Author

Topic: 2013-03-20 Adaptive Glass: New Bitcoin Usage – DRM for Video Games (Read 762 times)

full member
Activity: 152
Merit: 100
Quote
The concept is simple, each game will be assigned X numbers of micro bitcoins (or something similar) each time the game is installed, it will send X automatically to the game maker. When the balance is zero, the game will start asking for money or will be crippled.
First, the only thing Bitcoin appears to do here is allow this scheme to work without the expense of running their own servers. The effect would be exactly the same if the game just "phoned home" each time it was installed. Second, as a limit on the number of installations, this is more of an attack on the used market than anything to do with copyright infringement.

Quote
The encryption and validation of the clients will ensure that it is extremely difficult to be “hacked” as it’s based on bitcoin technology. Look at it this way, the same reason you can’t double spend bitcoins is the same reason you can’t double install a bitcoin protected video game.
The integrity of the blockchain has absolutely nothing to do with the resilience of client against being "hacked". The application is looking for some external signal, in this case a transaction on the blockchain, to decide whether to allow the game to run in the uncrippled mode. The rest is no different from any other contemporary DRM scheme, and the conventional DRM code, not the blockchain, is the part which will eventually be hacked.
legendary
Activity: 1078
Merit: 1003
When you can no longer induce customers to voluntarily give you money, figure out a way to take it by force.

EA. You're dead to me.

They've been dead to me.  I absolutely refuse to buy another EA product for as long as I live.  I don't even want to play their games anymore, knowing the hand behind them.

Same goes for Blizzard.  Diablo III, Blizzard?  Are you even kidding me?  I have to be online to play offline?  DRM is just hurting these companies, but they're so butt-plugged with the idea that their DRM is securing a few more bucks.  Not to advocate piracy, but a company which is lax with their piracy policy (like Minecraft, whose owner didn't even care if it was being pirated, and he still made millions) is in a MUCH MUCH MUCH better light.  Heck, you don't even have to login when you load the game up, it'll just let you play anyway.

EA can go ahead with attempting to do a blockchain DRM method, but it's not going to make me throw money at them.  Or Bitcoin, if that's the case.  It's awfully vague on what they're attempting.  A proof-of-work DRM?  Where you have to prove you bought the game, or you're rejected by the chain...  I still see these games being pirated, either way.  As creative as some companies are with their DRM, the scene is always a step ahead.  If people want something, they're going to get it.  Nothing is sacred anymore.  Anything and everything can be pirated, so long as there's enough interest in it.  It's not up to the company to decide what people do, it's the people.  Strangely, the gaming industry chugs on, despite the scene.  So why bother with DRM?  It only affects those who abide by the DRM, and pisses them off, so they get pissed off at pirates who get to play the games with ineffective, always ineffective, DRM.
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
When you can no longer induce customers to voluntarily give you money, figure out a way to take it by force.

EA. You're dead to me.
hero member
Activity: 588
Merit: 500
Quote
We heard it on Good Authority (from the CEO of the DRM bitcoin startup) that at least 5 game makers, including LucasArts and EA are or at least were prior to the SimCity launch intending to fund his Video Game DRM company based on Bitcoin Technology.

What’s not clear is if it will be using bitcoins themselves, or if they will be using a fork of the bitcoin technology adapted for DRM purposes.

http://www.adaptiveglass.com/?p=626

Discussion thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155367.0;all
Jump to: