(Hey, I'm moaning about publisher shenanigans, and for once, it's not
Activision!)

"You know what customers like more than CPU-hogging, intrusive DRM?
Buying a game that /doesn't/ have DRM and then adding it to the game a
year later! It's a winning strategy! Every publisher ought to be doing
this! Wait, customers DON'T like that sort of thing? Well, do it
anyway. What are those stupid schmucks gonna do about it? Not buy our
games? Have you MET the average gamer? They buy any shit we throw
out." - Bethesda CEO, probably

So, yeah. Bethesda decided to add Denuvo DRM to one of their games -
"Ghostwire: Tokyo" - over a year after it's release. Why? Nobody is
sure. It certainly isn't to prevent "day one piracy", which is often
the reason given for intrusive DRM like this being used. Denuvo isn't
crack proof to begin with, and anyway, we're 364-days past the day-one
window. Maybe Bethesda is planning some DLC release (although none has
been announced). Maybe somebody at Bethesda is getting kickbacks from
Denuvo. Or maybe they're just being dicks. Who knows?

What is known is that gamers are legally left with little options.
Were this an ordinary market, you'd have an argument about their
changing the terms of sale AFTER money has changed hands, denying you
the as-advertised use of your product. But because we're just
"licensing" these games, gamers are stuck with just accepting the new
terms. Thus, we're seeing actions like Bethesda's - where the game is
changed after the fact, whether with the addition of DLC or
game-altering microtransactions - more and more often.

Storefronts like Steam may - at their whim - offer a refund if you
complain (when Bethesda pulled a similar stunt after fucking up the
initial release of "Doom Eternal", many people reported that Steam
gave them their money back). But few stores take a stand and forbid
this sort of activity entirely. And those refunds aren't guaranteed.

The proper action by players would be to boycott any company that
acted this way, but gamers are notoriously fickle and willing to have
their rights trampled in order to get their latest gaming fix, so I've
no expectation that this will happen.

Still, more reason to stick to DRM-free establishments, like GOG. And
Bethesda jumps onto my "do not buy" list, right next to
Activision/Blizzard...

>So, yeah. Bethesda decided to add Denuvo DRM to one of their games -
>"Ghostwire: Tokyo" - over a year after it's release.

Yeah a bit odd. RE:Village just removed denuvo recently. But those
interested in Ghostwire can play it for 'free' on PC Gamepass for a few
bucks now, it was just added.

rms

On Sat, 15 Apr 2023 09:10:25 -0600, "rms"
<rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net> wrote:

>>So, yeah. Bethesda decided to add Denuvo DRM to one of their games -
>>"Ghostwire: Tokyo" - over a year after it's release.
>
> Yeah a bit odd. RE:Village just removed denuvo recently. But those
>interested in Ghostwire can play it for 'free' on PC Gamepass for a few
>bucks now, it was just added.

Possibly those are related events; they're opening up the game to a
new host of people, and perhaps they're worried the lack of copy
protection will cannibalize 'sales' on Gamepass. Or perhaps it is a
requirement of PC Gamepass that there is some sort of copy-protection.
And rather than have two different versions of the game, they just
pushed the DRM onto all copies of the game.

Not saying it is right, or even a good choice; just saying there might
be some logic to the decision.

Geeknix <usenet@apple.geeknix135.net> wrote:
>So do non-DRM games from GOG promise to be DRM free in future, have they
>added DRM post release in the past? I wonder how once purchased we can
>prevent this type of "updates"!?

Nominally, there aren't any games on GOG.com that arent DRM-free.
There's a been a few controversial games in the past which were generally
regarded as not being DRM-free because of restrictions on what you could
do in single player while not online, but these have been resolved either
by fixing the game or by removing it from GOG.com.

One form of DRM is relatively common with games on GOG and that's games
that require keys to access the official online multiplayer servers.
Since this doesn't affect legitimate purchasers of the game, only
pirates, this is generally overlooked by the community. Sure, at some
point the official servers will shut down and players will lose whatever
functionality they offered, but that would be true if they required keys
or not. Indeed, for many games on GOG that happened long ago.

Hypothetically if Ghostwire: Tokyo had a DRM-free version released on
GOG and then tried to add Denovo DRM then what would have happened is
that the game would've been removed from sale from GOG. The previous
DRM-free versions of the game could still be downloaded by people who
already bought the game and would still work.

Finally, in case it's not clear I should add that Ghostwire: Tokyo has
never been DRM-free and has never been available on GOG. It's just
adding Denuvo DRM on top of the existing Steam DRM.

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/
db //

On 2023-04-15, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> (Hey, I'm moaning about publisher shenanigans, and for once, it's not
> Activision!)

