Client-Server != DRM

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Friday, March 22, 2013, 09:51 (4273 days ago) @ kapowaz

...I'm tired of hearing that a game requiring you be online means it has DRM. No; it's a technical design decision. If you want to call client-server technology DRM then the following all also have DRM:

• Email
  
• IRC chat
  
• Instant Messenger programs
  
• Twitter
  
• Facebook
  
• Google search
  
• this forum

You can't use them if you're offline – some or all features are unavailable in that case. Please, can we just focus on calling a spade a spade? Always online in Destiny is a technical decision made to support design goals Bungie has set out. Berate it for being inconvenient and potentially sub-optimal in the long run (whenever Destiny's servers come down), but don't conflate that with the very much different issue of DRM.

I do not think you are understanding the point. First of all, we are talking about running game code and playing a game you have purchased. I don't think anything up there on your list is a game, nor do you purchase it.

Notice how Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 - games which are all but useless offline, can be played online without any input from ID / Epic? If for whatever reason ID didn't want me playing Quake 3, they could do nothing about it since I already own the game, and I can just connect to whatever server I want, host my own, or run a LAN.

But Destiny not only requires you to be online, but it requires you to be connected to a particular server run by the people developing / publishing the game. There's no other way to get around this. So if they don't want you playing, you can't connect, and you can't play, even if you have all the hardware to run the game code.

Again, DRM is anything that the publisher or developer puts in place which gives them control over how folks can play the game, and / or gives them control over who can play their game, or otherwise prevents someone from playing the game on a system otherwise capable of executing the game code.

1. If you have something capable of executing the game code, and you can play the game without anybody else's permission: No DRM.

2. If you have something capable of executing the game code, and you need something, or need permission from the developer /publisher, then there is DRM.