Client-Server != DRM

by Claude Errera , Friday, March 22, 2013, 14:36 (4046 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I suspect we'll never agree on this. You're not giving any reasons why it's DRM, you just seem convinced, even when we agree that the reasons it exist have nothing to do with the typical primary motivations for DRM. It's DRM because it's DRM. QED.

Do I have to give you numbered steps in a structured argument? Can you not piece it together by what I've already written? Amazing. Ok, here we go:

1. DRM is anything put in place by the developer / publisher which limits your ability to play the game on hardware otherwise capable of executing the game code.
2. You are required to connect to a server to play Destiny, and the server has the say as to whether the connection is accepted.
3. The servers will be run by the developer / publisher or someone tied to them (Sony, MS, Bungie, Activision, take your pick), and since they have the say which incoming connections are accepted, they control your ability to play the game
4. Therefore DRM and I hope I never have to make this stupid argument again, since even Narcogen, a guy who never agrees with me, recognizes this is true.

Claude is the only one reasonably refuting this argument, by contending point number 3.

I think I'd also argue that #1 (or maybe #2 - not sure which perspective makes more sense) is in question - I think I would say that some of the game code is ON the server, so your Xbox/PS3/whatever can't actually execute all of the code by itself. If you had a server, you could execute all the code, and thereby bypass any 'official' servers - but you don't. (Well, maybe you will. I don't know. That's another big difference between you and me - when there's an unknown, and I can't come up with a reasonable argument to fill it, my immediate conclusion is not "this MUST be what's happening, because I can't think of anything else.")