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.
Ubisoft sees DRM as “vital” to success for Splinter Cell Conviction
This is really dis-hearting to see;Splinter Cell Conviction’s Maxime Béland is defending Ubisoft's "always on DRM" as vital to the success of the game. “We consider that protecting our PC games is vital to our business and will allow us to continue investing in the development of creative and innovative games on the PC platform,” even though the DRM has been nothing but failure for legitimate customers for Assasins Creed. The public has been very outspoken about Ubisoft's DRM failure and it's surprising to see that the DRM is going to stay. When you design a system that DDoS's itself, what do you expect?
As always with super restrictive DRM, it's the legit customers that get screwed. Pirates cracked the game before it was even released, although there are still some issues with Assasins Creed (the game downloads bits of data for each level). This DRM also completely destroys any First Sale rights since the game is tied permanently to your Ubisoft account. The game looks super fun, but I will wait to play it on a Xbox 360