a frustrating and much debated topic, that is clear.

To each his own. For my part, I'm a supporter of http://www.defectivebydesign.org/.

sorry for the bump..
/me knows how you feel.
sterkte

Just to add something so I don't appear like a heartless soul. I can sympathize with developpers and I respect their position on copy protection. However, I can't help feeling uncomfortable about the shift that has taken place in gaming software where you as a consumer are basically being told by the publisher (the middle man) that:

• This software doesn't belong to you and we're just lending it to you for <insert price here>.
• We're not prepared to solve any media problems and prefer that you go purchase the game again even though you technically didn't own it in the first place
• This software is provided as is and there is no guarantee it will continue to function in a few years time.
• We authorize ourselves to install software without your knowing in our efforts to curb piracy.
• You as a customer are not a priority when it comes to usability and compatibility issues.

Publishers should realize that all they acomplish by adding DRM is alienate paying customers. Not a single pirate gives a **** about the copyprotection. It will still be cracked and shared. Nothing can stop that. So stop annoying the people that spent money on the game.