DRM - The reality

DRM, also known as Digital Rights Management, has been around a long time. And because most people start a business to make money, i think its here to stay. But what has history taught us about prohibition? 

...this is not the Heimlich maneuver

Back in the early 20th century, Piano Player rolls were the new big thing. It was this amazing technology that worked with the most basic of elements - air. Air is free, but the time and effort that it took to make one of these rolls was definitely not. And this is when someone decided to make sure that no one should be able to just "copy" these rolls of perforated paper. The idea of DRM is born, and things have gotten ugly ever since then.

Most people over 25 should remember what a cassette tape looks like, and if you do, then you probably also remember how to press play & record at the same time. Since the digital age really kicked in, piracy has been flourishing. Mp3 technology, high internet speeds and huge capacity hard drives has made it very easy for people to copy and share their legally or illegally downloaded music & film. Some companies like Apple ( to be expected ) implemented an incredibly strict regime of anti piracy through their Itunes / Ipod platforms, but people have found a way around them too.

As the digital age evolved, so did technologies to create DRM, and obviously to break through DRM. The games industry has also been doing their best to make sure their IP is kept safe and makes them as much money as possible. But this is a cold war between corporations that want to make the money, and the millions of people that want the product to be theirs to do what they want with it. 

The problem with DRM is that in most cases, it becomes incredibly difficult and frustrating for the legitimate user to be able to use his / her digital media comfortably. Does anyone remember the Lenslok? A simple example: I have a pc and a laptop. My pc is my main machine, but i use my laptop to run around. I legally bought a game / mp3 with DRM on my pc. I installed / played it on that pc. I would like to put it on my laptop so that i can go wherever and do whatever i want with it in my own time. DRM says i cant. But, i paid money for it, and in most cases, quite a lot of money. But yet it feels like i don't actually own the product as I have to use it within incredibly tight restrictions. 

Scare tactics, used way too often

The latest example of horribly thought out DRM for a video game was Ubisoft's approach (this is after their Starforce fiasco). The concept is quite simple: if you want to play a Ubisoft game, you had to be online all the time. The game will only save if you have a connection to the Ubisoft servers, and if this connection is lost, so is your game progress. WTF were they thinking?? I know that today, most people have an "always on" internet connection, but what about occasional drops, what about people who want to take their laptop to some hut in the woods powered by solar energy and play a game over there? What about the fact that if your internet connection is down for whatever reason, you cant play a single player game?? What happens here is that the person that has forked out a lot of money is really and truly getting the bad end of the stick, but the people that pirated  the game and managed to hack it to prevent the DRM kicking in, are actually having a better experience. 

So what should be the motivational factor - besides wanting the game - for people to go out and buy it original? Why should someone hand over their hard earned cash for something that is going to make their life more stressful, especially when it is so easily available from multiple sources! 

Then on the other side of the spectrum you have Blizzard Entertainment which thinks about DRM in a very different way: “We need our development teams focused on content and cool features, not anti-piracy technology.” And i honestly think that this is the way forward. Blizzard know that their development team is extremely limited compared to the gaming community as a whole and even if they spend all their time and effort on DRM, it will be cracked anyway. They decided to look at the problem in a completely different manner as they saw the complete failure of pretty much all video game DRM systems (except the PS3). 

Instead of restricting and wagging their finger in your face as they take your money, they make you want to pay the price to be able to use all the cool features that come with having an original game. Its not about restriction and prohibition, its about incentive and reward. Luckily, Ubisoft have already decided to scrap their current form of DRM and stick with activation over Steam, which makes a lot of people hate Ubisoft a lot less. 

Personally I like trying before buying. I have downloaded games before I bought them, the same way i would take a car for a test drive or try on a pair of jeans before buying them. But if its a game you like, especially if its from an indie developer that probably doesn't have any DRM technology, its only fair that you buy it.I think that Blizzard's way is the way forward, but this is a completely new approach and it might take a while for all publishers to come onboard with it. 

In the meantime, i'm saving up for Fallout: New Vegas ;)

thanks for reading