DRM: A Tale of two Publishers
To quote Cool Hand Luke "What we have here is a failure to communicate". On one hand you have Blizzard on the record recognizing that DRM in video games is a "losing battle". Many gamers can readily get behind that idea; we know that restrictive copy protection does nothing to stop piracy and only serves to harm legitimate customers by restricting their use. Blizzard has recognized that its better to offer a valid and compelling reason to buy is what will put a dent in piracy. Or maybe they realized that people will copy, so build a business model around that. Frank Pearce from Blizzard explains:
“If we’ve done our job right and implemented Battle.net in a great way people will want to be connected while they’re playing the single player campaign so they can stay connected to their friends on Battle.net and earn the achievements on Battle.net. The best approach from our perspective is to make sure that you’ve got a full-featured platform that people want to play on, where their friends are, where the community is. That’s a battle that we have a chance in. If you start talking about DRM and different technologies to try to manage it, it’s really a losing battle for us..”
On the other hand, it is just depressing; Namco Bandai's Olivier Comte sees Ubisoft's always connected DRM as a "good strategy". It's a good strategy if you want to prevent your paying customers from playing their video games that is. Ubisoft has had nothing but problems with their "always on" DRM and it is not a road that should be taken for any video game.
Videogame developers need to realize that onerous DRM does nothing to prevent piracy and only adds to the cost of the game and pisses off people who actually buy. They need to realize that people are going to copy and there is nothing they can do about it. Change your business models and/or provide solid reasons for your potential customers to go out and buy your game. Include in-depth matchmaking, or social tools to stay in touch with friends. Treat your customers like people and they will return the favor.