Comment by shmerl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shmerl | Hacker News Reader

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> No, it's not only additional profit - you need people to make the DRM free version. It doesn't appear out of nowhere. It takes paid developers to do.

That's only for games really seriously infested with DRM. There perhaps, it takes some effort to weed out that stuff. But it's really the most recalcitrant cases. Usually it doesn't take any substantial effort.

> Let alone future support if you plan on issuing patches down the road.

That's unlikely. They might issue updates such as add-ons / expansions and other missing stuff. But they wouldn't issue bug fixes and etc. For instance EA are now releasing their games like Dragon Age: Origins on GOG. They offered their expansions there after the release as a "patch", but they wouldn't make any bug fixes and etc. Such games are way past their production cycle. Clearly EA don't mind extra sales coming from such games. Though quite a lot are still missing.

> That's not even factoring the risk that you are now releasing a super easy to pirate version.

So you are saying they shouldn't sell those games because what, pirates already pirated and still pirate them? That's ridiculous. It's simply saying - we can have more sales, but we shouldn't. That release has no effect on piracy whatsoever. If anything it can actually reduce it, because some might pirate cracked versions because they are DRM-free.

You now have to support an additional production build of your game.

You're suggesting that takes no effort?

By the way - patches don't just mean actual gameplay patches. Patches also means compatibility with future operating systems, drivers, and hardware that you can't possibly know anything about today.

> You now have to support an additional production build of your game.

What kind of build? The most they'd need to do is to repackage it. And really GOG do it on their own, so all they need to do is to provide the game to GOG. There is no build involved for such older games.

> Patches also means compatibility with future operating systems, drivers, and hardware that you can't possibly know anything about today.

Those don't depend on distributors, they are universal. I.e. if they are doing it on Steam, they can use it on GOG as well.

> What kind of build? The most they'd need to do is to repackage it. And really GOG do it on their own, so all they need to do is to provide the game to GOG. There is no build involved for such older games.

It doesn't matter. It's an extra build. That means extra testing and QA resources. Have you heard of regression bugs?

> Those don't depend on distributors, they are universal. I.e. if they are doing it on Steam, they can use it on GOG as well.

Maybe. Maybe not. Either way it's another build to support. You won't know until you test it.

> It doesn't matter. It's an extra build.

If they can't handle trivial packaging (tarball) or consider it an insurmountable effort - they should switch to some other business. Again, such older games don't get allocated QA and other resources normal production cycle games do. They get very minimal treatment. GOG do that QA for them actually. And if there are major problems, GOG either fix it on their own, or they reject those games if they can't fix some very major bugs. In result their versions actually tend to work better than Steam ones. Such companies like EA or 2K on the other hand aren't likely to go and fix bugs in their old releases.

The question isn't how trivial it is (fairly), but how much work it is compared to the money it would bring in. From my limted experience if could well be < $5,000. That doesn't buy a lot of developer time.

Trivial one time effort isn't a problem in comparison with potential sales.

If 20,000 already requested a game on GOG which they sell for around $10-$15, you'll get way more than $5,000. How much sales that would be can of course vary from game to game, but I don't think Bioshock games are in trouble of not being bought.

It's not just DRM. The games have Steam Achievements too.

It's all a bit more complicated than you make it sound.

It's not extra money if it costs them more in development time than they'll make in profit.

> So you are saying they shouldn't sell those games because what, pirates already pirated and still pirate it? That's ridiculous. It's simply saying - we can have more sales, but we shouldn't. That release has no effect on piracy whatsoever. If anything it can actually reduce it, because some might pirate cracked versions because they are DRM-free.

No, like I said - it's a risk that needs to be factored. You're making it sound like DRM has no affect whatsoever.

Yes - pirates will still crack DRM and pirate games, however, that's a hell of a lot different than downloading a binary and having it run with no modifications whatsoever.

To suggest that DRM doesn't at least somewhat thwart mass piracy is ridiculous.

There is no risk there, and nothing to factor. DRM has nothing to do with piracy, especially for older games which were and are widely pirated already. I.e. not releasing those games DRM-free means lost sales, point blank.

> Yes - pirates will still crack DRM and pirate games, however, that's a hell of a lot different than downloading a binary and having it run with no modifications whatsoever.

You miss the point. Once it's cracked - that's it. It's pirated forever since, and no further DRM would stop that. So again, not releasing it DRM-free means some sales will be lost and there is zero risk in such release.

> To suggest that DRM doesn't at least somewhat thwart mass piracy is ridiculous.

It doesn't. It actually is shown to increase it, especially for older games. Some most obnoxious DRM like Denuvo is shown to slow it down, just by the mere fact of placing draconian restrictions on usability, but even that is being cracked eventually. However such older games we are talking about don't use this trash most of the time.

> You miss the point. Once it's cracked - that's it. It's pirated forever since, and no further DRM would stop that. So again, not releasing it DRM-free means some sales will be lost and there is zero risk in such release.

I don't agree with this. To acquire a cracked version of something you have to research and understand the channels in which pirated material is released - this means having the basic technical competency to do things such as download a torrent or run a game crack.

I know people that cannot or will not put in the time to do this and will simply purchase the material instead.

If, however, it was simply a binary to download this would not be an issue.

To suggest that DRM is completely useless is inaccurate. Even if it is just a hurdle, it does have an effect.

> I don't agree with this. To acquire a cracked version of something you have to research and understand the channels in which pirated material is released - this means having the basic technical competency to do things such as download a torrent or run a game crack.

Which is trivial, since nothing stops first knowledgeable pirates from applying those cracks and releasing cracked versions ever since. Downloading such games is trivial, you can either accept the inevitable, or pretend there is no elephant in the room (pirates providing easy to use DRM-free versions).

Business wise however, you can get more sales by releasing it DRM-free, because not only those who avoided the game because of DRM would buy it, but some of those who pirated it before, would buy it as well. It's good there are sensible studios who realize that and release even their new games DRM-free.

> To suggest that DRM is completely useless is inaccurate.

It's not useless, but it's not used for increasing sales. It's useful in a crooked sense, i.e. its purpose is always bad.

DRM tends to thwart piracy for, what, 24 hours after release, usually? The crackers are very good, and they usually break any kind of DRM, no matter how onerous and convoluted, in short order.

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