But here is the thing. As a consumer I don't care about your hardships and excuses. If what you want to solicit is empathy I can give you that in spades. Fans of games do so already with our purchases and the criticisms, positive and negative. That is the feedback loop that has always existed within gaming./QUOTE]
And that is fair enough and something I completely back; it's not the consumers job to agree or justify a developers or publishers choices nor do they need to buy the products they don't feel like supporting. The feedback loop is extremely crucial and criticism is completely fair when we are talking about paid products. However, I was responding to posters ridiculous conspiracy theories and calling generally all developers "cunts, lazy, incompetent and spiteful", which is an accusation I don't take lightly without any proof.
But DRM has not been proven to defeat theft in any meaningful way that can be conveyed to Jane Consumer before she starts to hear accountant created, ad hominem filled, masterbatory rhetoric on why we should put up with it. Consumers met developers and publishers half way when we begrudgingly adopted Steam a decade ago. Publishers still ask for more, and fracture the player communities, and remove player driven tools like dedicated servers et al.
That is a good point; without concrete data consumers don't need to be able justify their opinions regarding DRM. It's unlikely that we'll ever see the research or data (nor will it be completely accurate as you can't A/B-test the world), but I also don't see why it would be hard to see how publishers can justify it, even if it's not necessarily cheap. I also wouldn't say that Steam was begrudgingly adopted, or that the general Jane Consumer on PC even cares about DRM, but that's beside the point.
I rather not play a PC game of a title I like that would support DRM unless the price is low enough for me to treat it exactly what it is. Ephemeral. DRM is essentially a serviced based rental with a long polling system that is only there until the lights go out. This isn't exactly conveyed to the regular consumer in any meaningful way and it is a predatory practice when full or near industry standard pricing is concerned. If these rentals with undefined return dates were cheaper... this wouldn't be as big of an issue. But since double dip friendly SKUs and definitive editions and HD remakes are a thing... I don't see publishers backing off.
So I pick and choose my PC titles with care now.
Edit: also what Console games I pay full price for when I know there is a day 1 patch
Again, completely fair and I have definitely left some titles on the shelf because of an online-only integration that I felt had no value, and would rather spend my money elsewhere. I also have my doubts on the the functionality of individual services (I'm not too concerned about Steam or uPlay or Origin, but that's obviously a risk I'm willing to take) and I care deeply about archival purposes and being able to see our legacy, so yes, the service-based approach definitely has downsides without much direct value (though at least Steam offers some, especially tools like Steam Workshop or marketplace are a good example of how it can add value to the product).