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Op Ed

[Jul 14, 2009, 09:38 am ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

All Aspect Warfare developer blog #14 - The DRM Minefield.
The key to DRM for developers/publishers is that the longer it takes for hackers to break the game, the more chances you have of actually making some additional money on the game. There is no such thing as a casual pirate anymore. At least not since everyone discovered the Internet and Google. So DRM implementation is not about preventing uncle Tom from making a copy of your game for your cousin Harry. Tom doesn’t need to crack your game in order to make that copy for Harry when he can just go online and get it from someone who already has done the job for him. Heck, Harry can probably do it all by himself. Casual piracy is no farther than a trip to a search engine.

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Re: Op Ed

Jul 14, 2009, 12:16

Jerykk

Indeed, pirates will only crack games they are interested in or which are popular. Everything gets cracked, including niche and indie games. The big groups stick with the high profile releases while the small groups stick with the small releases. If you want to find a pirated game online, no matter how obscure, you can do it. Also, finding cracks online is not as easy - or safe - as it used to be because some wankers are using fake cracks to spread botnets, malware, peddle p0rn etc. The same applies to full releases, not just cracks. Whether or not you use DRM doesn't change the fact that people will put out fake releases filled with viruses and malware. Piracy has always been risky to the inexperienced and DRM doesn't change this a bit. Let's be realistic here. You make niche, obscure games with basically no hype or marketing. If a pirate finds out about your games and then realizes that they aren't cracked, he's probably not going to say "OHNOES!!! I HAVE TO BUY IT NOW!!!" No, he'll just download something else. You're fooling yourself if you think DRM is necessary.

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