Thanks for the write up Spalls. I get me quality gaming news from the
Spalls publishing house :)

> The proper action by players would be to boycott any company that
> acted this way, but gamers are notoriously fickle and willing to have
> their rights trampled in order to get their latest gaming fix, so I've
> no expectation that this will happen.

I don't fall for the "latest gaming fix" so am willing to wait for DRM
free offline versions. I hope that is a good option?

> Still, more reason to stick to DRM-free establishments, like GOG. And
> Bethesda jumps onto my "do not buy" list, right next to
> Activision/Blizzard...

So do non-DRM games from GOG promise to be DRM free in future, have they
added DRM post release in the past? I wonder how once purchased we can
prevent this type of "updates"!?

--
Don't be afraid of the deep...
--[ bbs.bottomlessabyss.net | https | telnet=2023 ]--
--[ /query geeknix on libera.chat | tilde.chat ]--

On Sun, 23 Apr 2023 17:35:43 -0000 (UTC), in
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Ross Ridge wrote:

>Finally, in case it's not clear I should add that Ghostwire: Tokyo has
>never been DRM-free and has never been available on GOG. It's just
>adding Denuvo DRM on top of the existing Steam DRM.

Oh, calling Steam "DRM" would have set off a group firestorm in olden
days. I wonder what will happen now? Let me see if I can flint and steel
this thing...

Black Hat on:

But of course, that's why Steam was created in the first place. DRM for
HL2 via encrypted GCF files that needed server approval to decrypt and
use. Also made it impossible to mod. They sucked up Counterstrike to help
with the sting.

Vengeance cracked it two weeks after its release, but they had to use a
dummy DRM server handshake they custom built. It was quite impressive. I
found the DVD image I have archived for posterity, and the files are
timestamped Nov 30, 2004. HL2 was released Nov 16.

White Hat on:

Yes, I have bought the game a few times over, but I want to tweak the
folks who claim Steam "isn't DRM." That needs a really *good* spark.

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

On 4/23/2023 4:00 AM, Geeknix wrote:
> On 2023-04-15, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> (Hey, I'm moaning about publisher shenanigans, and for once, it's not
>> Activision!)
>
> Thanks for the write up Spalls. I get me quality gaming news from the
> Spalls publishing house :)
>
>> The proper action by players would be to boycott any company that
>> acted this way, but gamers are notoriously fickle and willing to have
>> their rights trampled in order to get their latest gaming fix, so I've
>> no expectation that this will happen.
>
> I don't fall for the "latest gaming fix" so am willing to wait for DRM
> free offline versions. I hope that is a good option?
>
>> Still, more reason to stick to DRM-free establishments, like GOG. And
>> Bethesda jumps onto my "do not buy" list, right next to
>> Activision/Blizzard...
>
> So do non-DRM games from GOG promise to be DRM free in future, have they
> added DRM post release in the past? I wonder how once purchased we can
> prevent this type of "updates"!?
>
Have a stand-alone computer that is not connected to the Internet to
play your games on. Use USB sticks to copy installation packages to it
from your networked computer.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

Ross Ridge wrote:
>Finally, in case it's not clear I should add that Ghostwire: Tokyo has
>never been DRM-free and has never been available on GOG. It's just
>adding Denuvo DRM on top of the existing Steam DRM.

Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Oh, calling Steam "DRM" would have set off a group firestorm in olden
>days. I wonder what will happen now? Let me see if I can flint and steel
>this thing...

I can't see how anyone could have seriously beleived Steam didn't have
DRM. Steam didn't even let you play two Steam games at the same time
on the same PC back then. I could see how people would argue that Gabe
Newell was a great guy and would never take our games away or charge us
a fee to continue access them even though the Steam Subscriber Agreement
made it explicit they could do that. (That much easier to believe now,
but not because of Newell's character or expected lifespan, but because
there's enough competition that it would be suicide if Steam did that
now.)

But Steam wasn't DRM? That takes some serious powers of self-delusion.

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/
db //

On Sun, 23 Apr 2023 11:00:03 GMT, Geeknix
<usenet@apple.geeknix135.net> wrote:

>On 2023-04-15, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Still, more reason to stick to DRM-free establishments, like GOG. And
>> Bethesda jumps onto my "do not buy" list, right next to
>> Activision/Blizzard...

>So do non-DRM games from GOG promise to be DRM free in future, have they
>added DRM post release in the past? I wonder how once purchased we can
>prevent this type of "updates"!?

Yes... and no.

