Dec 05

Software Piracy and DRM

Piracy, Indie Game Development Comments Off

I have been playing video games since I was a kid, and it was as a game player that I first learned about piracy. Now that I’m a game developer, I see piracy from the other side too. I have a family to provide for, and in order to continue to make games for people, I need to make some money at it.

Piracy is a hot topic in the media today and is getting a lot of attention from bloggers and on forums across the internet. Many of the discussions get quite heated, and pirates are ridiculed and called lots of nasty names. While some developers don’t think piracy is significant enough to hurt their income, others think it’s putting them out of business.

The Internet is a two-edged sword that makes it easy to both sell and pirate the games we make. On the one hand, game developers are using the internet to network with each other, share tips and techniques, and especially to sell their games. We talk a lot about how to harness this new technology and take advantage of the things it enables us to do. On the other hand, developers and organizations that represent them are trying to stop people from using this technology in certain ways.

Most attempts at stopping piracy (DRM) are completely ineffective, and many offend the paying customers as well. Therefore, DRM has become almost as ridiculed and hated by players as pirates are by developers. While admittedly a small percentage, there are many people who would buy a game (like Spore) but choose not to because of the DRM “solution” it uses.

Thus, the game industry finds itself in a 3-way battle. The developers are fighting the pirates, with paying customers as collateral damage. The paying (and would-be paying) customers are fighting developers to remove DRM, thereby aiding pirates. The pirates, while they aren’t necessarily intending to put anyone out of business, are fighting against the developers too.

Being assaulted on both sides, developers are faced with the dilemma of alienating customers or making it easier for pirates. Some choose to throw DRM out the window, others choose to sacrifice some of their user base. Both are trying to make more money so they can feed their families.

How did this happen?

The whole idea that we’re trying to embrace one aspect of new technology while trying to suppress another has always bothered me. What if the typewriter manufacturers got together to suppress PCs? What if the candle makers got together to suppress the electric lamp makers? To me, creating hardware and software to prevent copying data and sharing it over the internet is like the two previous examples. It seems to me that the best solution is to figure out a new way of selling things that embraces the new technology rather than limit it. To do that requires a new paradigm. The thinking that has gotten the industry where it is will not get the game industry out of the hole it has dug.

The old paradigm is seeing games as a product. Think: boardgame. You buy the game, you get a physical box, with physical contents. You can play the game as much as you want. You can lend it to your friends. You can sell it to recoup some money to another person when you’re done. If the company that sold you that game goes out of business, you can still play it. All these things you can do, because you OWN it, just like you OWN the chair you’re sitting on.

The nature of the technology used to deliver this product includes the previously impossible ability to replicate it with almost no cost, for both developers and players alike. So, in addition to all the “rights” listed above, players began to demand the right to make back-up copies in case something happens to the original media. However, because traditional “rights management” inherent in an irreplicable physical object like a chair flew out the window, the crime of piracy was born.

Piracy in this sense has been happening my whole life. When I was a kid, people were copying video and audio cassettes and floppy disks. Now it’s CDs, DVDs, mp3s, eBooks, software, and every other kind of data. Copying these things has almost no cost for the average computer user. The Internet makes it easy to find anything in minutes. Seeing as how the old product paradigm is based on the physical world, it is not surprising that that paradigm has completely failed in the digital world. And failed it has: after more than 30 years of piracy being possible, it is easier than ever to do it in spite of all the resources and effort thrown against it.

How do we fix it?

The new paradigm is emerging and becoming more and more widespread, especially among the youth. It is the older folks who are the ones stuck in the past. Not surprisingly, it is the older folks who are running things at the big game companies. It is the older folks who are the most outspoken among the players. It’s the old paradigm that dominates the media. I suspect it’s mostly younger folks who download the cracked software.

The new paradigm is seeing games as a service. Think: bowling alley. You’re not buying the right to OWN the game, you’re just buying the right to play it. Buying a game is like buying a lifetime membership to a bowling alley. You can go play whenever you want, you can join up with friends who have also paid, but you leave the balls, the shoes, the pins, and everything else at the alley. You own nothing, but you can go play whenever you want.

There are many companies today who sell games as a service, such as Valve. Steam is a phenomenal service. I can play offline if I want to. I can make backup copies of my games so I don’t have to download them again. I can even buy a box at a store to put on my shelf. I can install my games on as many computers as I want as many times as I want. I don’t have to worry about losing my discs. Activating new games, updating existing games, and playing with friends all require connecting to their server which validates my account and verifies that I have in fact paid. Can I sell a game I don’t want to play anymore? No. What if Valve goes under? I’m probably hosed. But it’s sure good while it lasts!

To lose the other rights of ownership listed above sounds horrible to those who are stuck in the old paradigm. Most of the reasons I’ve read for people not using Steam are because they want to own a product, but Valve is selling a service. For me, Steam is a simple, unobtrusive portal to play games. I have a lifetime membership to play Half-Life, TF2, and L4D. I’m down with that. I don’t want boxes to keep track of. I don’t want CDs to juggle. I’m connected to the internet all the time, and I just want to play.

Companies like EA are selling products. They’re the ones getting bad press for draconian DRM. They’re the ones losing money on piracy. I was excited about Spore for years, but an activation limit means suddenly I don’t have a lifetime membership. That’s a crappy service, not just a crappy product. If I could create an account on their server, buy Spore, activate it on my account, and then play it whenever I want and install it wherever I want, however many times I want, that’s a service I would like. Just ask Valve: I pay for services like that.

The key difference between games as products and games as services is that services require an on-going relationship with the provider. Already, players go back to companies to check for updates, new versions, etc. They buy them. This relationship exists today already. Most players are connected to the Internet all the time. Developers can take advantage of that to both provide a better service and protect their work. The new paradigm allows us to embrace technology and not fight against it.

Software Piracy and DRM

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