Why Bother With DRM?

Brad Wardell of Stardock and Ron Carmel of 2D Boy recently spoke with Gamasutra about their efforts to move the games industry away from restrictive DRM. Despite the fact that both have had their own troubles with piracy, they contend that overall piracy rates aren't significantly affected by DRM — and that most companies know it. Instead, the two suggest that most DRM solutions are still around to hamper a few more specific situations. Quoting: "'Publishers aren't stupid. They know that DRM doesn't work against piracy,' Carmel explains. 'What they're trying to do is stop people from going to GameStop to buy $50 games for $35, none of which goes into the publishers' pockets. If DRM permits only a few installs, that minimizes the number of times a game can be resold.' ... 'I believe their argument is that while DRM doesn't work perfectly,' says Wardell, 'it does make it more difficult for someone to get the game for free in the first five or six days of its release. That's when a lot of the sales take place and that's when the royalties from the retailers are determined. Publishers would be very happy for a first week without "warez" copies circulating on the Web.'"

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[hansamurai]

Brad Wardell of Stardock and Ron Carmel of 2D Boy

I don't know who that is but a few days ago I...

Stardock develops non-DRM'd games like Sins of a Solar Empire and now Demigod. They always make a big todo about how there's no DRM and then SecuROM (the DRM guys) get upset that they didn't use their DRM and say they'll download their torrents. Stardock has a Steam-like product called Impulse that many have said is akin to a light form of DRM, but still DRM.

2D-Boy are the developers of World of Goo, a popular indie game that was once reported to have something like a 90% piracy rate, which was argued by many to be unbelievable, etc. World of Goo has no DRM.