The DRM Saga - Sports Interactive

On launch day browsing these forums would have been a PR nightmare for sports interactive, the beloved and much sought after football manager was now the focus of untold fury and was bearing the wrath of "the internet".

I stated in numerous posts and actually campaigned a week before the release for Sports Interactive not to go ahead with the DRM they had stated, I also predicted that the activation servers would cripple under the load, with the people who purchased the game suffering and not the pirates for which these measures were meant to stop, or hinder - which we all knew wouldn't happen.

So all of that being said, it allows a question for thought.

Now that Sports Interactive realise (and many other companies EA for example) that DRM doesnt actually work, Football Manager was on torrent and downloaded over 15,000 times on the launch day. How do developers like Sports Interactive actually protect their intellectual property?

Its a question that EA, Microsoft, Sony, Valve, Sega, Atari, Vivendi, Sierra and others have tried to solve, EA tried with DRM and failed in such a catastrophic way it was worth of an honourary medal, sadly despite their very public failure, Sega/SI didnt learn, and they faced the same fate.

The answer to the above question is that you cant protect your intellectual property. fact!

Just because you have the right to protect it, doesnt mean you will actually be able too.

This is where developers/publishers of the game have to realise that when a user downloads a game, it doesnt mean a lost sale, if that was true, then everyone who downloaded the demo would go out and buy the game - its insanity at best.

To truly understand this, you have to understand the mentality of pirates, and its not to be malicious or not to actually pay for software, you'd be surprised at how much legitimate software pirates own, even the release groups tell people "if you like this software, support it, buy it".

It actually comes down to freedom, freedom of choice for you and for me, and its something that DRM will simply not stop, and nor should it.

So how do you protect intellectual property? - Well if you've read this far down, then you deserve to know. You protect your intellectual property by doing two things.

1 - Lower the RRP - £24.99 is a good, fair price for a PC Game, I applaud SI for that.

2 - Release DRM Free - I dont even need to explain this, its all above.

/end

Football Manager was on torrent and downloaded over 15,000 times on the launch day

Which was all a cracked version of the demo, thus having missing functionality.

This topic has also been done to death.

On launch day browsing these forums would have been a PR nightmare for sports interactive, the beloved and much sought after football manager was now the focus of untold fury and was bearing the wrath of "the internet".

I stated in numerous posts and actually campaigned a week before the release for Sports Interactive not to go ahead with the DRM they had stated, I also predicted that the activation servers would cripple under the load, with the people who purchased the game suffering and not the pirates for which these measures were meant to stop, or hinder - which we all knew wouldn't happen.

So all of that being said, it allows a question for thought.

Now that Sports Interactive realise (and many other companies EA for example) that DRM doesnt actually work, Football Manager was on torrent and downloaded over 15,000 times on the launch day. How do developers like Sports Interactive actually protect their intellectual property?

Its a question that EA, Microsoft, Sony, Valve, Sega, Atari, Vivendi, Sierra and others have tried to solve, EA tried with DRM and failed in such a catastrophic way it was worth of an honourary medal, sadly despite their very public failure, Sega/SI didnt learn, and they faced the same fate.

The answer to the above question is that you cant protect your intellectual property. fact!

Just because you have the right to protect it, doesnt mean you will actually be able too.

This is where developers/publishers of the game have to realise that when a user downloads a game, it doesnt mean a lost sale, if that was true, then everyone who downloaded the demo would go out and buy the game - its insanity at best.

To truly understand this, you have to understand the mentality of pirates, and its not to be malicious or not to actually pay for software, you'd be surprised at how much legitimate software pirates own, even the release groups tell people "if you like this software, support it, buy it".

It actually comes down to freedom, freedom of choice for you and for me, and its something that DRM will simply not stop, and nor should it.

So how do you protect intellectual property? - Well if you've read this far down, then you deserve to know. You protect your intellectual property by doing two things.

1 - Lower the RRP - £24.99 is a good, fair price for a PC Game, I applaud SI for that.

2 - Release DRM Free - I dont even need to explain this, its all above.

/end

It would be very interesting to see the cost/benefit calculations for these anti-piracy "solutions". Just how much does a company like SI/SEGA lose as a result of software piracy? And how much has been spent on trying to reduce this?

There are so many organisations in all walks of life and business that manage to get statistics to support the sale of their product/service, when in actual fact it is not needed, or can certainly never be truly justified. In financial services, hundreds of millions of pounds (if not billions) is being spent each year on trying to reduce the level of money laundering that takes place. The truth of the matter is that the cost to the industry (and the country as a whole) is a tiny fraction of this cost. It's insanity!

Now, I am not in a position to know this within the gaming industry, but surely SEGA has looked into this and realised that it is worth spending all this money on it, as well as risking annoying their loyal customer base ?!?!?! Or has someone in the anti-piracy industry just managed yet another great presentation and sold their products/services on the back of it?

I really need to highlight a couple of your points here.

1. First off that piracy is in fact an example of somebody exercising their freedom of choice. When it comes to the issue of piracy you have no freedom of choice, this is not a free country, piracy is illegal, freedom of choice does not enter into this equation

2. Just because people have the right to protect their intellectual property does not mean that they will be able to. True, very true, doesn't mean they shouldn't try to though does it? If i made a computer game with the design of marketing it to the masses in order to provide profits for my company then would i try to stop people ripping it off? You bet to hell i would!

3. That most pirates will go out and buy the game of the back of their download. I'd love to see some stats to back this but since i don't have any to contradict you i will be careful with my answer. Some pirates won't buy it and will keep playing a cracked version. I don't think that point can be argued with. Therefore surely coupling anti piracy measures with a demo, as has been done, would be acceptable. People can test before purchase then.

4. Finally I haven't heard of a complete crack for this game yet, my understanding is that people are just playing the extended demo. This means no patch, no updates and sneaky little programmer bugs. DRM 1 Pirates 0?

DRM 1 Pirates 0?

I'd call it a nil-nil to be fair. Pirates may not be enjoying the same quality of product that we have paid for (damn right too), but this year's DRM release-day fiasco left a bitter taste in many mouths. Here's hoping next year, assuming it's kept, lessons have been learned and we don't have a repeat of the problems - then I won't complain too loudly, as anybody can %$£@ up once.

The pirated version of FM08 (cracks from the demo) had a few issues such as wierd fixtures, but the cracked versions of FM09 are missing a lot of functionality, plus some bugs that only occur when you've been playing for a year - such as shafting you on penalty shootouts (you win but the opposition goes through).

I read a thread a couple of days ago saying that pirating sites were full of people asking for "full" versions of the game, so I'd say a lot of the people who download it are definitely not getting the full game. Maybe, with these problems within the cracked demos, it will actually have succeeded.

I'm saying "maybe" a lot because I don't have a definitive answer, just some opinions based on what I've read so far.

Which was all a cracked version of the demo, thus having missing functionality.

This topic has also been done to death.

not being able to go on holiday. not exactly an epic fail.

DRM was not put into the game to prevent piracy, at least not its primary use. IMO drm is in the game to prevent reselling

not being able to go on holiday. not exactly an epic fail.

That's not the only one.

DRM was not put into the game to prevent piracy, at least not its primary use. IMO drm is in the game to prevent reselling

If that were the case, surely the activation system wouldn't support deactivation of licenses?

That's not the only one.

there's more than one crack available. anyway its banned here to talk of it so we better not.

If that were the case, surely the activation system wouldn't support deactivation of licenses?

its enough to prevent places like Gamestation accepting them

Because it's too much work for them to check if all the licenses have been used. It's hardly intentional by the devs.