LGP Introduces Linux Game Copy Protection

@Svartalf
Not sure about the 'never allow it floor space' bit, ATI and Nvidia seem to be about to enter a battle to prove who loves linux more and ATI is sticking tux on the box for the first time. Add to that the pole on the ETQW forum that had windows well and truly pushed into second place (linux 63% if my memory is good today) and the stores may start climbing over each other to tell us how much they love linux within a few years.
For the kind of money LGP is looking for it would be worth there while to offer a commission to stores for taking orders. Fair enough, the company behind the stores may be counting the sales in thousands but there is plenty of rubbish in the stores themselves that would be lucky to sell a single copy. At some stage they will have a market viability test for linux games and if that works out were in there.
cheers

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Originally Posted by Svartalf

Heh... How, pray tell, do you propose doing this?

Most stores won't go with the volumes that we're talking about here. Windows stuff gets the time of day because you're talking anywhere from 10k blocks to 250k blocks of merchandise, which is worth the time and risk from the retailer.

With the paltry numbers you have right now buying (and it's not all availability that's the cause- with the attitudes I've seen in this thread and others in just today alone, I can tell precisely where the low numbers comes from...) the stuff that IS offered, you will NEVER have people signing up to allow Linux versions, let alone having retailers sign up to allow it floor space.

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You may think drm and copy protection and all sorts of weird shit is an "acceptable evil", but for some people, having told "yeah we think you are gonna break the law, like a common thief stealing candy from a child" is simply not acceptable, just because SOME choose to behave that way..

Just like EVERYONE arent put in prison because _SOME_ people are violent criminals.. Only difference here, is that with software, the developers have the "right" to do these actions, where in the real world, the police (well, excluding a few insane moron countries) does not.

I agree with Pickup.

I play video games without buying them for reasons already mentioned in this thread, and a copy/play protection will not make me more likely to buy a game. If no cracked version comes out, I will simply forget about it or get a different version, microsuffer and play it on the other OS for which I did not pay - and I'll likely be better off that way, since ATI's greatness, which I so blindly defended, prevents me from playing most of the linux games. Either way, LGP will still get nothing for their hard work, and the protection will look more like a nagging device than a useful customer-creating system.

I truly respect LGP, and I wish I could respect them financially as well, but the games they are pushing out are just ports of (mostly) old, average games - the only games from LGP that I like are Majesty and X2 (both of which I played without paying) and the upcoming X3. If LGP, or any other company, were to make original gems such as Hostile Waters, Deus Ex or Fallout for linux, I'd go through hell and battle satan to buy them. Ported (old and average) games are not financially attractive for the piracy-inclined user that also uses the lesser OS.

As a last note, I think LGP's status on various levels would greatly improve if they followed stardock's model. Everybody loves stardock because of their amazing customer support and dedication to their games and fans/customers. Everybody does not love LGP for the opposite of the same reasons.

End of Post

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Originally Posted by Svartalf

Not a good excuse, really. I know that's the reasoning- but the reality is, the people pirating this way are perpetuating the problem. This is one of the OTHER reasons we have a hell of a time getting deals, deanjo.



We've went over this in other threads. ;) And while I agree the price as a problem and their reasoning for lifting infringed copies, they're still making the problem worse. The "piracy" angle, I've tried to diminish it because it's a touchy subject in this space; and we seem to have a real problem. It's got to stop if we want to see better sooner. I don't care how- educate the people that they're contributing to the very problem they're "fixing" by pirating the stuff.



Excuse me... How did getting burned with a single company excuse this sort of conduct? And, I honestly and SERIOUSLY doubt that anyone that was using Linux in the days of Loki's existence would be pirating anything- they know PRECISELY what's at stake in most cases, and wouldn't be ripping people off. The people doing the pirating seem to be newcomers to the Linux community and don't get that this isn't just a "free" (as in no cost...) alternative to Windows.



I'm sure that the availability of the product would improve and the prices would come down if we could justify selling 10k units or more like the Windows crowd gets. You're not going to SEE that with the piracy going on. This isn't a charity- and someone taking something they didn't pay for doesn't help get better things for you.

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Svartalf, copy-protection has NEVER been successful in even thwarting piracy in the slightest. Adding copy-protection is an ass-backwards move. Pirates will be pirates and no matter what copy protection scheme you put on it, piracy will happen. All copy-protection does is annoy the hell out of honest people. The gaming industry has been trying for years to come up with a fool proof protection and guess what? It's usually cracked within before it even hits the store shelves.

