RE: Intel Insider: Hardware DRM At Home In Sandy Bridge

3vi1 — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 19:29:22 GMT

>> Google 'World of Goo piracy.' WoG is an indie game that got rave reviews, sold for less than $20 when new, and contained absolutely no DRM. The piracy rate was north of 90%.

>> When you're facing a piracy rate that high, a DRM solution that can lower the rate to 85% from 90% has just increased your revenue 50%. The developers of World of Goo decided DRM wasn't worth it--but it's not hard to see why other companies think it is.

Read all of what 2DBoy said: They compared the 90% number to another game that *did* ship with DRM, and the piracy rate was *the same*. In fact, the DRM'd game had a 92% piracy rate.

There are even people like me, who would buy the legal version, then use the cracked version (because the DRM is either annoying or doesn't work under Wine on Linux). So not only does DRM just inconvenience legal users, but it sometimes turns them into pirates.

Great game, WoG, though: I bought it as part of the Humble Indie Bundle. I probably would not have bought it if the bundle was not advertised to be DRM free.

I tolerate the Steam DRM, but only begrudgingly and because it works with Wine. I've even sent their lead programmer suggestions for modifications to Steams DRM to implement a 'lending' system such that you can designate two or three permanent 'family members' and let them play your games (as long as you or another family member is not playing your copy of the game at the same time), such that it would behave more like boxed copies.

RE: Intel Launches New TV-Oriented SoC; Predicts TV Revolution

3vi1 — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:15:07 GMT

>> The fusion of the Internet and television, once thought to be as natural as peanut butter and chocolate, has proven to be a tricky problem for would-be content producers.

I'm pretty sure that I know why that is: Every "product" has concentrated on how to make the most money off of the consumer instead of giving the consumer the most value possible. I'm not incredibly inclined to buy a product whose DRM cripples all the features that are new and innovative.

Now... on to TransGaming: Though the article doesn't say it, this implies that the new Intel systems will be running Linux (TransGaming has also done Mac stuff, but that doesn't lend itself as readily to embedded systems). TransGaming forked Wine long ago and produces a version that is full of their own hacks and improvements.

My experience with TransGaming wasn't the best, so I would recommend CrossOver or plain Wine before them, but I wish them success in their endeavor for the sake of the customers. More so, if any results actually make their way into the Wine tree.

Search results matching tags 'Wine' and 'Linux'

RE: Intel Insider: Hardware DRM At Home In Sandy Bridge

RE: Intel Launches New TV-Oriented SoC; Predicts TV Revolution