GOG currently offers stand-alone installation packages that do not
have any online DRM (AFAIK, they do have watermarking though, so be
careful with distributing ;-). Because it's stand-alone, any policy
changes made by GOG won't affect your archived copies. That means if
you download a copy today, it will run tomorrow and the day after and
next Sunday and in 2976 AD... so long as you have supported hardware.

However, GOG could /technically/ release a new version of the
installer that DOES use DRM that restricts your usage (I'm sure
there's something in the EULA from when you created an account that
would allow this). There's no evidence this will happen and doing so
would pretty much destroy their business (since the main reason to buy
from GOG is because they're DRM-free), but I think that legally they'd
be okay. It's unlikely CD-Projekt Red (the parent company) will ever
do such a silly thing, but if GOG gets sold? Anything goes.

TL;DR: download and archive the installers from GOG, just to be safe

On Mon, 24 Apr 2023 15:38:17 -0000 (UTC), rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
(Ross Ridge) wrote:

>Ross Ridge wrote:
>>Finally, in case it's not clear I should add that Ghostwire: Tokyo has
>>never been DRM-free and has never been available on GOG. It's just
>>adding Denuvo DRM on top of the existing Steam DRM.
>
>Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>Oh, calling Steam "DRM" would have set off a group firestorm in olden
>>days. I wonder what will happen now? Let me see if I can flint and steel
>>this thing...
>
>I can't see how anyone could have seriously beleived Steam didn't have
>DRM. Steam didn't even let you play two Steam games at the same time
>on the same PC back then. I could see how people would argue that Gabe
>Newell was a great guy and would never take our games away or charge us
>a fee to continue access them even though the Steam Subscriber Agreement
>made it explicit they could do that. (That much easier to believe now,
>but not because of Newell's character or expected lifespan, but because
>there's enough competition that it would be suicide if Steam did that
>now.)
>
>But Steam wasn't DRM? That takes some serious powers of self-delusion.

I agree.

Not to summon up the ghosts of flamewars past (Fgrnzxvyyre) but Steam
is /already/ taking away access to games in its library. There are a
number of games on Steam that do not run on Windows Vista or beyond,
requiring Windows XP. However, since Valve does not support older
versions of Windows, those games are now inaccessible. This will
become even more evident in 2024, when Steam drops support for Windows
7 (there are a good number of games that don't like Windows10)

For all of Valve's supposed promises to never take away access to your
legitimately purchased games, this is evidentially not true. They
haven't provided patches to bypass their protection for these older
games. They don't offer older -if unsupported - versions of Steam that
will let you run these old games on old hardware and old operating
systems. You can't get a refund. The games simplty become
inaccessible.

Steam is DRM. Full stop. Does this override its other values? That's
debatable but - given its success - the market generally seems to
think so, hence its success. But even if Steam is milder and more
palatable than other types (and occassionally bypassed by some
developers), when fully implemented as intended, it is undeniably DRM.

On Saturday, April 15, 2023 at 8:06:31 AM UTC-6, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> (Hey, I'm moaning about publisher shenanigans, and for once, it's not
> Activision!)

Related but I noticing a musing on Twitter of a guy who was going through
the troubleshooting of the new Star Wars Jedi yada yada game (EA) on the
PC and all its terrible day 1 performance issues.

He mentioned he switched out a video card on test system with a new VGA,
went back and installed it on another one of his computers and received a
complaint from the software that the game has been installed too many times
and wouldn't load.

Take that for what it's worth

On Tue, 2 May 2023 00:07:26 -0700 (PDT), Shinnokxz
<shinnokxz@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Saturday, April 15, 2023 at 8:06:31?AM UTC-6, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> (Hey, I'm moaning about publisher shenanigans, and for once, it's not
>> Activision!)

>Related but I noticing a musing on Twitter of a guy who was going through
>the troubleshooting of the new Star Wars Jedi yada yada game (EA) on the
>PC and all its terrible day 1 performance issues.

>He mentioned he switched out a video card on test system with a new VGA,
>went back and installed it on another one of his computers and received a
>complaint from the software that the game has been installed too many times
>and wouldn't load.

>Take that for what it's worth

Not that unusual, sadly. DRM has been fingerprinting hardware for
years. "Spore" was doing it back in 2008 (probably not the first game,
but one of the earlier games that I remember). Doesn't make it any
less user-unfriendly or stupid, but its hardly surprising. Especially
since the game is being sold through Steam, Epic and Origin, which
(AFAIK) don't have 'installation limits' beyond the usual "can only be
played on one PC at a time".

Still, a simple video-card switch triggering the thing? Moronic,
especially if the rest of the hardware remains the same. It's not as
if PC gamers aren't known for swapping out video cards...