This.
And also this! :D

*coughplaystation3cough*

*coughplaystation3cough*
Maybe it has something to do with the prices of blu-ray burners and blank discs. When PS3 came out they were astronomical, they're expensive even now. Add the price of a modchip and it's not really worth it. Maybe that's why they haven't bothered.

Exactly. There's no bloody point in pirating PS3 games. You could buy all the games you wanted for the platform (which going by average game to console sales isn't that many) and actually spend less than you would if you pirated them.

Actually there are people who pirate ps3 games, I can buy a copy of any game for 5 bucks a pop... Not that I would :p But yeah, mass produced copied blue ray discs that have copies of games on them is worth it to some, hell if I can buy a carton of smokes for 6 bucks that came from the states then sure enough there are people who would stand to make a profit off of anything.

I do understand that the argument was dropped between you and Gundato, but somehow feel inclined to chime in due to these remarks.
There is no official statistic available right now on the internets, but I found a private opinion from a person, connected to games publishing. By his words, the math is rather simple. You publish a game without DRM, you lose approximately 30% sales. More if the game was highly advertised.
And I tend to find that statement believable, at least for the Russian market, but I doubt it really is radically different in EU or USA.
You can argue all you want about effectiveness and motivation, but if the guys with the money feel like paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for the DRM, you should really suspect, that they do feel it is necessary, not because they don't know where to put their greenbacks otherwise. 30% more sales is a great motivator, if you ask me.

My problem with such things is that this 30% is compared to what?
Is it compared to expected sales? I'd love to know how they worked these things out.
It seems to be all about expected earnings vs. actual earnings. However, if you calculate expected earnings without including piracy into that model, then your figures will be wrong.
Since most (all?) games are pirated, you aren't losing to your competition (unless they invent some sort of super DRM), and so you should be looking to revise your calculations around the actual likely income you will receive.
For example, if you've made $5M in sales from your game, you want to spend less than $5M on production, marketing, distribution etc. in order to turn a net profit. If you had spent more than $5M, then you either will be a bit in the red, or bust, depending on your overspend.
Your choice then is to revise future budgets downwards so you're risking less per project, or you increase sales. Increasing sales sometimes requires more money for marketing or other budget increasing measures, but it seems that many folks believe that if you eliminated (or reduced) piracy, sales would increase. Unfortunately, this is not easily provable. One thing that adding DRM does do though is increase costs.
Not sure how well I've explained my thoughts in this rambling on, but hopefully it adds to the discussion a bit.

One of the Splinter Cell games took well over a year to be cracked, by which time no-one really cared enough to bother pirating it.
No DRM will work 100% until the end of time - it's mostly just there to stop 0/early day piracy. If it goes just one or two weeks from sale without being cracked, then it's generally considered successful. Though this is rarely the case nowadays anyway, so it's a bit of a moot point.

It took a whole year to pirate Chaos Theory? Wow. Would have thought that would be a high-profile enough game that the Release groups would have worked their butts off.
But yeah, there are STILL Starforce games that aren't cracked (or are improperly cracked and unplayable). Fortunately, they are all just obscure enough that we might see them on GoG in a year or two :p
But yeah, spot-on. No way to stop the power-users (although, Starforce came close :p. And Steam still stops a lot of people, if only because they have legit games and are afraid of using the workarounds), but it can still stop a lot.
Just a matter of balancing out the costs with the benefits. And that is another reason why the digital distribution model works so well. Your DRM actually cuts costs, since it costs less to sell a serial than a box. And the DLC-reward model actually increases profits, because people will buy the DLC to further trap themselves in the web. :p
/me goes back to eagerly awaiting the new DA:O DLC.

