DRM has become an ugly sore on the lip of gaming. While software publishers have always implemented measures to prevent the piracy of their games, those measures have gotten rather drastic in recent history. Gamers cried out against the use of SecuROM in Bioshock, Mass Effect, and Spore due to the limited number of activations it allowed for each respective game, as well as the hassle involved in getting additional activations if the need arose. Meanwhile, pirates played those games easily and freely without any fear of running out of activations, or having to contact the publisher and beg for one more activation after their computer crashed, or they added a new video card.  So, in an effort to thwart piracy, it seems publishers are only punishing the paying customers with restrictive DRM. Still, something has to be done to prevent piracy. The real question here is just what can be done to make people pay for something they could get for free?

Before we can establish a cure, let’s look at some of the causes for piracy. The big one is cost. With most PC games costing $50 USD, and console games costing $60 USD, gaming can be an expensive hobby. Throw in constant hardware upgrades for PC users, and the high cost of consoles, and their peripherals, and you have a catalyst for piracy. Console gamers need only worry about a one time cost for modding their console of choice to play pirated games, and PC gamers don’t need to do much of anything special to run pirated games. The only real drawback in either case is the lack of online functionality with pirated games. You can’t hop on Xbox Live with your pirated copy of Gears of War 2 and get a match, because if you do, Microsoft will most likely detect your modified console, and your pirated game, and ban your console, and your gamertag from XBL. On the PC side, the same basic principal holds true. You can’t take a pirated game online on official servers, and you won’t get updates or patches.  Add to the equation the fact that pirated games are readily available via bit torrent at a large number of sites across the internet (sometimes even before the game is released), and it’s no wonder people pirate games.

DRM has proven ineffective, so what’s the answer? How do you get someone to pay for something they could have for free? The real solution is to create incentives for paying customers. Publishers and developers need to use the fact that a pirated game can’t be taken online to their advantage. Create tournaments for games with a strong multiplayer component. Create patches and DLC that can only be accessed with a legitimate copy of the game. Gears of War 2 comes bundled with a code to download the Flashback Map Pack for free. This is sure to convince some would be pirates that they should buy the game instead of acquiring it via dubious means. Incentives of this nature are sure to bring some pirates back to the realm of the paying customer.

There’s no way to ensure piracy is completely squashed, Every time someone comes up with an unbeatable system for preventing piracy, it gets defeated mere weeks, and sometimes days after it’s release, however, if pirates don’t feel like they’re getting the full game experience, they might just turn around and buy the game. If a paying customer feels constricted by DRM, they might just turn around and pirate it.

-Mike Kurz

Tags: Cross Platform, DLC, DRM, Game Industry, piracy

Subscribe to the Check Your HUD RSS Feed