-or- Just how stupid are they?
I have been lucky. Very lucky according to the buzz on the internet.
I love gaming on my PC. There are lots of great games out there, with great developers behind them who have put lots of time and effort into making a quality PC title for me and others to enjoy. They work hard to make a quality product and we, as the consumers, go out and spend good money (up to $50) for what we anticipate to be many hours of interactive fun. We run home, crack the box open (hoping to find at least a decent manual and CD case-but that is another rant) and quickly place the disc in the drive. Setup.exe runs and, and. . .
We find out we got screwed.
Yep, we sure did. Somewhere along the line someone decided that we were going to pirate their game. And they decided they were going to do something to stop that. Seems like a good idea on the surface, doesn't it? I mean, they worked hard to make a game, they should get to protect their product.
So why do they do it in such ridiculous ways? Seriously, who do they think the copy protection schemes work? Anyone with the slightest idea knows they are a waste. Those who know enough about computers and games to pirate software also know that even before the retail version of a game gets released that cracks are out there. Yep, the cracks are easy to be found and get updated even more quickly than the game itself. In other words, those who are going to pirate a game have the tools to do so before those of us who purchase the game even get our hands on a copy.
Boy, that sucks.
Especially for those of us who have our own, legal copy of the software. Why? Because copy protection is incredibly buggy crap. Just look at what is going on with Painkiller. There are countless people who have paid honest cash for an honest copy of a game they cannot play because the copy protection prevents them from installing and/or playing the game. Oh, and those who pirated the game aren't having any problems. They are enjoying the game unlike the honest folk out there.
And that is just one example. I frequent game forums, converse with lots of gamers and have come across innumerable examples of other games that don't work on specific types of drives, or with certain types of other software. Or we are required to have the disc in the drive to play, even after we gave up >5 gigs of hard drive space to install all of the game. Again I ask why? To prove that we actually have that disc, that it isn't a copy, that the copy protection (SafeDisc, Securom, etc.) is intact and functioning. So we put up with spinning disc drives, having to swap discs in and out, scratching them, damaging them, carrying them with us if traveling.
All in all copy protection is, in my opinion, the single greatest insult that game developers and publishers (my understanding is that it is most often the publishers that force the copy protection) could possibly make to us, the honest consumers. It simply doesn't work. Those who pirate don't have to deal with it and those who buy their games get stuck with the short end. When will they get the idea that they are losing customers to intrusive and belligerent schemes?
There are exceptions, of course. Brad Wardell has written an excellent article here (that I am too lazy to look up) discussing this very problem, and Stardock's exceptional approach to the whole problem. To be honest the only reason I purchased "Galactic Civilizations" was because of the lack of asinine copy protection. I felt a sincere desire to support their attitude. Of course, I then discovered I had one of the greatest TBS games around. But I know I am not alone, I know there are many gamers out there willing to use their money to support developers and publishers who choose to reward, rather than punish, those who honestly purchase their games. What more can we do to convince the devs and pubs of this?
I can only hope they will eventually get the clue.