The DRM War

As an avid player of video games, the controversy over piracy and digital rights management (DRM) always pokes its head into my life from time to time. Over the past decade the companies who make video games have continually been at war with pirates, imposing more and more restrictions on the released, legitimately bought, copies of their game in hopes that they won't be able to work around the restrictions and put it on the internet. EA was a big offender with Spore, which was one of the first to use the concept of "limited installs", which made it so that the game could only be installed a total of 3 times and then went kaput. Your computer crash? Goodbye one install. Virus infect your computer and you have to wipe it? So long install 2. Want to install it on your PC and laptop? Too bad. Instead of having bought a game, you've effectively rented it for full purchase price. The result of this massive middle finger to consumers? Spore was still cracked, with the install limit lifted as well as circumventions around the online verification, and it became the #1 most pirated game ever. People who actually bought the game, however, were left out to dry.

The latest no-no comes from Ubisoft with Assassin's Creed 2. Weeks before release the internet was abuzz with rumors that in order to play the game, you had to be constantly connected to both the internet and Ubisoft's servers. For a single player game with no multiplayer. As far as I can tell this is the first instance where a single player game requires a constant internet connection. But Zach, you might say, what if you don't have an internet connection? Sorry, but you can't play the game. Or what if the servers go down? Well then the game will either pause where you're at until connection is reestablished, or it will quit and when the connection comes back it'll drop you back at the previous checkpoint you reached. If the connection comes back.

And that's the problem right there, because two days ago that's exactly what happened. The servers went down for an entire day, and most people were either completely blocked from playing the game or had to do some major troubleshooting if they were already playing it.

While there currently isn't a crack for the game, you can be assured one will be soon, because that's what hackers do. Sooner or later, if you make a game, it will be hacked. Deal with it. If you're open about it and accept that it will happen, and stop using really stupid DRM that hurts the average consumer but has no effect on the pirates, more people will buy your game. Take Spore. Honestly it was a bit of a disappointment and not that great a game. But by installing such heinous DRM on it, you push people who would normally just buy your game into making a cost/benefit analysis saying "Do I want to pay full price for a game I can only install 3 times, or should I pay nothing for a game that I'll have forever?" People who want to support the publisher are pushed away in favor of trying to stem the unstoppable tide of piracy.

So what to do? STOP USING DRM. COMPLETELY. Instead of punishing all to get to the few (who don't even feel the effect), reward those who do what you want and buy the game in store. Offer an incentive in-store for buying your game. Maybe it comes with a discount on another game or a gift certificate. Amazon has started doing this with pre-orders, and it makes sense. But the publishers need to step up, and take a little hit by including things with non-preorders and saying "sorry for all that DRM nonsense, here's a reason to actually pick up our game from a store instead of throwing it aside".

It all comes down to reinforcement versus punishment. In study after study, positive reinforcement is much more effective than punishment in solidifying behavior. So take note from the psychologists, developers, and try actually rewarding your customers for a change.