“The travails of Diablo III have put digital rights management high on the hate list of many gamers – a position it rarely slips from, it must be said. In order to fight piracy (and protect the integrity of the new auction house, where players can sell their surplus loot to each other, with Blizzard taking a cut of every transaction), Diablo III insists on a constant Internet connection to play. So, when the servers were misbehaving during the game’s launch, early adopters could not even practise in the single-player mode.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings – copied an estimated 4.5 million times.

CD Projekt have had their own issues with piracy – according to their estimates, 4.5 million copies of their latest game have been circulated. Having abandoned DRM as a means of preventing piracy, they experimented briefly with the RIAA approach of sending letters to suspected pirates, but abandoned the strategy after a public backlash, despite maintaining that they could accurately identify pirated copies, and thus no legitimate player was being contacted.

There is an interesting detail to this story. Like all GOG.com games, the version of The Witcher 2 released in 2011 shipped without DRM – pirating it would have been little more complex than sharing the file. However, it was also published in the US as a boxed, on-disc game by Ubisoft. This version shipped with Ubisoft’s SecuROM copy protection. “Most people in the gaming industry were convinced that the first version of the game to be pirated would be the GOG version (as it was DRM-free), while in the end it was the retail version, which shipped with DRM.”

I asked GOG.com’s Managing Director, Guillaume Rambourg, to confirm not only that CD Projekt Red no longer used DRM, but that the GOG.com downloader used to download games sold through CD Projekt’s digital channel did not monitor usage or report back to an authentication or verification system.

We use no DRM and we never will. The fact that we have a download assistant has worried a few people because they’re afraid it’s the first step on the way to having an always-on client like some other distributors out there.  We’ll never do that. Our download assistant has a very limited scope of information that it accesses. It knows your account login information, which it obviously needs that so it can download your games and let you know about any game updates or forum replies. It keeps track of the progress of your downloads. It checks individual “chunks” often during the download to make sure that the file you’re saving is not corrupted. And that’s it. There’s no authentication server.  There’s no functions to sweep through your memory or your storage device looking for other active programs or data. There’s no bloatware or privacy invasion. It just helps you download games at incredibly quick speeds. That’s such a simple idea it almost sounds revolutionary, doesn’t it?

But why, then, would the DRM-free version of The Witcher 2 be ignored by pirates, when it was an open target? Marcin Iwinski, CEO of CD Projekt Red, responded:

You would have to ask someone at the pirate group which cracked it, but I have to admit it was a big surprise. We were expecting to see the GOG.com version pirated right after it was released, as it was a real no-brainer. Practically anyone could have downloaded it from GOG.com (and we offered a pre-download option) and released it on the illegal sites right away, but this did not happen. My guess is, that releasing an unprotected game is not the real deal, you have to crack it to gain respect and be able to write, “cracked by XYZ.” How would “not cracked by XYZ, as there was nothing to crack” sound? A bit silly, wouldn’t it? The illegal scene is pretty much about the game and the glory: who will be the first to deliver the game, who is the best and smartest cracker. The DRM-free version at GOG.com didn’t fit this too well.

It’s perverse, but perhaps the fun of file sharing – especially when done for status and bragging rights rather than serious financial gain – is in frustrating efforts by content owners to stop it. Within two hours of its release Ubisoft’s DRM was cracked. Meanwhile, GOG.com’s DRM-free version hid in plain sight, too tempting and easy a target. Ironically, GOG.com is now publishing UbiSoft’s Assassin’s Creed back catalogue – without DRM.

So, DRM is nothing more than an incitement to crack, and 4 million copies of the Witcher games have been passed around Do these represent lost sales, or would file sharers not have bought the game? How do you see the future of DRM in games generally? Iwinski responded at length:

First of all let me dispel the myth about DRM protecting anything. The truth is it does not work. It’s as simple as that. The technology which is supposed to protect games against illegal copying is cracked within hours of the release of every single game. So, that’s wasted money and development just to implement it. But that’s not the worst part. DRM, in most cases, requires users to enter serial numbers, validate his or her machine, and be connected to the Internet while they authenticate – and possibly even when they play the game they bought. Quite often the DRM slows the game down, as the wrapper around the executable file is constantly checking if the game is being legally used or not. That is a lot the legal users have to put up with, while the illegal users who downloaded the pirated version have a clean–and way more functional!–game. It seems crazy, but that’s how it really works. So if you are asking me how do I see the future of DRM in games, well, I do not see any future for DRM at all.

