So why do companies still employ, and more to the point pay for it?
Serious question. Do you think you have more resources and better analytics to judge than them?
Yes, we have studies by independent entities that show that piracy is irrelevant.
And we also have companies that just don't put DRM on their games. CDPR and GoG are the best example.
Why do companies put DRM. Because of control of paying consumers. Because they fall for the sales pitch of companies like Denuvo and Enigma.
Because they don't care one bit about paying consumers.
I'd be very wary of arguing in absolutes when cases can vary quite dramatically. There is historical precedent for rampant piracy hurting publishers and by extension platforms.
Something does not need to be universally true, to be of real concern.
Like Gabe Newell said:
“One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue,”
“The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”
The reality is that DRM is not a solution for piracy. The solution is a better service.
Another good example is Netflix. After so many decades with the film industry trying to curb piracy with draconian was an DRM, the thing that actually slowed down piracy was a service that makes access to content easy.
The purpose of DRM isn't absolute prevention in most cases, its a deterrent and delaying tactic.
It prevents nothing. Many times we have seen games getting pirated days after launch. Sometimes, even before the official launch.
The only people getting hurt by DRM are paying consumers, that get lower performance, more stutters, have to deal with online activations, limits to activations, system instability, etc.
Which isn't the entirety of the consumer-base. As you noted previously, some pirates are just going to pirate. Similarly using mods isn't an interest shared by all buyers, some might be more concerned with the potential for malware than the advantages of installing a mod,
Exactly, some people will always pirate and there is nothing we can do about it. And DRM does little to nothing against it.
So why harm the consumers that pay for the product? This is just petty mismanagement.
I don't know enough about their product to judge whether it constitutes a virus or not, but either way its on Capcom or anyone else who employs such a scheme to do their due-diligence and to calculate the risk of reputational damage.
My theme here is not defending the use of such anti-temper schemes, just suggesting that people need to place the blame on the party paying for such technologies not those responding to the demand for it. Because like it or not, securing software from unauthorized modification has to have a place in a world where online/data security should be of real concern to us all.
This is why bitching at the suppliers of such security applications is a total non-starter. The better they do, the more effective their DRM, the more people are going to complain about it because these goals/desires are completely at odds with each other.
They cannot "be nice" to modders because they are being paid to make it as difficult for them as possible!
It acts like a virus. It's unwanted software. It reduces the functionality of the product. It reduces performance.
Just because it's sanctioned by some game companies, does not mean it's not malicious software that harms consumers.
Punished Miku
you couldn't connect A and B to understand this? Really?
www.eurogamer.net
