So it looks like a publisher is finally calling the bluff. PC gamers unanimously hate DRM strategies, and that’s been the popular subject as of late, often inspiring heated discourses on the reason for the listlessness of the PC platform.

Ubisoft, or community manager “UbiRazz” of the official forums, had this to say:

You’re right when you say that when people want to pirate the game they will but DRM is there to make it as difficult as possible for pirates to make copies of our games. A lot of people complain that DRM is what forces people to pirate games but as PoP PC has no DRM we’ll see how truthful people actually are. Not very, I imagine.

At first, I was worried. The first thing I thought when I heard it had no DRM was, “Man, that’ll make it easy to download.” I do enjoy the idea of ease, as I imagine many others do.

However, I can’t help but wonder why he thinks pirates have such a difficult time cracking DRM. Certainly, it’s not easy, but they love to do it. The more you throw on there, the more fun it is for them. It’s an achievement: Game Unlocked – 300 pts. Thinking that DRM is anything but ineffectual and a hindrance to legitimate consumers is just Goddamn retarded.

In addition, it’s already been discussed how good games without DRM went on to sell massively, such as Oblivion did. Ubisoft seriously isn’t doing anything new; they’re simply not in touch with what’s been going on with the industry for the past few years. You want to sell a game? Make it halfway decent, make sure it runs, and market it well. This is all I’m asking for.

In spite of all this, I’d still urge people to buy this game just to rub it in their damn faces: their damnable arrogant faces.

What do you mean it doesn't fit in the drive like this?

You’ve heard it all before, I’m sure, but the DRM battle still rages on, and Rockstar bring it to a whole new level of illogical thought process. There is plenty of past material to talk about on the subject, but rather than dig into the past(yet) I decided to start with the draconian drama du jour.

Quick aside, I’m sick of the word “draconian,” but it worked too well with that alliteration, don’t expect to see it again this article.

GTA4 is attached to our old friend SecuRom. If you’re hopelessly out of the loop on that, SecuRom is a spyware tool commonly used by game companies to prevent people from using their product. It usually installs irremovable components at the kernel level of your operating system, renders legitimate hardware and software unusable, and sends unspecified information back to Sony and possibly the game publisher. They say it’s used to prevent piracy, but so far, the only people that have been stopped from playing are people that bought the software.

Spyware really is the only thing you can call this stuff. That said, the first anti-virus company that adds DRM schemes like this to it’s definitions will have a lifetime customer in me.

(continue reading…)