This seems somewhat reasonable....though if companies made DRM temporary for all games then we wouldn't need to do most of it.

Sure, now please point to where the big publishers have given anything meaningful towards DRM-free or even tried to do so. This is why people are so "hard-line," because they have made numerous concessions over the years only to get no, or even negative, benefit and compromise.

There was a really interesting post earlier in this topic:
If we were to assume the big publishers are "negotiating in good faith" to the point that they are willing to compromise and be "reasonable," what is the reason for why Ubisoft are not releasing games DRM-free? If they did this "study" of sorts, then why are their actions for a decade+ in the opposite direction?

I don't really understand your logic. An extra copy is an extra copy in reserve. It means you don't need to panic and quickly copy way to many files to another new drive. Even the act of copying could kill the older backup drive, especially when copying heaps of data enmasse.

Mmmm not sure where that place is where you get old versions. It is not a place I know, unless it is one I made myself.

I have no idea how you think you can even begin to compare such very different businesses. It is not about number of users so much, as in the product the user has purchased, that would stop being available.

The Blockbuster I know was just a video rental store. When it stopped, people did not lose access to their own stuff.
I recall it was a similar scenario with Gamestop, where you did not lose access to anything you already owned.

Acting as stubborn as some game companies only compounds the problem. Also what about all the ones who chose to release DRM free, or who have cut their DRM out of some games?

Ha ha, yep ... sometimes they did indeed fill those boxes, but not often in my experience.

Some games of course came on multiple discs too.

But over a certain number of copies and one more doesn't really add much more of a safety net...and again what if they all failed at once?

And you have to copy files to a new drive when one fails regardless.

Think "y'argh matey!". ;)

People lost access to their accounts to buy/rent movies, and any benefits that came along with such...also they are similar in that blockbuster and steam both are/were relied upon be a large number of people for their entertainment.

Not only that, but so you also don't need a disc in your optical drive once installed.
Disc(s) can then be stored safely away, and no damn noisy whirring drive wearing out, especially the way required data is often accessed in piecemeal fashion.

Disc images also help with this, and allow for one more level of backup/archival.

Alas, that is just so true it really hurts.

A highly unlikely scenario, far less likely than a drive failing during use.

Yes, but at a much slower more kind to your drive rate, with no sense of urgency.

Just not a realistic or acceptable option, nor do I agree with it. Especially doing that instead of being diligent myself ... that would be the height of stupidity. I gave up even considering such a source when I discovered GOG, and i would not wish to go back to it. Cracked is Crap in my book, and only the act of a desperate person.

You must have missed the bit where I said about numbers not really being relevant. It is all about product you own, an the very minimal losses at those stores hardly compare to what would be absolutely huge ones at Steam for many people. So just not in any way the same situation.

World War 3 did not start due to them, but it would if Steam went down.

Pretty obvious really, but I would not really want the overhead of a virtual drive, so just for backup copies stored on a few drives.

I noted that, but it still doesn't change the fact that if it happened it wouldn't matter too much if you had 3 backups or 4.


U nless one's other backups are also near failing one an go at their own pace, I would think.


Cracked games work just as fine as legit backups, if the source is verified.


If steam went down the smart ones would've likely cracked their copies already and it wouldn't matter much to many of them....mainly those who don't do such would panic.

With Win10 there is little overhead as it's built in to the OS.

Which ones? ...was what I was getting at. I'm speaking of the big publishers since they are the worst when it comes to stuff like this.

Off the top of my head I can think of Microsoft's original announced plans for the Xbox One then being changed very very much for the better.

So that would be one type of example you could give. But can you show instances of big game publishers doing this on a software (rather than console) level?

For instance, I showed where Ubisoft apparently failed to compromise even when shown evidence of the compromise being at least as good as not compromising.

Has EA compromised recently? Bethesda? Blizzard? It seems to me if anything things keep going further in the opposite direction (which is why I'd say gamers should keep sticking up for themselves, but I digress).

----------------------------------

As for the "Scheme is too big to fail" argument, with all due respect, I think you folks might be missing a different possible angle (unless somehow I glossed over this while reading):

What if, instead of it eventually going out of business, Scheme and its existing structure were to get absorbed by a big streaming service (say, Goggle or App-le)?

There's different ways it could play out but the gist would be that you'd have to use their streaming service to play "your" games. The files you had wouldn't work on their own.

Maybe they'd even let you sign up for free but to play anything else or to have special features like achievements you'd need to pay a subscription fee.

That to me seems like a more realistic possibility.

I don't know the names offhand(bad memory, i'd need to look stuff up) but I do know they exist. Also who cares if some companies do it as long as ALL don't do it? Gotta see the silver lining/good in life while working on fixing the bad.

Again, i'd need time to look it up and be motivated to do so(I was just making a comment in passing, not trying to debate with charts and graphs :D). This isn't to say I couldn't do it, just that I am a bit lazy with some things.

I agree gamers should do so, but that they should also be willing to compromise(not their beliefs, but their immediate demands) a bit here and there....not lower one's demands fully but just to a reasonable level that can be attained and is easy for companies to accept and give in to.

Gabe ever giving up his cash cow is about as unlikely as them failing, to be fair.

(Also again, the silly names for steam and epic/etc make you sound like one of those bad youtubers or a whiny teenager and don't help to prop up your arguments to others.....I get why you do it, but it doesn't help much when debating others imo)

No problem, I guess to use your terms what I'm getting at is that it seems to me that "ALL" of the big publishers do act this way, at least when it comes to software. I am struggling to think of any examples that would prove me wrong. If there are examples, it is probably a very, very small number.

I would argue that gamers already have (unknowingly) compromised, in huge numbers, when it comes to the DRM stores. Now it's the companies' turn to compromise, no?

What if it was no longer a cash cow for him in the way it used to be, or for whatever reason he wanted to "cash it out," as it were? People do this all the time, particularly in the tech/software realm.

Some have compromised, but some have not.....and it is these holdouts that sometimes make the rest of us look unreasonable to some degree.

Also I am talking about compromise on a solution to the current situation not prior situations....that is old business and this is 'new', so we should focus on the now and not the past if we are to move forward.

Imo that's never gonna happen...Gabe would die(of heart attack most likely or similar) before he let that happen.