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

Bioshock PS3: Later But BetterBioshock PS3: Later But Better

Bioshock arrived on the Xbox 360 almost August of 2007, about one year from this month. It’s set to arrive on the PlayStation 3 in October of 2008, over one year after the Xbox 360 version. Is it too late?

For those that have decided to buy a PlayStation 3 and hold out on the Xbox 360, it will be their first time with full access to the Bioshock title. For everyone else, it’s the same game with prettier graphics and a slight update in difficulty.

Bioshock was well received by both reviewers and video game players last year, will this be a repeat or simply sit on the shelf begging to be played? Bioshock sold 490,900 copies the month of its original release, we’d love to know if it can do it twice.

Kotaku is reporting that “they’ve instead decided to cut off pretty much all of your ammo, leaving you in many instances to pick up a gun with a single bullet in it. It’ll also jack up the price of plasmids, reduce the amount of health vita chambers give you and just generally make the game, oh, impossible.”

Harder, prettier graphics but … too late?

Gaming Podcast Week OffGaming Podcast Week Off

We had to take a week off due to a death in the family. My grandmother passed away from Alzheimer late last week and we had to spend the beginning of the week with the family and the events that come with the passing.

We’ll be back next week in full force. So, here is a 39 second podcast explaining it, hosted by Liam our son.

Episode 754: Pre-Show HypeEpisode 754: Pre-Show Hype

The guys discuss Dune: Awakening’s endgame deep desert area has a PvE zone, PowerWash Simulator goes underground, overground in final free content update, Persona 4 voice actor confirms a remake is in development, EA Sports College Football 26 adds cross-play Dynasty, 300 coaches and trophy rooms, Star Wars Battlefront 2 breaks its concurrent player count record on Steam, Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake will also come to Nintendo Switch 2 and Hideo Kojima’s next game “Physint” is coming in about 5-6 years.

The news includes:

Let us know what you think.