Pirating And DRM – Let Me Break It Down For You 2

by Adam Blue • Editorial

So Ubi’s Assassin’s Creed 2′s DRM sounds pretty nasty, huh? You have to always be online. Any disconnection and you’re out. No internet for the day, and you’re not playing. It’s not the first time DRM has creped its ugly face over our shoulders. Sometimes games become unplayable at launch! But why all the DRM? Well, because of pirating. It’s abundant and publishers are trying to figure out how to solve it.

Gamers complain. When a dev blames pirating for low sales, gamers blame the DRM for pirating. Does that make sense? No. Maybe low sales because the game isn’t appealing? Or maybe because PC gaming is too niche? In the end, none of these should matter. If sales numbers were good because pirating wasn’t an issue or PC gaming became hot again, maybe DRM wouldn’t exist. If a game doesn’t sell but they can see the game has been downloaded illegally thousands of times, does that mean the game is bad or people just don’t want to pay? No one knows. The only way to figure it out for now is to find a DRM scheme that works for both sides.

My personal opinion is that there is a chunk that pirate, but I’m unsure how much of that is lost sales. I also know EA tends to do well on the PC because of brand recognition. We’re seeing PC franchises moved to consoles because the numbers are there. If the numbers were on the PC and not the console, they wouldn’t have shifted development like that.

Some gamers argue that publishers should just go with Valve’s Steamworks. But I think these publishers also see this as threatening. Valve is a competitor, and for them to eventually distribute all PC games gives them some power. I’m interested in seeing where this goes.

In the end it will take some time. For now, I say we cut publishers some slack. I mean, hell, pirating is a big reason why we don’t have the Dreamcast anymore. Pretty shitty, huh?

Submit to N4G:
  • N4G

Related Posts via Categories