Even so, we should all praise the efforts of those consumers who are making their disappointment visible, even if the majority of comments are repetitive and poorly written. At the end of the day, it isn't blogs like this that will decide of gaming companies change to a more consumer-friendly business plan, but rather the voices and cash of the consumers. So go on and join in the with the other Amazon revolutionaries and let the game industry know what you think.
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
1 - Robert Barga
I have never understood why people are opposed to others protecting their own property and to, you know, having something on a CD-game that you agreed to get
2 - Nathaniel Edwards
The sanctity of Amazon customer reviews has been well and thoroughly broken. This was obvious earlier in the year with the lady who went on Fox attacking Mass Effect for their alien-sex scene immediately got her book down to one star in the reviews. I liked that more than I like this situation.
I generally think that both sides of this DRM fight are over-reacting, but I tend to skew slightly towards the consumer. Limits on installs aren't a tremendously huge deal, but in principle they are fairly important. The company is so afraid of piracy that it puts this limitation on the disks, which likely makes more people pissed off and likely to pirate the discs. I guess all I'm saying is, it's crazy.
3 - Mark Buckingham
The big argument against DRM is that you're effectively only "renting" the title rather than owning it. Books, CDs, movies, etc. don't have a tether attached that will make them stop working after so many days if a server craps out or you change your motherboard. The DRM puts limitations on the users that other forms of entertainment wouldn't dare to do.
For me, while I think it sucks that these reviews are bringing down the overall score (at least on Amazon; MetaCritic and other aggregate sites are safe from this) and might mislead a few buyers, it's nice to have some honest information about what DRM is being put on which games. The companies aren't terribly honest or open about it because they know what it'll do to their sales.
In contrast, look at Stardock's games (GalCiv 1 and 2, Sins of a Solar Empire, etc.), which have sold hundreds of thousands of legit copies, despite them trumpeting the fact that they don't use any DRM whatsoever. They've realized DRM is hurting legitimate customers and isn't affecting piracy one bit, and sided with the interests of their players.