DRM is a major talking point in the PC gaming world right now, with Spore being review-bombed at Amazon.com (and the subject of a class action lawsuit) and Red Alert 3, a member of a massively popular franchise, set to have similar restrictions as that game and potentially facing a similar backlash.
So first, a quick word on what it is. DRM is (usually) software that restricts what you can do with a piece of digital media (software, movie disc of whatever colour, often music CD). It manages your rights (by restricting them) in the name of protecting the rights of the producer of that media.
Now, you might say, fair enough, so far so funky, what’s the big deal?
If all it did was prevent you from copying the disc and handing it round to all your mates, probably not much. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. DRM software on PCs will prevent you from running other software it considers wrong, even if you are using it for a different and non-infringing purpose. It may prevent you from playing the game you’ve bought if for whatever reason you don’t have an internet connection that day. It will interfere with the operation of your PC, write corrupted data into your system registry and in extreme cases may break your operating system altogether, requiring a reinstall. This last scenario is extremely unlikely, but it has happened.
So they’re spending a lot of money and causing a fair amount of inconvenience to their customers – but at least nobody’s ripping off the games, right?
Spore was out, without DRM, on the torrent sites a full week before release. All that money spent on DRM is utterly worthless when the only people it inconveniences are your legitimate paying customers and completely pointless when non-protected versions of the game are leaked prior to release.
Right. It inconveniences your customers, costs a lot of money, and doesn’t stop people copying the game, so there doesn’t seem to be much point in having it at all. If you shift your view away from the PR spin slightly, other possibilities do swim into view. Locking a particular copy of the game to a single computer does prevent people from selling it on second-hand. Managing your right to sell the game on means potentially more first-hand sales for the publisher, and we’ve already heard from several luminaries in the industry who are quite keen on that idea.
I also think that pirates can be a useful scapegoat for some sections of the PC games industry. Turn out a shonky port that nobody in their right mind would pay good money for? Nobody in their right mind paying good money for it? Blaming the pirates keeps the shareholders from asking awkward questions about why you’re making stuff that doesn’t sell.
On the subject of Red Alert 3, specifically, I’m torn. I’m a huge fan of the Red Alert games but not at all a fan of DRM. I may well wind up not buying the game because of it, but in all likelihood EA will just assume I ripped it off instead. I maintain that assuming that your customers are thieves, and treating them as such, is counter-productive and will lead to more lost sales, not fewer. There are already people who refuse to buy DVDs because of the inane “you wouldn’t steal a car” messages contained within them.
The ugly truth is that often pirated copies work better (because the DRM that screws with your computer is gone) and of course they cost less. I’m not a supporter of ripping off people’s work, but I’m not a supporter of the assumption that I’m a thief either. The fact is that if you’re charging people more to provide a user experience that’s less pleasant, you can’t really be too surprised when people turn to the alternative.
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