Craig HillShock News - Pirates Want An End To DRM
August 15th 2008 02:44
Positech Games are interested in what makes software pirates tick. And it's not the Fob watch concealed in a top pocket that was pulled from DJ's locker, according to the information dredged up by Cliff Harris, an independant developer with the company, their illegal trade is mainly due to Digital Rights Management (DRM). The pirates have united in their dissaproval of the use of DRM in new games, claiming that it actually inhibits legitimate gamers ability to use their purchase.
The reasons the pirates gave fell into six categories:
1. Anarchists think copyright shouldn't exist.
2. Games are too expensive.
3.The quality of gaming is too uneven.
4.DRM is hurting the legitimate customers.
5.Going to the shops is annoying.
6.Because piracy is easy to do with low risk for getting caught..
Harris was not particularly surprised, "This was expected, but whereas many pirates who debate the issue online are often abusive and aggressive on the topic, most of the DRM complaints were reasonable and well put," Harris explained. "People don't like DRM; we knew that, but the extent to which DRM is turning away people who have no other complaints is possibly misunderstood. If you wanted to change ONE thing to get more pirates to buy games, scrapping DRM is it. These gamers are the low-hanging fruit of this whole debate."
It is true that DRM is incredibly intrusive, and contraversies such as with Starforce have done little to help the DRM cause. It does seem that gamers are better off without it and so far no impact has been made into piracy through its use.
The 2007 Annual BSA and IDC Global Software Piracy Study found the following, "Of the 108 countries included in the report, the use of pirated software dropped in sixty-seven, and rose in only eight. However, because the worldwide PC market grew fastest in high-piracy countries, the worldwide PC software piracy rate increased by three percentage points to 38% in 2007". Take that third world pirates.
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