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.

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Or more accurately, he said that today’s DRM strategies are “just dumb.”

Yes, in today’s world where draconian measures are being taken to make sure that the local consumer is dissuaded from getting an illegal copy of this or that latest game, Valve’s own Gabe Newell has given his opinion. It’s not the ICE BURN he’s been famous for (his cracks about the Sony PS3 probably still makes Kaz Hirai wince every now and then) but it’s the truth. His complete statement:

Left 4 Dead is developed entirely by Valve. Steam revenue for our games is not shared with third parties. Around the world we have a number of distribution partners to handle retail distribution of our games (i.e. make discs and boxes). EA is one of those partners.

As far as DRM goes, most DRM strategies are just dumb. The goal should be to create greater value for customers through service value (make it easy for me to play my games whenever and wherever I want to), not by decreasing the value of a product (maybe I’ll be able to play my game and maybe I won’t).

We really really discourage other developers and publishes from using the broken DRM offerings, and in general there is a groundswell to abandon those approaches.

One can remember the furor raised with the PC version of Bioshock installing Securom stealthily onto the rigs it was being played on. And then there’s the Mass Effect PC version debacle, where users had to get their licenses re-verified online for them to keep playing. Oh, and who can forget SPORE?

Yes, we know that piracy is a problem and that it cuts into your profits. But never assume that everyone is going to pirate your game – there are people willing to pay good money for it, and Valve’s electronic distribution system (namelyl Steam) is a step in the right direction. You know what else is good, developers? Making sure that our money is worth it. Don’t give us a broken game, give us a good solid game for starters. Then give us extras (an artbook, an exclusive freebie, doesn’t have to be something expensive but something nice and awesome would do). If people see that the retail version of the game has lots of security bullshit then naturally they’ll opt to get the illegal copy. That’s how people are. Don’t think about changing them, instead think about how to deal with it instead.

Hopefully this sends a message out to all developers. Gamers won’t pirate your game if you don’t give them reason to, or you give them enough incentives to purchase the retail version.