Capcom's Steam Deck Verified Games are being made unplayable with new DRM that only punishes paying customers

Lee Duna@lemmy.nz to Technology@lemmy.world – 875 points –
Capcom's Steam Deck Verified Games are being made unplayable with new DRM that only punishes paying customers
tomshardware.com
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Not really. There's plenty of DRM that has no negative impact on paying customers'.

At an absolute minimum, the DRM prevents me from easily making a backup of my legitimate copy, which I am otherwise entitled to do.

So yeah, by definition DRM has a negative impact on paying customers.

The backups are stored on the same place you downloaded it from.

...until the stores decide to stop offering them.

At which point they can decide to remove the DRM

Can, but might not. Companies are not notorious for spending effort on products they are abandoning. The only reason they do it with Denuvo is that it charges them a subscription for as long as it's implemented.

I mean of course they probably won't, but again that is a problem with implementation and not an inherent problem with DRM.

It is an inherent problem with DRM, because if there was no DRM there wouldn't be a possibility of this happening.

You have it backwards. It's not an inherent problem of DRM because it's not a requirement for it to have DRM forever.

DRM doesn't purge itself automatically. I don't know how to spell it any clearer but if the problem is that DRM continues to exist, and it is solved when DRM is removed, then DRM itself is the problem.

And I speak as someone who lost my official purchase of Tron Evolution to outdated DRM.

I don't think you are arguing in favor of cracking groups, as much as I'm appreciative of them.

DRM doesn't purge itself automatically.

It doesn't have to.

I don't know how to spell it any clearer but if the problem is that DRM continues to exist, and it is solved when DRM is removed, then DRM itself is the problem.

Once again you have it backwards. If the DRM is removed then the problem you cited never existed and there's no problem to be solved.

And I speak as someone who lost my official purchase of Tron Evolution

I don't understand what purpose your anecdotes are supposed to serve here.

Oh boy, I wonder what's the relevance of being a first-hand witness of what happens when DRM that doesn't purge itself, doesn't get removed and loses support. I wonder how differently that would have gone if DRM had never been used instead.

Welp, who knows what's the point of it all. A complete mystery huh 🤷‍♂️

God forbid you should actually explain it rather than acting like an ass and ignoring the question.

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I think you're misunderstanding things. You trust these companies to do what is best for the consumer. That's not how the rest of us, or the companies you're defending, consider things. Their interest is in the bottom dollar. If screwing you makes a buck, they'll do it. Trusting them to do the right thing is a major player in enshittification.

I think you're misunderstanding things. You trust these companies to do what is best for the consumer.

I think you're misunderstanding things. I absolutely do not. Quite the opposite, actually. Hence why I said "of course they probably won't".

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No, that's where the service provider's backups are stored. I don't have the ability to make my own. That's a huge stretch and very tortured logic. And even if I went for it, by not being able to make backups at my pleasure I'm still being impacted, so... still, by definition, a negative impact on the paying customer that people pirating the same media don't have. They just Ctrl C Ctrl V that stuff.

Yeah that's a huge stretch my guy. What exactly do you (or anyone else, for that matter) need a backup for that you can't simply download from the distributor?

If there's another device, you can install Steam on it and copy the file over locally.

You can also freely copy all of your game save files for backup to restore on another installation.

Because it shouldn't be on me to ask for permission to do stuff with my software that I bought.

Maybe I'm too old, because I remember when I bought a disk and I just copied it and used that. Which is legal, by the way.

Well, alright, I don't need to remember too far back, because I was ripping some movies today. Which, again, fair game. I paid for them, I get to use them. I shouldn't have to explain to you, Valve, Netflix or anybody else why I want to back up the thing I bought.

I shouldn't have to explain to you, Valve, Netflix or anybody else why I want to back up the thing I bought.

If you want to make an argument as to how DRM hurts you, inherently, you do need to explain it. You can't just show up, go "nuh uh" and expect anyone to be convinced by that.

Well, no. I was happily buying my games on discs and cartridges and my movies on DVDs and tapes and my music in CDs. If they're going to swing around, tell me I'm buying digital licenses and I can no longer do the legal things I used to do it's them who owe an explanation.

I have no idea why you feel the need to shill so hard for these things, but it's clearly not sticking. You're putting the onus on the customer and, as a customer I get to just say "no, screw you" and keep buying physical media instead. It's a shame that more people don't, but it's pretty obvious that having them take over my computer to limit what I do with my purchases is damaging to me, and I don't have to like it because you say so.

If they're going to swing around, tell me I'm buying digital licenses and I can no longer do the legal things I used to do it's them who owe an explanation.

Got it. So you're not going to provide any explanation for your argument? Then we have nothing further to discuss.

I have no idea why you feel the need to shill so hard for these things

LOL I am not "shilling" anything. I am trying to have a logical discussion but you don't seem to be capable. And now since you're incapable you've resorted to personal attacks.

You're putting the onus on the customer and, as a customer I get to just say "no, screw you" and keep buying physical media instead.

and I don't have to like it because you say so.

By all means, please continue. I did not and would not suggest anything otherwise.

Writing off DRM as a whole is an incredibly selfish position. Digital media creators have the right to financially benefit from their creations.

Unfortunately many selfish people not only believe they have a right to any reproduce able form of media, but that have a responsibility to distribute said media to others. It's incredibly fucked up and I don't blame anyone who either adds DRM or refuses to spend their time creating it in the first place.

I will wholeheartedly agree that really shitty and invasive DRM that delivers an experience less than piracy is trash.

Good day.

I make a living off of media creation and have for over twenty years, across multiple mediums and in different capacities. Some of the stuff I've worked on has been DRMd and some has not.

The financial benefit coming my way has not been dependent on DRM at any point to any extent I can discern. You want to impact "the right to financially benefit from their creations"? Fix the fact that companies can just hire a creator to work for hire and own all their output in perpetuity with no requirement for additional compensation and indeed no IP rights staying with the people doing the actual work.

If you're gonna high horse me with the morality of financially compensating creators you better be talking about the actual creators, not the corporations keeping the bulk of the revenue.

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no negative impact on paying customers'.

I think you meant "on the paying customers' experiences"

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