No, it stems from the same issue as a trademark, if you do not actively try and protect your trademark, you will lose the rights to it. And although this has never been challenged in court, because no game maker has ever sued someone over a DRM-less game, but the argument arises that if you didn't even attempt to protect your Intellectual Property, do you have a right to claim damages?

If i leave my car door wide open, am I allowed to charge a hobo with breaking into my car if he decides to fall asleep inside it?

A company that owns the copyright/IP definitely can pursue someone they can prove has violated said copyright, even if they used no DRM.

That's a prevalent statement with no foundation of factual evidence, only vague claims with at best anecdotal support of suspicious origin.
Poorly developed game with large budget has poor sales, piracy is to blame.
On the other hand, we have games like Skyrim, that while they show plenty of development issues, nonetheless sell extremely well, and Skyrim WILL get pirated (if it isn't available already)



Sadly, the only thing those sales figures will tell Bethesda is that they can keep on doing business as usual, because us PC gamers will put up with it. If, however, we try to talk with our wallets, poor sales figures will tell Bethesda to abandon the PC platform. It's a lose-lose situation either way. it's disappointing to see developers treat their roots with such disrespect, but it's a very common trend these days.

Thankfully, there are still some developers out there that show true dedication to the platform (and ironically enough, the makers of Steam, and in fact Steam itself are two big contributors to that), and I'm confident there always will be.

The whole DRM argument is a pile of heaping crap. These games are cracked generally before release with or without DRM. All that DRM is punish those of us that actually purchase the games.

Contrary to these other guys .. the longer I have steam the MORE I HATE IT!!!. I can't stand being required to run some other stupid program to be able to run the program that I really want to play.

I don't like giving information to a company on the internet that gets hacked and compromised and loses said information. Activation when you install is all that is really required for DRM and tie the system to the hardward. I hate not being able to play my games when the internet service is down because someone in their infinite wisdom said "you must have internet to play a single player game." STUPID STUPID STUPID.

Thank god companies like blizzard are out there that know how to do DRM correctly. Example: SCII install on your system and register it. Once that is done you can ::gasp:: play the game offline when you have not internet access. Shocking that you can do that in a multiplayer game.

With Skyrim, you go on a long trip, kids can't play it on their laptops while you are out driving ... cause we don't have steam. You can't play skyrim if you are in more rural areas where you don't have internet service etc etc. I have personal experience with both of those situations and it's very frustrating when you buy a game then find out after the fact you can't play without these STUPID services running. The game was promoted that you "would only need steam to activate it." Once that was done you could play it on your system. I so wish that was true, instead I can't play games like this in many situations.

Some day game companies will wake up and not require this crap.

That anology doesn't really work for me. I think more it would be more accurate to say that ford built a car without locks on it and no key required to start it. You bought one, but several other people just went to the dealership and stole theirs.

This is very true and, unfortunately, as much as I am enjoying Skyrim, I have already made the decision not to purchase the next TES title unless the PC version is properly supported. That will probably bother Bethesda infinitely less than it will bother me, but in the end they're only games and there are plenty out there.

You completely miss the point.

The goal is not to STOP PIRACY OMG. That's never going to happen. The point is that companies must and absolutely WILL implement some form of DRM to take the edge off piracy.

Steam DRM kills casual piracy. If a person really wants to, of course they'll find a crack. But casual joe gamer just wants to play Skyrim, and is a little leery of bad websites because his cousin got a virus once, and his Norton yells at him. He can't go to his friends' house and just copy the DVD, so he'll svck it up and pay the $ to get it through Steam.

It's a simple incentive for very low risk to the company -- Steam works just fine for a gajillion users.

Count up how many people will NOT buy Skyrim because of Steam. Subtract the number of people that will NOT copy a Skyrim DVD because of the "SteamDRM". I bet that number is negative.

You do realise Bethesda suffered the same kind of attacks, right? There's even a sticky about it on this board.

And it wasn't even Steam accounts that were compromised, it was Steam forum accounts (which shouldn't have the same login).


Offline mode.

Buying a Bethesda game I am forced to patronize steam which I dislike and have zero interest in using. Its going to become a monopoly where any game worth a dang will have to have steam. Or other companies will spring up its already starting to happen, and put out their own form of steam, so a gamer will have to run steam for steam game, origin for an origin game, and so on. You could have half a dozen accounts to manage on top of half a dozen different third party programs to run for each different game. This is what pc gamers want apparently. Pc gamers that support steam and ones like it are doing the most to harm pc gaming as a whole, worst yet they think its some how its helping pc gaming, or its the future of pc gaming..

This is how I always play mine. Works as long as you log in and check "remember password".

Steam has done wonders for PC gaming, especially when it comes to indie developers. Digital sales make up over 50% of PC sales. You are simply incorrect.

Do you have any evidence at all to support that claim? Or just vague make believe scenarios?



I can play all my Steam games offline just fine, including Skyrim.

Which if you've tried it, doesn't actually work for Skyrim. At least not for me. Or probably the guy you're replying to.

Theft is still theft. Just because you wouldn't have paid for it normally does not in any way justify it. It is not the victim's fault that the crime happens to them. They may have made poor decisions that help bring it about, but they are not the ones to commit the crime.

