A bit of background first. Ubisoft is a game developer who makes games that I largely don’t care about. Their most recent DRM (Digital Rights Management, previously known as copy-protection) required a constant connection to Ubisoft’s server farm while playing. If the connection dropped, your game would be paused until it came back. That means if your connection is flakey, you aren’t going to have a good time; if Ubisoft connection is flakey, you aren’t going to have a good time; if there is a major internet deroute, you aren’t going to have a good time. I chose to ignore those who don’t have a persistent internet connection because this is 2010 and thats just barbaric! It’s awful DRM and makes for an awful user experience.

DRM in the PC world is largely anti-user. PC game publishers deliver games with compatibility issues solely due to DRM, and in that sense, DRM is awful. However I have a problem with the crowd that thinks DRM is bad because piracy is good and that software should be free.

More background though. I spent my early years in the pre-internet days trading cracked games on BBS’, followed by my high school and university years spent in a top-level cracking group releasing video games. This may seem hypocritical to now have a problem with software piracy but let me explain. Back in the day, the cracking scene was a very small group of individuals, at first hundreds, then thousands. They were kids competing to see who could crack a game first. It wasn’t really about free software, it was a game itself. A mere drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of millions of people who steal software nowadays. Thats the problem. Piracy is ubiquitous with software and media amongst the current generation of high school and university students.

A generation of kids have grown up consuming all the software and media they can handle for free. Movie rentals? Why bother, just hit up a torrent site. Borrow a friends CD to see if you like it? Why bother, hit up any number of p2p sources. Need a new distraction from exams? Just download a dozen new games and see if you like any of them. The problem is that people expect everything for free on the internet. Many people argue that these people stealing the software/media wouldn’t have purchased it anyway. This is partially true, people now consume a lot more media and software than they’d purchase, but they would have purchased some. The problem is that piracy has become so pervasive in the internet culture, many people aren’t buying anything. Adults who pirate games will buy the ones they like, but thats our generation. The younger generation has grown up not buying media, they will continue to buy nothing. Thats right, I am asserting that this current generation is not pirating games as a form of try-before-buy, they just want free games…

People get angry that PS3/Xbox360 games are too expensive, they are not. SNES and N64 games reached $90-100+ CAD in the mid 90s. $100 10-15 years ago was a lot more money than it is today, so $70 in 2010 money isn’t really that bad… It is suggested that another business model is required. High quality games cost money to develop, a lot of money. More money than could be generated through ad supported software, so that model won’t work. The open source model has worked for amazing software packages like Linux, Apache and MySQL, and indeed would work for decent games given you could find talented artists, musicians and writers with enough free time; but the bulk of people are going to reach an age where they want to use their free time for something other than another job.

So my argument is that people nowadays just steal too much, and too many people just buy nothing. Maybe another business model is required for software sales, but that model does not exist. We are a capitalist society, most of us earning a living enjoy that, whether we are empathetic or not to those who don’t. The real problem is that PC DRM in its current incarnations are not the answer.

DRM on the PS3 is great. People argue that it stops homebrew and personal backups, but these are niche. Homebrew is nice, but there are lots of great platforms to write emulators and run linux on. The greatest of these is known as the PC, you already have one. After all, your PS3 was sold to you as a video game console, not a personal computer. Personal backups is a term heavily abused. Some people have this notion of personal backups that dates back to the time of floppy discs, which did readily wear out. DVDs, don’t, unless there is something drastically wrong with your hardware. However the majority of people who claim to desire personal backups just are saying they want to pirate games.

In the end I obviously don’t have a solution. My only point is that both sides demonize the other stupidly. Wide spread piracy is not acceptable, nor is DRM that does nothing but hurt legit consumers. Another sales model for games would be acceptable, but changing the culture that demands everything for free is likely a better solution. Until then, PC gaming will continue to die.

(Sorry for the bold, I just feel ranty)