(Another comparison might be the sharing of movies. With films, the DVD copy protection is broken, and the DVD can be ripped to form an almost perfect copy – unlike the shoddy cameraphone-recorded knock-offs the unskippable warnings at the beginning of a DVD warn consumers of. File sharers even considerately remove the unskippability of these warnings, making watching a pirate version potentially more convenient than a paid-for copy.)

CD Projekt’s position – that DRM is useless and damages the experience of legitimate buyers – is shared by others, such as the Free Software Foundation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Let’s take a look at the music industry. First all music files were protected with various systems, that essentially meant that the legal user had more complicated access to his legal purchases than a pirate. Unsurprisingly, it was a major hurdle for the digital music business, as people hate complication. So, they either did not buy at all, or they pirated. Only when iTunes introduced a DRM-free solution did we really see digital music sales start to take off, and that’s what became the industry standard.

The games industry is slowly having that same realization, and I think that sooner rather than later we will see online-only games (where DRM makes no sense) and offline games with no DRM.  We will eventually leave DRM behind.

Coming back to The Witcher 2: we have indeed estimated the number of pirated copies at 4.5M units, although it’s just an estimate – and by now it’s probably more. However this number doesn’t represent lost sales. It really puzzles me how serious software companies can consider each pirated copy to be a lost sale. Maybe it looks nice in an official report to say how threatening pirates are, but it is extremely far from the truth.

(Lest we forget – and I never get tired of this fact – the RIAA, in its case against LimeWire, originally estimated the losses caused by file sharers using the service as up to $75 trillion – that is, more money than exists in the world).

I would rather say that a big part of these 4.5M+ pirated copies are considered a form of trial version, or even a demo. Gamers download [pirate copies] because it’s easy, fast, and, frankly, costs nothing. If they like the game and they start investing the time, some of them will go and buy it. This is evident in the first Witcher, where the total sales are 2.1M units at present and the game is still doing well, although it is already 5 years old.

There are plenty of reasons why gamers do not buy a full price new game in the first place. For some of them it is the price. They simply can’t afford it, or maybe they did not hear about the game (its so easy to download an illegal version from torrents that gamers often download all the new releases in bulk and then later on get around to checking out what they’ve gotten). Maybe the PR and marketing campaign was not convincing enough.

All in all, our job is to make each of our games a must-have. We have spent lots of time and effort to prepare the best offering for both retail and digital. We do the same while developing the game, as the only thing which can increase our sales is the quality of the overall experience the gamer has. We want them to think something like, “Wow this game is really great. I spent 40-50 great hours with it and I want to have it in my collection; it would be embarrassing not to buy it.” Whether they buy it in full price, mid-price or maybe even budget is less important. We want them to have the legal version and became fans of the Witcher franchise, as when the next game comes they will be hooked and they will go and buy it on day one.

This interview was oddly prescient in its timing, bearing in mind the revolts against Blizzard locking players out of every part of Diablo III but the character selection screen at launch

This joins complaints about Electronic Arts’ Origin download system giving itself the right to monitor more of its customers’ computer activity than it should, and revolts against Ubisoft’s restrictive DRM practises, which may help to explain the glee with which its DRM is cracked (Ubisoft, it must be said, has gone on record as saying always-on DRM is, from their perspective, a success. Players locked out of their games during server maintenance in February of this year may disagree with that assessment. Protest against DRM from players is vociferous, and unsurprising. It is more unusual to see a notable player in both game development and publishing take the same stance – many moderates suggest DRM could be applied during the first few weeks or months, when both sales and piracy are at a maximum, and then be patched out, for example. Nonetheless, CD Projekt’s candour is refreshing, and their principle admirable – although, they would argue, it is not costing them money. In fact, it is saving money otherwise spent on the coding and licensing of useless, quickly cracked DRM. Making it the best kind of principle – a profitable one.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is available now, from Ubisoft, Namco Bandai and CD Projekt Red.”

Source: Forbes

Aaaaaaaand back to Diablo III login screen…

Previously they stated, that any game (gift) which was bought in Steam Store will not have any regional restrictions to add to the library and play (it is well known that CD keys usually have various restrictions on activation and playing). Actually steam support still claims that gifts will not be region locked, but it is not true, there were several solid confirmations that restrictions exist.

