EMA Suggests Point-Of-Sale Game Activation To Fight Piracy

Gamasutra reports on a set of standards (PDF) published by the Entertainment Merchants Association to promote the use of technology that would "disable" games and DVDs until they are activated when purchased. "The effort is codenamed 'Project Lazarus,' and the EMA says it's assembled a consortium of retailers, home video companies and video game publishers to see how easily such 'benefit denial technology' could be implemented, and to evaluate possible cost-benefit analyses. The initiative is similar to security tags used in clothing retail that spill ink on garments if they're forcibly removed, thereby destroying the item. In such a situation, shoplifting is discouraged by implementing a solution that only the retailer can remove at the point of sale."

Comments

Re:NO DRM! Can you hear us now?

[pushing-robot]

To be fair, activation-requiring games haven't been around very long. You might have a different opinion in a few years when EA decides old games are past their "support date" and turns off the activation servers, or you've upgraded your PC a few times and run out of re-activations.

Many game publishers regularly shut down all online support for their games a few years after release. Services like Direct2Drive and the Microsoft Store limit your activations or remove downloads after a certain period of time. Steam is the exception in this case, as they explicitly state that they will never remove or disable your games, but many publishers insist on adding their own activation scheme on top of Steam's DRM.

Claiming that DRM hasn't bothered you reminds me of the optimist falling from the skyscraper: Every few floors he tells himself "I'm feeling fine, so far!"