Extreme Tech Explores Piracy, Copy Protection, and the Evolution of PC Gaming
By Shawn on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 11:25 AM PST In Computer, Game Platforms, Gamer Life, Games Industry
The latest Notes From the Lab on ExtremeTech explores software piracy, copy right protection and the evolution of PC gaming. The piece takes a critical look a the battle raging between software pirates and the PC game developers.
This struggle is forcing some Indie developers to abandon plans to develop PC games. However it’s spurring an evolution of a few different types of games for the PC. Driven by models such as Guild Wars pay and play free online, digital downloads and free games with purchasable DLC; we are likely to see the head of the PC gaming industry severed, only to grow back in multiple new formats.
via ExtremeTech
Man… is the reason why no one has posted on these new articles because we all know it’s true?
One of the big problems I have is with so called anti-piracy software such as SecuRom. Most of it doesn’t work, or only stalls piraters for a short time, while at the same time inconveniencingthe customer who legally obtains the software. This can lead to people buying a game, but using a pirated or cracked version to play it in order to get around the problems caused by the piracy software.
Gaming has always been the No.1 target for pirates – way about everything else – due to the obvious audience age group and the money to be made.
Game companies haven’t helped themselves though by not using enough robust copy protection mechanisms and finding the best mix of protections and user convenience.
The future is a mix of server based gaming and protections based on both the client and server infrastructure as this doesnt affect the user but makes it much harder to crack.
http://blog.nalpeiron.com/