Episode 239: This Episode is DRM-free

This week, Paul is too busy unpacking in his new home in California, so it’s just Jonah and Jordan, as the news mainly deals with DRM. The Gaming Flashback this week is the Activision racer The Great American Cross-Country Road Race, while this week’s Gaming History doesn’t focus on a video game company or developer, but a fictional character instead, Mario’s favorite mount, Yoshi.

The news this week includes:

  • EA forum bans cause game bans
  • Research film states piracy’s up 20% in past 5 years
  • GOG sez customers hate DRM
  • Steam user database cracked
  • Uncharted 3 launches with 1.1M sold in first week

All that plus Reader Feedback and the Question of the Week, “What DRM would you tolerate?”

0 thoughts on “Episode 239: This Episode is DRM-free”

  1. In before Herr_Alien. 🙂
    Come on Paul! How many podcasts are you going to miss?

    @GOG says customers hate DRM: Of course they do! Just like you said, DRM only hurts the customers and not the pirates. And yes, please bring back games filled with physical content, I would love to have stuff like that.

    @QOTW: Sorry, don’t know of any DRM that I could tolerate. I know that pirates shouldn’t be accepted, but unfortunately there’s nothing that can be done about them.

  2. @DynamicJul
    😀 Actually it is a nice change. The time zone difference usually works in my favor (Eastern Europe), but it’s not completely impossible for somebody from US to get in first.

    @EA forum bans cause game bans:
    So apparently they didn’t fix the issue yet … they’re still using one database to handle the authentication for both systems.
    If you think of it, you don’t even need two databases with the same user/password data, you only need separate databases to store forum bans from whole-account bans.
    Correcting the bug should not be that difficult and it will make a huge impact for the better.

    @piracy’s up 20% in past 5 years:
    Games for free? Who would think this would ever be a lucrative business? 😛
    I for one would pirate the shit out of Assassin’s Creed 2, just to point out that intrusive DRM is not ok. I’m not that much into that kind of game though, so …

    @GOG sez customers hate DRM
    And for good reason. As long as the code reaches the client, any DRM measures in it will be bypassed. Not might be bypassed, not could be bypassed, WILL be bypassed.
    As for physical content, well, you still have those Deluxe editions.

    @Steam user database cracked:
    Not the best of the possible news. I don’t like to have the credit card info stored on servers, and in my envision of an online store, the credit card info is never stored. Yes, with every purchase you would need to type in the number again, but unless you check out very often (instead of putting more items in the basket then checking out) it should be quite ok.

    @QOTW:
    Steam, and the regular CD-key.

    Jonah, regarding DynamicJul’s comment, I think you mean pseudo-code. And it’s not really about pseudo-code; as long as you know (1) what you want the program to do and (2) how to do it in one language, it will be easy to get the same thing from another language. The main hurdle in all software companies is not about learning a new language, is more about figuring out what the software you’re making is supposed to do.

  3. Actually my time zone is GMT +1 so it’s the same. Also, I forgot to mention that my country doesn’t have things such as ‘Microsoft offices’ or ‘video game shops’ so I have to buy everything off the internet and it isn’t possible to fix an Xbox 360 over the internet.

  4. Wait… taking fallout 3 apart and putting it back together again? This time it’s a brand new engine, so even if they learnt some stuff from the previous games, it’s not like they could reuse that much this time as they have done between previous games.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Episode 424: Awaiting ApocalypseEpisode 424: Awaiting Apocalypse

The gang discusses the just-released Captain America: Civil War as well as mention the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse film, but they also do get into this week’s news, which is heavy on the Nintendo side.

The news includes:

  • Nintendo NX cartridge rumors abound
  • Fallout 4 Xbox One mods enter beta after May 19
  • Zelda anchors Nintendo E3 plans
  • Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare debut this past week

This week’s Question of the Week is “What era war would you like to see in a shooter?”

Gaming Podcast 191: Puppy Mill of GamesGaming Podcast 191: Puppy Mill of Games

This week we’ve got all three hosts back to get down to business. This was a full show with lots of content from news, to flashbacks and listener game ideas. We didn’t get a history segment this week, we just had two much information to cover. Here is the news for the week:

This weeks gaming podcast question of the week: What do you think will spur on PC game developers, is it Microsoft’s concept of “showing developers there is a market” or do they need more inspiration?

Mega Man 9, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 ConfirmedMega Man 9, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 Confirmed

Capcom has finally come out and stated Mega Man 9 will indeed be available on the PlayStation 3 (PSN) and Xbox 360 (Xbox Live). Capcom may be making a great move by providing everyone the ability to play their new retro title in download form. The game is definitely going to be a smaller title with a niche appeal, you really want to gain as much access to gamers as possible.

Although WiiWare is a great staging point for a new/old franchise there is absolutely nothing wrong with expanding it to the other consoles, even the PlayStation 3, giving all gamers the choice of which platform to purchase the title for.

In many ways, a console gamer with all consoles can chose the version of Mega Man 9 which will provide them the best “controller” experience. You want to play on an Xbox 360 controller? Great! Perhaps the Wii classic controller is more your style? Fine! Wanna stick with the proven PlayStation controller? Excellent!

Hopefully we’ll get a sense of which console moves the most downloads for Mega Man 9, as this will define who gets great gaming DLC in the future. Oddly enough, it might be the Xbox 360 because of its console sales count and total attach rate, even though the Wii has huge volume of users they don’t purchase very many games (if any).

(Thanks, Kotaku)