[devoutsalsa]

Younger, poorer me would not hesitate to pirate a game if that meant it’d be free. I do not blame a company for trying to protect their investment. I’d do that, too, if I was dropping 10s of millions of USD into developing a game.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> I do not blame a company for trying to protect their investment.

I don't really blame them for wanting to prevent piracy, but I absolutely blame them for implementing it in a way that degrades the game only for paying customers.

[SahAssar]

The absurd point here (and in many other cases) is that paying customers get a worse experience than those who pirate.

For some games I've paid for a game but then still pirated it because the pirated copy removed things like unwanted software (uplay, etc.) or allowed me to play offline in a single player game.

I just want to pay for a game but still get a reasonable experience so for me paying and pirating can make sense.

[WmyEE0UsWAwC2i]

1. Paying customers get worse experience than pirates. 2. Your software lifespan is reduced. (Worst if you use 3rd party DRM). 3. The company pay for something that 99% of the time doesn't work.

So I see the intent, but not the logic

[lostgame]

That’s not the commenter’s point.

Their point is that literally all broken DRM like this does is punish paying customers and encourage piracy.

Nothing to do with the ethics of piracy - which - btw - if you don’t want me to pirate your game - don’t use DRM. ;)

[fenomas]

> literally all broken DRM like this does is punish paying customers

That's clearly not true here. The game in TFA went ~two months without being cracked - that's what the DRM was there for.

> if you don’t want me to pirate your game - don’t use DRM

This is such a weird sentiment to see on a place like HN. Do you ignore the terms of software licenses that you don't like? If not, what's the difference?

[everyone]

I vote with my wallet. I don't support DRM: I don't ever buy anything with DRM. I go out of my way to buy DRM-free stuff. (sometimes I buy a couple of copies)

[azalemeth]

Here here. I haven't bought Sony since their rootkit fiasco; and I basically only buy games from gog.com or indie studios directly.

[unishark]

By the same logic a broken lock on a store's door does literally nothing except prevent customers from entering the store to buy stuff. Sure, but this is just a risk of having security. The solution is to fix the problem, not discard locks and security.

Also one might argue there are second-order benefits to the paying customers, like lower prices and more products being offered since the seller can make more money.