LGP Introduces Linux Game Copy Protection

[deanjo]

I
I've not heard back from Lead Pursuit yet...yet... As for publication, I don't know whom I'll do it through yet. Take that as you wish, fyi...

Heh, actually I was talking to the guys at G2 Interactive today .........*the rest of this story has to be censored*

[Aradreth]

Save EA...they're into anal probing the gamers, from what I hear. What's another StarFarce DRM fiasco to them?

EA is "special" really they are all about screwing the customer (literally apparently!) I thought that was the whole point of their games...

[stan.distortion]

With online verification there is very little need for physical media. If they are going to do online verification then just torrent the iso and sell the key online. Less overhead, faster delivery, can yell the "We're Green" madness leading to greater profits.

All well and good but only if you are 100% certain every user will be online. A big message on the box to say you need an internet connection is no big deal though and you can be fairly sure 99% of linux gamers are on the net.

[deanjo]

All well and good but only if you are 100% certain every user will be online. A big message on the box to say you need an internet connection is no big deal though and you can be fairly sure 99% of linux gamers are on the net.

Why would you need every user online to get rid of the physical medium?

[stan.distortion]

For the copy protection, the key would have to be validated online or one key would work for every game. Bit stupid on my part, the torrent connection isn't going to come through the post That does leave folks with no connection out in the cold but torrents and an emailed, individual key would be the best distribution method, could even leave a section of the torrented file usable with no key so it doubles up as the demo.
cheers

[miles]

That's a native linux demo or on wine?

No, that was a Windows demo (no Linux demo yet). I don't really care if I count as a Windows potential customer to them since they already made the X2 port to Linux possible, and the port of X3 to Linux had already been announced. Actually I don't even care downloading any games demo considering how many types of games aren't available in Linux.

X3 should work well through wine since they released the patch to remove Starforce.

[Redeeman]

Default
It just happens at every thread, now does it?

LGP's copy protection system though would force users to go online, wouldn't it?

I used to work on Linux software house and the management beat on us to put in a copy protection mechanism on the software. It's really how the commercial world works. These businessmen are interested in protecting their investment. If something is sold in the software world, eventually, the business thinks about the protection of their sale. Unfortunately for us, this means Game Copy Protection in the case of LGP.

Deal with it and move on. It's here to stay, as far as I'm concerned. You don't like it? Don't buy it.

thats just stupid, DRM doesent protect SHIT, and if those "businessmen" and the "commercial world" thinks that, what they need is not to be obeyed, they need to be put in a damn mental institution to be studied, in hopes of finding a cure..

[Svartalf]

Heh, actually I was talking to the guys at G2 Interactive today .........*the rest of this story has to be censored*

Oooh... Shame you can't discuss it. What I've done seems to have dropped off in a black hole. Could you use the contact over there to put them in touch with me? Honest.

[Aradreth]

thats just stupid, DRM doesent protect SHIT, and if those "businessmen" and the "commercial world" thinks that, what they need is not to be obeyed, they need to be put in a damn mental institution to be studied, in hopes of finding a cure..

I agree with you that DRM is pretty useless as it WILL be crack no matter how advanced; but having DRM can mean the difference between LGP getting to port a title over and being told to hit to road so introducing it will hopefully allow LGP to get it's hands on better titles.

[miles]

Sorry... You're wrong there. You bought it from someone or someone else bought it. Each purchased item counts as a vote, a network effect item FOR the platform it was written for. It doesn't matter that you bought it or someone else did- it was still purchased, still a vote lurking about for that platform.

If you want to help make Linux games happen you're going to have to wean yourself off of Windows games- how you do that is not my concern and I'm not going to tell you how to do it.

I don't agree a single bit. Buying a second hand single-user title from somebody that wasn't expecting to make money from it doesn't count anywhere, neither for the publisher nor for the developers (nor for Microsoft if that matters). Of course it's going to be different for online multi-user titles, but I'm not talking about multi-user games.

You could twist the situation and still find a way it would affect the market (like getting more users to know the game and talk about it, but actually we, as gamers, talk about games we don't even play anyway), but that's not really going to be much relevant to Windows/Linux gaming situation.

And some game publishers still deserve to be supported, even if they don't develop games for Linux, be it Wii, PS3 or Windows games developers. Everyone will have their criteria in this regard, but there's the Windows ecosystem and there's the game ecosystem, the 2 are different agendas, and even though you might be satisfied with today's PC gaming, I'm not of that opinion, and I'd rather support what I'd like to play but isn't the fad atm.

On a personal note, weaning myself of Windows games didn't help making games for Linux happen. I just stopped playing games for years, going instead for online Go (IGS). It's only thanks to wine and playing Windows (horror!) games thanks to it that I've come back to video gaming, and a possible LGP customer. So I don't think encouraging people to steer away from Windows gaming is gonna help Linux gaming at all - people either stop playing games completely when they switch fully to Linux, or buy a game console. If you want to get them into Linux gaming, you need to keep them PC (=Windows) gamers. Once they're lost to PC gaming, it's too late.

Uses WINE to do it- keep that one in mind... The upshot, however, is I think they count it as a Linux sale, so it's okay, just going to have operational issues from time to time.

I've been using wine for years now for some applications pubished by non-profit associations that don't have the resources to make them available for Linux, and I must say they work better in Linux through wine than native in Windows.

I can understand that one needs to defend its beefsteak, but actually you'd be surprised how many programs works flawlessly through wine. The little "so it's okay, just going to have operational issues from time to time" are not advancing your cause in any way, more the contrary. All things being fair, closed-source native Linux applications (I'd say games included) also have "operational issues from time to time" and sometimes (often, considering I know what I'm running through wine) can do far worse.

So yeah, EVE Online uses wine to run on Linux, and with the respect I've developed for the wine project, that's something they should actually brag about. In regard to bugs (since that was the context of your sentence, not in regard to Linux development support) that's not a bad thing, some native Linux closed-apps have far worse results than what wine can do.