I'm personally not inclined to give any more credence to such an opinion voiced by an industry members as opposed to any random schmo on the internet. Actually, I'm inclined to give even less credence when an industry member voices such an opinion. This is because there are so many within the industry invested in the idea that DRM helps sales. When people have been invested in a course of action for some amount of time they want to believe they've been doing the right thing, so their perceptions of the world are filtered and shaped around the idea that their course of action was necessary and proper. Additionally, there's a strong perception within the industry that DRM helps sales, and this perception will color the interpretation of any information surrounding the matter. All together it's basically a non-scientific version of an experimenter's bias.
I have no doubt many folks in the industry do feel it's necessary; the continued use of DRM is pretty much irrefutable proof of that. What I'm questioning is whether that feeling actually corresponds to reality. If it turns out it does I'll happily shut up about DRM; I still won't like it, but I'll accept it as necessary. However, when someone (anyone) makes a claim like "DRM results in 30% more sales" I want to know how they actually arrived at the conclusion; without the access to the information and thought process that led to that conclusion then it's just another baseless opinion as far as I'm concerned.

Phoenix man be like me, say your bit and leave. It's not worth the time trying to talk to DRM pushers, I tried I tried and tried. In the end I came to the conclusion that I can't break their brainwashing over the internet (in person maybe but that's like reprogramming a VCR, never works the same again). Facts don't matter to a brain that's mentally lobotomized, the only fact they accept is the 'fact' that they are right.
My XFire ID is tb87670 if you wanna chat sometime and here is my page: http://www.xfire.com/profile/tb87670/

You misunderstand my purpose of engaging in these kinds of discussions. I really couldn't care less if I end up changing anyone's mind on the matter. My reason for engaging in these discussions is because it allows me to review and refine my own positions by vocalizing them, and also because in a few cases, when I'm lucky, I'm exposed to a perspective that I hadn't considered that ends up changing my own opinion. I also find the whole process enjoyable (as strange and masochistic as that may sound). To be frank, I'm a rather selfish person; my involvement in these kinds of discussions is purely for my own benefit, if anyone has their opinion changed as the result of something I say that's purely incidental.

Those are valid questions and a valid point of view. But I suppose (based on common sense only, since we don't have statistical data to crunch) that the 30% figure first appeared the other way around. Id est, there was a corresponding increase in sales after the publisher implemented some form of DRM (in my case, it was 1C and Starforce). Of course the increase can be attributed to any kind of reason, like quality of the product, the market situation, the date of release, advertising etc, etc. But if you experience a stable increase of sales all over the product range after some action, you tend to think that this action is the cause and, importantly, chances are, you are right.
The argument about bias is strong. I think we all know how resilient an entrenched wrong theory can be. However, you have to admit, you are biased, too. You are inconvinienced by certain measures that publishers use to prevent immediate and all-encompassing piracy and you are against these inconviniences. Furthermore, you see no direct benefit from DRM, so for you it is all there just to hinder your fun with a product purchased and used in good faith. Judging by your second paragraph, you are reasonable and can even live with it if you obtain conclusive evidence that there is a deeper meaning for DRM.
Which takes us to the other problem. The only source of data we can have is from the industry and you distrust that source. So there's nothing which can make you "happily shut up about DRM".
My common sense tells me that DRM really is an unavoidable evil, unless and until they find a way to personalize digital data copies (sort of like Steam does, but obligatory), which will be a DRM in itself. GOG is a great exclusion to this rule, however, as it was mentioned already in this thread, it will never work with new titles. With all due respect, GOG is about giving a second commercial life to software, which has already lived a thrilling first one.
Your common sense tells you otherwise. Great.
Edit: Oh, and you get a + for not being like tb87670

I do admit that I'm biased. I make as much as an effort as I can to recognize my biases and not let my decisions be affected by them, but it's rather difficult to tell how successful I am at that (as my judgments there would also be colored by any biases I have). Thus another benefit to engaging in these kinds of discussions: that others can see my arguments and thought process and comment on any faults they think are there.
I don't automatically distrust data from the gaming industry, I distrust conclusions that they hand out without letting me see the data. I'm employed as a scientist (chemist), and my education in the sciences and the mindset I need to do my job carry over to how I approach most other things in life. To sum up that mindset: show me the data. I don't care about the conclusion someone else arrived at, I'm interested in the data and methodology they employed to arrive at that conclusion. Once I've looked over those, and arrived at my own conclusion, then and only then is it worthwhile to compare notes and discuss where our conclusions agree and disagree, and why that is (for both the disagreements and the agreements).

Exactly. Nobody has ever said that DRM will magically permanently prevent piracy. What they DO talk about trying to prevent is 0-day piracy.