Right now you should be aware of following gifts.

Max payne 3 Pre order 1 (CIS) – sub id 14524 The gift has following parameter in its cdr record:

onlyallowrunincountries = AM AZ BY GE KZ KG MD RU TJ TM UZ UA LV LT EE

which means it can not be runned outside CIS countries

Max payne 3 Pre order 1 (RU) – sub id 14623 with parameter

onlyallowrunincountries = RU

which means that it will be playable only inside Russia.

Also note, that there is another gift with the same name (Max payne 3 Pre order 1 (RU)), but different subscription id ([4] 14100). It is not locked, but Max Payne 1 & 2 form this gift will contain russian language pack ONLY. It was available to purchase in Russia till 12 of May. From this moment only restricted version (sub 14524) is available for Russians.

Other region locked gifts:

• Confrontation Russian (sub id 13915) (playable only in Russia)
• Ridge Racer Unbounded (RU) (sub id 13946) (playable only in Russia and CIS countries)
• The Witcher 2 (RU) (sub id 13944) (playable only in Russia and CIS countries). Note, that there is another gift with the same name and different sub id without any restrictions. It was available to buy in Russia and CIS till 27 of March.

Source: reddit

NOT cool Valve/publishers.

Join the Official Rockstar Games Community on Steam at http://steamcommunity.com/games/rockstargames by 10 am Pacific Time on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, and receive one non-giftable copy of Midnight Club 2 in your Steam account by May 29th.

Eligibility: User must have an account with at least one successful purchase, gift or retail registration in the account. The offer is not available to users who already own Midnight Club 2.

Patch for Windows Vista/Windows 7: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=730578

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

To celebrate they are giving away 20 of the best Epic tracks from their games over the years.  They’ve hand picked and remastered a soundtrack that includes everything from Jazz Jackrabbit to Unreal Tournament. There are even a few surprise tracks that have never before been released on our soundtrack!

Make sure to get the whole soundtrack and rock out to some retro video game tunes!

1. Unreleased Theme
Unreal Tournament 3
Rom Di Prisco (2007)

2. Dan
Jill of the Jungle
Dan Froelich (1992)

3. Main Theme
Unreal
Alexander Brandon/Michiel Van der Boss (1998)

4. Armored Prayer
Gears of War 2
Steve Jablonsky (2008)

5. Vault of Tears
Infinity Blade II
Josh Aker (2011)

6. Space
Epic Pinball
Robert Allen (1993)

7. Main Menu
Unreal Tournament
Alexander Brandon (1999)

8. Menu Song
Jazz Jackrabbit
Robert Allen (1994)

9. They’ll Be Coming For You Now
Infinity Blade
Josh Aker (2010)

10. Hope Runs Deep
Gears of War 2
Steve Jablonsky (2008)

11. Main Theme
Tyrian
Alexander Brandon (1995)

12. Hyperblast Redux
Unreal Tournament 2004
Kevin Riepl (2004)

13. Hanover’s Favorite Son
Gears of War 3
Steve Jablonsky (2011)

14. Main Theme
Shadow Complex
Josh Aker (2009)

15. 14 Years After E-Day
Gears of War
Kevin Riepl (2006)

16. Lockdown
Unreal Tournament 3
Jesper Kyd (2007)

17. Theme
Bulletstorm
Krzysztof Wierzynkiewicz/Michal Cielecki (2011)

18. Pull Back the Bass
Jazz Jackrabbit 2
Alexander Brandon (1998)

19. Transistor
Unreal Championship 2
Kevin Riepl (2005)

20. Finally A Tomorrow
Gears of War 3
Steve Jablosnky (2011)

Source: Epic Games

EA have put up a blog entry called, “Continuing the Origin Conversation”, or, “Please tell us what we’re doing wrong.” The post invites users to comment on their favourite Origin feature, as well as features they’d like to see added in the future.

The post has already attracted over 300 comments, from, “I would like a clock on the overlay so I can check the time easier while playing” to “Please add a feature to purchase and play EA games through Steam.” A live question-and-answer follow-up with Origin’s head honches Robert Kissinger and Mike Lewis will take place on Tuesday.

Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has previously voiced concerns about Origin, saying, “I don’t think they’re doing anything super well yet,” but going on to say that they’re “recognising what the challenges are” and “playing catch up.” He also reiterated that Valve is keen to have EA games back on their Steam digital distribution service.

Origin has attracted a lot of people last year with BF3 release and few others this year, they are also trying to improve their service everyday. They’re also keenly interested in PC gaming, as evidenced by their Indie Bundle.

Source: PC Gamer

Valve has confirmed to IGN that it will not be announcing any new projects at this year’s E3.

Previously, a great deal of speculation has surrounded the announcement of Half-Life 3, among other projects. The Half-Life franchise was last seen in 2007 with the release of Half-Life 2: Episode Two in The Orange Box.

At the moment, Valve is working on Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, both of which are currently in closed beta. In addition, new Portal 2 DLC is set to arrive in the coming weeks.

Source: IGN UK

No pre-loading? Not a problem anymore. Queue up your game at work and play when you get home. Same goes for being out of town for lets say future Steam holiday sales.

Here’s a screenshot of the remote installation progress:

While the recent news about the DLC outage finally ending for all users, it looks like another form of Rock Band may be coming to a more permanent end in the near future. Rock Band iOS app will “no longer be playable” after May 31st, according to an in-game pop up message when loading the app (see below).

Despite the impending fate of the app, there are no indications that a similar situation will be occurring with the more recent Rock Band Reloaded app.

They probably ran out of licensing time for some of the songs and had to disabled the app. This sucks hard though.

Source: reddit

Update:

WTF?

Lots of Steam on Linux news this week after Michael Larabel visited Valve office and confirmed Steam and Source Engine on Linux.

Now, in a Live QA session for Ubuntu 12.04 release, Ubuntu Developer and Community Manager Jono Bacon said that he knows Canonical has been in touch with Valve to ensure top notch support of Steam client on Ubuntu.

Check out the video, skip to 52:14 for Steam part:

Probably Canonical already had idea about Steam on Linux before Phoronix broke the news? Also, according to Michael Larabel, Ubuntu has worked out a gaming deal from a big publisher. These games may be available in Ubuntu Software Center later this year.

It seems, Canonical has plans to push Ubuntu as a gaming platform this year to increase mainstream adoption.

Source: Ubuntu Vibes

German developer Crytek sold 3 million copies of Crysis 2. Another 4 million copies were pirated, making it the most pirated game of 2011.

“It’s very flattering and upsetting at the same time,” Crytek’s director of creative development, Rasmus Højengaard, told CVG. “Obviously you miss so much revenue, it’s so clear that a lot of people want to play your game but they don’t really want to pay for it, which is unfortunately really disappointing.”

“It’s also a little flattering because people are willing to bother download these 10GB files or whatever the game takes because they think it looks great. We obviously want to avoid that this time, but even if we can convert 25 percent of those gamers into paying customers [you have an extra million sales].”

The thing about piracy that is often left unsaid is that not all of those pirated copies would convert into game sales even if we could eradicate piracy entirely. 4 million pirated copies of a game is not the equivalent of 4 million lost sales, even if it may indeed represent lost revenue. This isn’t to either justify or condemn piracy – it’s a complicated issue that stems largely from a lack of trust – but simply to point out that sometimes combating piracy is not the best way to staunch the bleeding.

Which brings us to used games, another phenomenon Crytek would be happy to end if it could. Asked whether he’d like to see a used game blocking feature in next-gen consoles, Højengaard said:

“From a business perspective that would be absolutely awesome. It’s weird that [second-hand] is still allowed because it doesn’t work like that in any other software industries, so it would be great if they could somehow fix that issue as well.”

(…)

The inevitable end of used games is probably just around the corner. Why change anything on the console side of the equation when the problem will “self-correct” on its own?

As to used games themselves, I’d be pretty happy with a digital download service like Steam replacing discs altogether on consoles, used games included. I’d be much less happy with some sort of built-in mechanism that renders used games useless without activation. What if my console breaks and I need to replace it? Would I need to pay to activate all my old games if I wanted to use them on the new machine? From a consumer perspective it would most definitely not be awesome.

That being said, the GameStop business model is hardly laudable. Yes, gamers should be allowed to sell their own games, but that doesn’t make GameStop an admirable middle-man for those transactions.