Sure, piracy will probably not "kill" PC gaming, but if there is less money to be made in it than other venues, something will change.

The point is, the developers have every right to protect their property, and to accuse them of wrongdoing is silly. And just because something will inevitably be pirated does not make it socially acceptable. It is something that must be stamped out and hindered at every turn.

As I said, only because this circumstance has never occurred. Ive read several articles(which im unsuccessfully trying to find now to cite, I believe one was on slashdot) where fear of this exact precedent being set is what drives some of the big name company execs to attach token DRM to their software, they know pirates wont be stopped, but they also don't want to, no matter how remote the chance, give the pirates a foot in the door to undermine their rights.

Offline mode works for every game if you sign to your Steam account online one single time.


The PC version of Skyrim is competing with the PS3 version in terms of sales. The Xbox 360 version was widely available on torrents and usenet 8 days before the PC version. These arguments against PC gaming are fallacious.

This is the first and perhaps only game I will purchase via Steam. Ironically enough, this is the posterchild videogame of why I don't want to put all my eggs in Steam's basket. I've seen people burnt by such models in the past. My wife had a bunch of DRMd music that she had purchased online via Microsoft's music store equivalent, and a few years later they stopped supporting it and shut down their servers. So when she got a new computer and tried transferring her music, she couldn't listen to any of it. I had to then go down the illegal path of cracking the DRM using online tools, so I could listen to music that my wife legitimately owned. As for all the MP3s that I *illegally* ripped from my CD collection?...they are doing just fine, 8 years down the line.

I have the same worry for Steam. Sure it is big and successful, but you have to inherently trust that they will continue to exist and run their activation servers in the future. For most games, it doesn't matter. Most of us just play them once, and then you never revisit them years later. But the TES series is different. Even now, people are creating great MW mods, and I am seriously considering reinstalling MW with the latest mods to play it again. There isn't any guarantee that 8 years from now, Steam will still let me download and install/run Skyrim. I for one, am glad that the pirates exist, because they will ensure that Skyrim will never disappear into oblivion (couldn't resist the pun ) over the years to come.

And it's not like Bethesda is going to opensource Skyrim and past games at some point in the future a la John Carmack and ID Software (who just open sourced the DOOM 3 source code).

Unfortunately yours doesn't work for me, as copying a piece of software does not fall into the definition of stealing. It falls into unlawful, or unauthorized usage depending on circumstances which my anology of a hobo using my door-wide-open car to sleep in fits nicely.

If we're talking about Skyrim alone, sure, PC is more successful. This is most likely due to the well known fact that mods are PC only. My statements were for PC gaming in general, where the trends generally have pointed to greater sales in the console realm over the PC realm.

And I would love to see some actual proof that somehow, beyond MMO gaming, that the PC has been a more successful gaming platform than consoles. Pretty sure that is not the case.

Its one thing to sell digitally its another to be forced to use steam, why does steam need this form of control over my single player PC game? I dont need the typical reply, drm, patches, advertisemant, to me its just another form of control, all this internet checks, third party program. Name me a no name indie game on steam for sell that dont look like it was made in 1989.

...That's why I heard Skyrim was cracked a day before release for the PC right...

Personally I don't have anything against Steam, as long as it DOES ITS JOB you know... protection against theives and all... but if the game is going to be pirated so easily, it doesn't seem like there would be a difference to me whether it was just a "put in the CD to play" game and less people would have problems with it. My point is, go back to the days of old where games actually weren't a hassle, or actually make sure your "DRM" does it's job...

Skyrim DRM = Fail ):

I never made any claims to the contrary.



Things always change. My contention is blaming change on piracy with no real evidence to support it, and potentially completely ignoring the REAL causes of said change, and thus missing out on a REAL opportunity to address the root cause of said change. My claim, is that piracy is all too often a cop-out used by developers of poorly selling games. I simply can't see how piracy would substantially affect only some games and not others. It either has a significant impact on ALL game sales, or it doesn't. And frankly, all available evidence indicates the latter.



Again, I never made any claims that people don't have the right to protect their property. My only claim has been that DRM isn't protecting anything. hell, I doubt it even hinders anything.

Patches and cracks are viable solutions, but they'll never be sanctioned by Bethesda (for obvious reasons).

If you want to learn more about those methods, Google it. Pretty sure it can't be discussed here because it delves into the realm of piracy.

What's wrong with steam exactly? I'v been using it faithfully for 3-4 years and never had a problem. Neither have any of my friends ever had a problem. If you aren't a steam user, why not? Do you hate their annual sales where most games go on sale from 25-75% off? Or do you hate the convenience of having everything in one place?

(Yes, I'm a huge steam advocate)

Where did I say that? I was specifically talking about Skyrim. Got to love how people go on the defensive because they read something that nobody said.


Steam has no "control" over your game.

Bethesda have opted to use Steamworks, Bethesda set the price it would be sold on Steam, and Bethesda decide when patches go out. Bethesda could have simply opted not to use Steamworks or Steam at all. Your issue is not with Valve because Valve do not put a gun to anyone's head and say "you must use Steamworks for your game", there are plenty of games on Steam that don't use Steamworks, meaning you can buy them from elsewhere and play them without ever installing Steam.

As for an example of a good indie game on Steam, see: Hard Reset and plenty of others, no need to be petulant.