I haven't bought many games over the last 5 or 6 years. Largely due to the fact that these days developers simply release crappy, half finished, incoherent and generally not fun games. It seems to be the rule rather than the exception of late. The only games I have actually paid for in the last, say, 3 years are Mass Effect, The Witcher, Battlefield 2142, and Spore Galactic Edition. Well, I played a pirated version of Mass Effect and Spore before purchasing them. Mass Effect was so well done that it deserved my money. The Witcher was a leap of faith, and it paid off as it is an excellent game. Battlefield 2142 sucked ass. Spore...well, Spore has been a mixed bag. A bag full mostly of crap. Horrible DRM restrictions, major graphics issues, lots of BSOD and CTD's, and a completely dumbed down, lowest-common-denominator mentality. Fallout 3 is the next game I'm going to spend money on. I played it for about 15 hours, and absolutely LOVE it. That is the way games should be made. AWESOME attention to detail, fantastic story lines, great dialog, cutting edge graphics/physics, and way above average replayability.
But, back to the point. Had I known about the DRM problems with Spore before purchasing it, I would never have bought it. I made the mistake of not reading the forums and what not first. For me, it's the install limits that make me want to boycott EA. I haven't yet experienced a crash related directly to the DRM scheme, but I hate DRM on principal. Not to mention the fact that the DRM was installed without my knowledge (and it's NEVER installed by ANY game with my consent). However, my girlfriend has had a DVD burner ruined from DRM being installed on her computer. She installed a game that had DRM on it, and then her DVD drive suddenly had trouble reading discs. Then it simply failed to read ANY disc at all. Formatting and reinstalling everything had no effect. So we put a new drive in from a different manufacturer. As soon as she installed the game again, the new drive started to fail. I realized what was happening and immediately re-wiped and reinstalled her system, before any permanent damage to the new drive. She has since thrown the game away without having ever played it. That is just plain bullshit. She has never even heard of a torrent and the only mp3's she has are ones she bought from Rhapsody and ITunes. So, you may be asking yourself, "Well, the title of his response says the most people just plain hate DRM, but how does he know this?" Well, it's not exactly the most scientific thing in the world, but I made a poll on EA's Spore forums, and here are the results :
Does DRM bother you AT ALL, either morally, philosophically, or by messing up your computer? (269 votes so far)
Yes, I hate it, it needs to die. 62% [168]
No, no problems here. 19% [51]
What is DRM? If I knew what it was, I could say yes or no. 4% [12]
I'd not be bothered by unobtrusive/stable/non-damaging DRM that doesn't restrict legal users. 14% [38]
I made this poll in response to the article with the EA guy that said 99.8% of users care about DRM. As I said, this poll is NOT the best gauge in the world, but it still speaks pretty loudly to the fact the current DRM is just garbage and of no benefit to anyone. In fact, the only people who seem to really be affect by DRM are the legal users who actually paid for the games that have DRM schemes. They are the ones who have install errors, incompatibility errors, install limits, bloatware, ruined DVD drives, etc. Treating a paying customer like a criminal is just fucking retarded. And annoying. Why should I pay for something that is possibly going to break my computer, cause massive amounts of headache, and make me feel like I got ripped off? Most games I download copies of aren't worth the money I would have to pay to play test them otherwise. Here are some examples of games that I saved money on by pirating them first : Legend Hand of God (utter boring tripe), So Blonde (wow, just lame), Lost Via Domus (horrible voice acting, boring as hell), Jericho (just a big mess of buginess and gamebreaking errors), and many many many others. I don't know what makes these companies think that they DESERVE my money when they release a game that is hyped and touted and LOOKS fun and engaging, but turns out to be unfinished, buggy as hell, broken in major ways, ugly as sin, boring as fuck, and just NOT WORTH THE MONEY. Demos are NOT a good way to get a feel for a game either. As others have pointed out, demos are usually polished and refined, but the rest of the game is just rushed and often a mess. When I DO find a game that is GOOD (ie. NOT broken, IS finished, IS fun and engaging, and has NO or VERY LITTLE bugs or issues), then I play it a bit more until my paycheck arrives and then I go buy it. Same with movies. Some I go to the theater to see (Transformers, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, The Dark Knight), but most I download first. If I like the movie, I go buy it on DVD. If I don't like the movie, well I didn't waste MY hard earned money on it that I wasn't going to spend on it in the first place. I have over 350 DVD's, so spending money obviously isn't an issue, but only IF the movie deserves it. That is also why I only have about 8 physical, legal copies of PC games. Because out of the hundreds I've played, only those 8 or so were actually WORTH the money. But, now I'm just rattling on.
