drm question

[point_vector]

I just bought Half Life 2 the other day and I had to connect to the Steam server and register my game and all that other junk. My question about DRM is, how can they release a game that has to connect to a server to be played, and it has to connect like every time? What is going to happen in 20 years when I go to play this game again and that server is not there. What then? Is the game I dropped almost $80 for down the drain, even though it is a legitimate copy. It's bad enough right now that when their server goes down, I can't play my game. It almost seems to me that the software corp. wants people to crack their software. I still play through final fantasy on the nes like once a year, and I do that with all my old games, and some of them are older than I am.

[setarip_old]

how can they release a game that has to connect to a server to be played, and it has to connect like every time?

Does the (outer) packaging disclose this requirement? If it does, then the choice is yours as to whether you're willing to purchase a game with this requirement.

If this requirement is not disclosed on the (outer) packaging and you're not willing to accept this requirement, return the game to the place of purchase and demand a refund.

The question that comes to mind is, what if someone doesn't have online capability (I'm sure there are at least 5 such people left in the world ;>})? Is there any way they could play this game?

[point_vector]

I'm not really complaining about connection to the server now. The packaging probably does say something about connecting to the sever, but it also doesn't say that one day the game will be unsupported. I feel that if I pay for this game now and later they decide not to support it, it should, by law I feel, be release to the general public without cost; even though they would want you to pay for the same game again without drm, probably as a download.

[CWR03]

Half-Life² does allow for offline play, but it must be logged into a server at least once in order to do so. I'm sure there are a lot of people who've bought the game and realized too late they needed internet connection just to play in single-player despite it being stated on the box.

[Doobie]

In 20 years, you most likely will not be able to play your Half Life 2, the DRM is just one possible reason.

[dani82]

an off-line game that requires an online connection just to play (so to speak), system requirements are getting a little outrageous, it's going to suck when there's a minimum ping requirement for online games

[Shinigami-Sama]

thats why I still like playing old dos games like sorched earth, and some emulated 16-bit games, lets see them DRM those :)
but I was wondering why I was hearing about some people complaining that they couldn' ever play single-mode on that game

[Doom9]

Unfortunately, with today's games the user is often better off with the warez copy (of course not in a legal sense, and if nobody buys games there won't be any anymore in the future).

[Shinigami-Sama]

isn't that why you buy a copy then get a warezed one?

[spuddog]

I bought and played HL2, Not only did it require the registration, but every week or so it would require you to update your game files as I had at the time dial-up I would spend the evening updating instead of playing the game. I used to anticipate the next release of pc fps games but with each generation of games the requirements to play go up(faster proscessor, more ram, better video card,drms, not to mention the hardware conflicts). Is it just me, or are developers driving away their best customers.

[CWR03]

Is it just me, or are developers driving away their best customers.

If game development didn't continually advance, we'd still be playing games with graphics like Doom.

Half-Life² allows for offline play, and only needs to be connected once. If you patched it for offline play, you'd never need to update it to play.

[Nematocyst]

Is it just me, or are developers driving away their best customers.
It's not just the developers but the mentality that games must be copy protected. That's what drives me away. Well, that and the fact I'm not the gamer I used to be. However, I personally think the main reason for that is the need to have the CD/DVD in the drive. I will not tolerate that, and haven't for years. And that's the reason that the only commercial game I play these days is Starcraft, and only because I imaged the CD and run Daemon tools. If Blizzard ever blocks that somehow, then I'll stop playing that game too.

If they came up with copy protection that wasn't such a pain for end users, I'd have no real objection. But they have to be careful since there are other things I won't tolerate that they might use, such as phone-home techniques. While I have no objection to the concept, the problem is trust. I simply don't trust them or especially most of the non-game companies to act in good faith. eg. what are they collecting/sending that I don't know about? Once I open my firewall to their software, I'm not tech savy enough to tell if they are sending only what they should. Therefore, I don't allow it.