CVG’s Tom Ivan thinks that Crytek “would have received a great deal more revenue, were it not for second-hand game sales and piracy.” But it’s impossible to say if an end to used game sales would increase new game sales any more than an end to piracy would. People might simply buy fewer games, or fewer new releases.”

Source: Forbes

And another quote here:

@michaellarabel
#valve does have Linux games coming plus other very positive Linux plans… I’ll briefly post some screenshots and such tonight.

And even more info here.

This one is interesting, Valve is trying to charge morons and jerks more for their games, nice people would pay less or play for free even.

In a podcast interview with Seven Day Cooldown, summarized by Develop, Valve Boss Gabe Newell discusses the payment model for upcoming strategy game DOTA 2.:

“The issue that we’re struggling with quite a bit is something I’ve kind of talked about before, which is how do you properly value people’s contributions to a community?”

“…the games industry has this broken model, which is one price for everyone. That’s actually a bug, and it’s something that we want to solve through our philosophy of how we create entertainment products".

“An example is – and this is something as an industry we should be doing better – is charging customers based on how much fun they are to play with. So, in practice, a really likable person in our community should get Dota 2 for free, because of past behaviour in Team Fortress 2. Now, a real jerk that annoys everyone, they can still play, but a game is full price and they have to pay an extra hundred dollars if they want voice.” 

And the latest news is that they are going beyond this crazy idea into seeing what’s actually possible:

“We’re trying to figure out ways so that people who are more valuable to everybody else [are] recognized and accommodated. We all know people where if they’re playing we want to play, and there are other people where if they’re playing we would [rather] be on the other side of the planet.”

"It’s just a question of coming up with mechanisms that recognize and reward people who are doing things that are valuable to other groups of people."

This sounds like a scary idea, what do you guys think? What if “nice people” would just resale Steam games to “trolls”? This just doesn’t look so great to me.

Source: /.

I can’t believe they finally did it. A lot of gamers were questioning why it wasn’t possible to access games in offline mode in Steam while an account was suspended or banned, but the real news is that you already can, Valve just never told anyone.

What’s more? Your games aren’t limited to offline mode.

While Valve doesn’t have a lot of legal lingo surrounding the use of their digital distribution service, they do make it known in the subscriber agreement consent form…

“Valve may terminate your Account or a particular Subscription for any conduct or activity that Valve believes is illegal, constitutes a Cheat, or which otherwise negatively affects the enjoyment of Steam by other Subscribers.”

One user put that clause to the test and was banned, however, he later found out that he wasn’t completely blocked out of accessing his games because of a recent policy update in Steam for account access, which has now been deemed as "account locking" instead of "account banning". According to a Steam volunteer moderator, he makes it clear that…

“Steam support stopped disabling Steam accounts a bit more than two months ago. This has been replaced with "account locking": you still have access to your games, but some restrictions are applied to your account (no trading, no cd key activation, no purchase allowed, etc.).”

He provides proof of this with screenshots of an account being banned but still having access to games in offline or online mode:

This means that gamers who have been banned either for fraudulent or nefarious purposes with the intent to use their Steam account for other activities other than gaming like an upstanding member of the interactive entertainment community, can still access the games they paid for.

There are simply restrictions added to the account but the content you paid for is content you still have access to.

Valve actually offers quite a bit of leeway in using their service, so getting banned is not something that’s particularly easy to do so long as you follow the rules. There are, however, some rare exceptions where tertiary license agreements are put into place for Steam games, particularly, EA’s games on Steam, where an EA EULA for a [now absent] product on Steam basically outlines the same sort of restrictions you would find on Origin. Of course, since it’s Steam, there’s no worries about "losing entitlements" or having third-party software scan your PC for you.

Valve’s head honcho, Gabe Newell, recently spoke out against these sort of practices that EA is using for Origin, saying that as the service stands right now it’s just not up to par to where it should be for consumers and gamers, and it’s just not doing anything super-well at the moment. It’s kind of hard to argue against that point.

At least gamers who went off the deep end and managed to get banned can still play their games and access the content on both Steam and Origin. So, in that regards, it’s a win-win situation for gamers no matter which digital distribution service you use.

However Steam’s official support representative has stated that:

“Games registered to suspended accounts will no longer be accessible; even in offline mode."

Of course, the support didn’t clarify if this applies retroactively for suspended accounts or the distinction between a suspended account or a locked account, so we’re awaiting official word from Valve on the matter.

Source: Cinemablend