Client-Server != DRM

by Dean Hofmeyer (unhh) , Warsaw, IN, Friday, March 22, 2013, 16:09 (4273 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Well, that's where the 'otherwise capable of executing the game code' comes into play. The status quo is to have all code executed locally, or if the design of the game is such that servers that run calculations are required (Q3, UT etc), allow players to run servers. If a decision is made to change that by making code run only on the server not controlled by a player and feeding the results to the client, then that's a decision restricting your access to run the game code, and by anybody's definition I hope would be considered DRM if that is the only way to run your game.

I think the possibility of players having control over a destiny server is exactly zero.

What part of "Destiny is supposed to have a shared persistent world" aren't you getting here? The only way to make that kind of game functional is to have a central server setup. I don't think anyone's suggesting that Destiny won't be subject to digital rights management of some kind - it would be absurd to assume so. My contention is that DRM is not an inherent part of an always online game.

I think the point where we diverge on this may be your interesting definition of DRM. Could you give me a few examples of things other than piracy that are addressed by DRM in a non-subscription-based game? I'm not sure I'm clear where you're coming from with that aspect of your argumentation.