Even when a game is purchased, gamers tend to apply cracks to the games that they legally have purchased, and this is perfectly 100% legal in most countries. People don't like having to insert their original, find easily lost keys, have their systems sending who knows what to a company that is saying already "We think your a thief, prove us wrong.".

If you think the piracy groups are going to forget about trying to crack a game just because it is on linux your dead wrong. Hell there was a crack for the Penny Arcade game online before it was officially released. Release groups crack propriatary linux printer drivers for crying out loud.

Copyprotection only accomplishes this,

Piss off honest people and gives the crackers entertainment for an hour.

Good post. I agree 100%.

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Originally Posted by deanjo

Svartalf, copy-protection has NEVER been successful in even thwarting piracy in the slightest. Adding copy-protection is an ass-backwards move. Pirates will be pirates and no matter what copy protection scheme you put on it, piracy will happen. All copy-protection does is annoy the hell out of honest people. The gaming industry has been trying for years to come up with a fool proof protection and guess what? It's usually cracked within before it even hits the store shelves.

Even when a game is purchased, gamers tend to apply cracks to the games that they legally have purchased, and this is perfectly 100% legal in most countries. People don't like having to insert their original, find easily lost keys, have their systems sending who knows what to a company that is saying already "We think your a thief, prove us wrong.".

If you think the piracy groups are going to forget about trying to crack a game just because it is on linux your dead wrong. Hell there was a crack for the Penny Arcade game online before it was officially released. Release groups crack propriatary linux printer drivers for crying out loud.

Copyprotection only accomplishes this,

Piss off honest people and gives the crackers entertainment for an hour.

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Originally Posted by deanjo

Svartalf, copy-protection has NEVER been successful in even thwarting piracy in the slightest. Adding copy-protection is an ass-backwards move. Pirates will be pirates and no matter what copy protection scheme you put on it, piracy will happen. All copy-protection does is annoy the hell out of honest people. The gaming industry has been trying for years to come up with a fool proof protection and guess what? It's usually cracked within before it even hits the store shelves.

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I know this. You know this. You won't even have me argue the point (I was arguing this same discussion with Michael Simms back three years ago...)- I wholeheartedly agree with you.

The problem is, if you want to convince a publisher that it's going to "be okay" to do this, you either have to show them you don't have a piracy problem or sufficient numbers that it's less of a concern.

The biggest problem is not LGP. It's not even close.

How many people gave out reasons for pirating the stuff in just TODAY alone? How many people OPENLY ADMITTED that they didn't pay for it and played it all the same??

I don't agree with this at all- DRM of any kind is bad mojo. Honest.

Unfortunately, we, as a group, even on THIS forum, just mouthed off in a manner that would doom any desire, any plans for ANY title out of any of the mainline publishers, giving them all kinds of credence to insist upon DRM if it were to remotely be considered.

I, too, want to express my disappointment in the introduction of a copy protection mechanism for LGP games.

I usually use free software, because it is the only kind of software that I can somewhat trust. It won't go away just because a company decides to stop supporting it, and I can often even change my operating system, and still keep using it. I can also be fairly sure that it won't try to do anything sneaky behind my back.

For games, I can accept proprietary software, since games hardly are part of an information infrastructure, like a word processor or a web browser would be. I could still do my school and work assingments, even if my favourite game stopped working. However, I find it a lot harder to trust closed source software. If the piece of software actively tries to monitor my use of it and reports it somewhere, the issue even worsens a magnitude or two.

I would like to support LGP by buying games from them. Sacred Gold is a game I have bought for Windows, but I could still at least consider buying it again. However, I can't really support LGP's current business model and their current way to handle copyright enforcement with a good conscience. Therefore I think my only option is to keep waiting.

Maybe I should just donate some money to some interesting free software game project, even though there is no guarantee that the money is actually put to a good use.

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Originally Posted by Redeeman

You may think drm and copy protection and all sorts of weird shit is an "acceptable evil", but for some people, having told "yeah we think you are gonna break the law, like a common thief stealing candy from a child" is simply not acceptable, just because SOME choose to behave that way..

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Then change the game, my friend. *I* do not like the idea one bit. I don't think this is a good thing. Never have, to be honest about it.

However, it's the fruits of most everyone talking in this thread's labors- as much as others not present in the posting.

In this thread, there have been at least 2-3 hinted at acts of infringement. One poster OPENLY stated that he played without paying on not one but two different titles- ostensibly because they "weren't worth buying". Well, that's the excuse MOST of the Windows pirates have...

Because of this sort of thing, people watch and see this. The people that have the control of the rights to even get a shot at porting games.

