The DRM on battlefront.com's CMx2 products - reasonable or not?

[Redwolf]

What's your opinion now that we are a couple years into the new DRM scheme?

The new scheme being the one where you cannot give back activations and have to beg BFC to give you more when you run out.

Out of the top of my head, not looking up forum archives, I can think of the following issues:

• The DRM deactivates the game under way too small hardware changes:
  • Put in more RAM - new computer detected, need to re-license.
  • Put in a USB soundcard or a USB headset - same. BOOM
• The DRM deactivates the game under way too small software changes:
  • Upgrade to win8 - need to re-license.
  • Upgrade from win8 to win8.1 - need to re-license.
  • Assorted other windows or driver updates also caused this.
  • Same for some MacOS upgrades IIRC.
• Many of these conditions don't cause the DRM to cleanly ask you to re-activate. They entirely disable the game and BFC will send you a cleanup program before you can re-activate.
• BFC can't make that cleanup program public since it discloses in which way the DRM anchors itself into the system.
• The CMx2 games are correctly identified as viruses by anti-malware software.
• BFC staff does not know or pretends not to know the exact conditions that trigger a required re-license or complete deactivation.
• It doesn't do much about piracy since nothing keeps you from using some of your 5 activations for your PBEM buddy. It's not like online only play where one user account on an internet server is authorized at a time.
• Another problem is that the DRM for all the inconvenience it causes only asserts the last module. You want 25 activated CMBN + CW 2.01? Buy the 2.01 patch 25 times, you don't need to buy the base game at all, you can just have it activated via the patch.
• According to Moon the DRM is currently keeping BFC from doing a common licensing for mac and pc.
• It is the first (of possibly more) obstacles against running in any kind of virtualized environment and hence also disables any attempt to run on Linux for now.
• There's a bug in the DRM but not the base game in that activation doesn't work if the game is installed in a path with no drive letter. You can override it for activation with a letter you make up and then the game runs even after undoing that nonsense. But it is very annoying, because there's no error message, it's just a blank window.
• In general, BFC games and their DRM right now are completely free of any diagnostics, no error messages anyway (just hang or exit with nothing printed), the patching doesn't check for anything and the DRM is completely braindead.

Overall I am getting more and more uneasy about this. And it is getting worse, not better. Recent "developments" include:

• No more giving back activations.
• All that craze about plugging in a USB headset and BOOM is new. I mean how can this be considered to be acceptable?
• It used to be that it would just ask to re-license, you didn't need the secret cleaner.

Combine that with their patching mess and I see a serious obstacle to more widespread adaption of the CMx2 games.

What's your take on it?

 

[Fleischer]

Taking a quick check on piracy sites and channels, there's seems to be close to zero interest for the game, and zero interest for the modules. The only thing I could find was a cracked version of CM:BN - without any patches. I guess you can't make anti-piracy schemes based on your own perceived successfulness of your game, in any case.

I have to say that the two times I've had to contact Battlefront's customer support with regards to this, they've responded within the hour and given me a new activation without question. This was with the older version of the system, though.

 

[Geordie]

When I upgraded to win 8 I needed them to get me sorted again, then when I added some hardware to my PC, I needed it again. Just this weekend I updated to win 8.1 and from Saturday till today the game wouldn't work again. Again I contacted them, the strange thing is that today when I booted up my PC the game worked and has continued to work.

There are two things I have to say on this though:

1 It's annoying that you can add something to your PC that a games DRM then blocks the game for whatever reason. But it must be annoying to them as well.

2. The two times I got in contact with them before they were very swift in their reply, within a day, which is pretty impressive. This time, even though I no longer seem to need their help it took a little longer, but I'm not sure they work on a weekend. Maybe they were swamped with windows customers....

I find it strange that a game which isn't hugely popular goes to such lengths to stop piracy, when none of my other games which seem to be very popular don't have the same problems.

 

[Redwolf]

I find it strange that a game which isn't hugely popular goes to such lengths to stop piracy, when none of my other games which seem to be very popular don't have the same problems.

It's a known fact that at least Steve is very emotional about pirated versions of his game even when it doesn't mean lost sales.

Having said that, at this point I would rather have them offer (if not switch to) an always-online system, that is the game only functions while you are logged into an internet server with the account that the game is bound to. It has been a very long time since I answered a PBEM move on an entirely disconnected computer and even my WEGO resolve in CMx2 weakens as clickfesting is just more attractive (really tired of planning around the action spot craze, just go and if it's not realistic think it's a RTS game).

An always-online system wouldn't require messing with your PC at all, you could have installations on all your machines and freely copy the file tree without as much as a registry entry. The game wouldn't look like a virus. No weekend support from adding a USB headset required. People couldn't give out copies abusing their 5 installations/activations. You could allow running in virtual machines (whether that alone makes it works is a different matter). No more activating $150 dollars worth of games with a $5 patch.

And right now they do offer an offline registration, whatever that might be specifically (didn't use it). So for the occasional OBEM-on-laptop you can still have that in addition to always-online.

 

[Talon_XbmcX]

ugh ... always online sounds like Steam. I just don't like that option at all. I see no reason for it.

I have a lot of payware aircraft for xplane. Many of these aircraft go for the same amount (and some even more) as a CM module. Some have a DRM ... others do not. The ones that do you generally have to register within the sim with the same username password used for your account and then you are done. Need a reinstall ... no problem. Other developers send a license file that's unique for each user.

I just don't see that piracy is that much of a problem for CM or many wargames for that matter. Any DRM can be undone ... just takes a little time and desire.

 

[Redwolf]

I didn't say I like always online better than no DRM, just that the current system is not acceptable. No DRM might not be an option for Steve.

 

[phil395]

I don't like always online systems of DRM at all. I often play games with the Windows machine disconnected from the local net. Partially for paranoia, partially to stop all the zillions of different update systems deciding it's their turn to hog CPU and bandwidth or bring up some pop-up announcing some annoying new version.

I am becoming less and less tolerant of DRM schemes altogether. They're increasingly a deal-breaker.

Recognising that BF might still demand one, moving to a simpler licence file scheme would be better.

 

[Redwolf]

FWIW, Steam is expanding their capabilities for offline play as we speak

 

[Geordie]

As someone who recently deployed to a base with very limited fixed Internet, I wouldn't be in favour of always online as that would have stopped my playing my games for the last 5 months.

however, I do agree that there needs to be some system of DRM that's just not as intrusive or annoying. What does BF have to say about it?

 

[Redwolf]

As someone who recently deployed to a base with very limited fixed Internet, I wouldn't be in favour of always online as that would have stopped my playing my games for the last 5 months.

Uh? There wouldn't be any traffic during play. Just a couple kilobytes for authentication.

 

[Fleischer]

I tried Steam offline play with a GPRS line once. It was a painful experience I'd rather not have again.

 

[Geordie]

Uh? There wouldn't be any traffic during play. Just a couple kilobytes for authentication.

What I mean is that I had no facility to go online with my laptop regularly. There's lots of bases out there that don't offer individual machines wireless.

 

[Redwolf]

What I mean is that I had no facility to go online with my laptop regularly. There's lots of bases out there that don't offer individual machines wireless.

OK. Military users like that are a good argument.

I suppose the answer to my original question in this thread is that the userbase overall thinks it isn't clearly unacceptable and there's no clearly better DRM (other than one). Moon said they will scale back on the ridiculous items like RAM expansion and plugging in headsets disabling the game. I don't think they actually can change it to survive a win8 or win 8.1 upgrade, though.