Do you for a moment think they're going to think they're going to see any money whatsoever from the community when they read all of this stuff and all the stuff in the other areas on the subject of ported titles?

If you do, you're sadly mistaken.

Everyone keeps screeching change the business model, not realizing that the model's pretty much doomed because of all the people mouthing off here and elsewhere- or that there may not be one for us for many years to come because of this crap.

They keep laboring under the illusion that people can just snap their fingers and make it happen. Or, that they're these other people's customers and that they HAVE to do anything to make it run on this other OS that they don't support, nor have any current intentions on supporting.

If you don't agree with the DRM, just don't buy. Quickest way to send a message, really. Don't comment on playing without paying or buying and then breaking the DRM- either just contributes to the same crap you're claiming you're against. All you people are doing when you do this is fueling the fire. No different than the crap that RIAA and MPAA have been doing for some time now. And all the idiots kept doing is feeding the fire with flash naptha instead of just walking away. You're NOT entitled to anything.

Not games.
Not music.
Not movies.

Mouthing off like this isn't feedback that you want, really. If you don't like it, fix the problem. Don't pirate the stuff, just don't buy. Pirating means it's desired, but you're obtaining it without paying for it. It's not stealing, no, but it's a bit worse than just not doing anything with regards to it. It sends a message that it's sought after, but nobody's willing to spend money on it. Heh... And what have I been trying to tell people we have as an image?

If you're not pirating, and just simply not buying, spare all the rhetoric here- just say that you're not buying because of the DRM and leave it at just that for now. Anything else is just noise.

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Originally Posted by deanjo

Svartalf, copy-protection has NEVER been successful in even thwarting piracy in the slightest. Adding copy-protection is an ass-backwards move. Pirates will be pirates and no matter what copy protection scheme you put on it, piracy will happen. All copy-protection does is annoy the hell out of honest people. The gaming industry has been trying for years to come up with a fool proof protection and guess what? It's usually cracked within before it even hits the store shelves.

Even when a game is purchased, gamers tend to apply cracks to the games that they legally have purchased, and this is perfectly 100% legal in most countries. People don't like having to insert their original, find easily lost keys, have their systems sending who knows what to a company that is saying already "We think your a thief, prove us wrong.".

If you think the piracy groups are going to forget about trying to crack a game just because it is on linux your dead wrong. Hell there was a crack for the Penny Arcade game online before it was officially released. Release groups crack propriatary linux printer drivers for crying out loud.

Copyprotection only accomplishes this,

Piss off honest people and gives the crackers entertainment for an hour.

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I couldn't agree more on that.

What will happen if let's say the LGP's servers are turned off and the activation system will never be available again? Linux game publishing isn't very lucrative I imagine. Would this mean any not already activated installed copy of the game will never be playable, too? This aside, I really want to buy X3 but if it includes this crippling technology (and chances are good it will) I fear my plans to buy this game are going to /dev/null because I'm not willing to pay a cent for DRM anymore.

I cannot understand why legal customers have to be punished just to keep people to pirate a software for a few days. Those people will pirate it anyway. And trust me this will be cracked, just look on the Windows software side. There are billions of cracks available for every application that just seems "not worth to crack".

Svartalf,

Seriously, as a whole, the biggest reason people do not buy your games in the numbers that you should have is not because of lack of copyprotection.
It IS distribution. While many people do everything online nowdays, a lot of people are not willing to wait 2-3 weeks for delivery and give financial information over the net.

The majority of sales on games is still done via retail outlets. Even larger companies have figured this out. When it comes to online services and ordering, a majority of customers would rather go out and buy a gift/credit card at their local 7-11 and then use that to purchase their items if they have to purchase online. Gift cards account for over 70% of the largest media distributor on the web (iTunes). Why? The answer is simple, parents don't want to give their kids credit cards for purchasing on-line. And this is with a major company that people have little fear of it going out of business.

One of the biggest reasons WoW took off is because little Johnny can take his $20 allowance and go buy a few more hours on it at the local store by getting a new card.

Every linux game out there I bought was because the binaries were available for it at no extra cost and I could buy it at the local store. If the game was not at my local store, I wouldn't of bought it. People want to buy tangible merchandise that they can put their hands on right away. How well do you think the games such as Guitar Hero, Final Fantasy, etc etc etc would have done if they made it mail order only? I bet they would have sold less then 1% of the volume that they have simply because they didn't have it ready to buy and in hand for the consumer. Or how well do you think steam would have taken off if you had to first pay for the game and then wait for a couple of weeks before actually playing it. Games are impulse buys. It's the reason why now you have retail gaming stores in malls nowdays. A complete industry now evolves around it.