Gabe Newell gets it wrong at DICE [on software DRM and Piracy]

[admin]

John Gunn takes on Valve's Gabe Newell by suggesting that DRM does work.

http://www.aladdin.com/SoftwarePiracyBlog/post/2009/03/Gabe-Newell-gets-it-wrong-at-DICE-on-software-DRM-and-Piracy.aspx

Even the worst pirates will pay for the things that they can’t steal.

What can't you "steal" these days though in terms of gaming?

Yes, many people who can afford to spend $5K for hardware will steal a $60 title because of weak DRM.

People don't steal because of weak DRM, people steal despite strong DRM.

A broad-based survey of software developers who implemented software DRM revealed an average increase in revenue of 19%.

Increase of revenue compared to what? I can't see how this comparison can be possible without a company releasing two games with exactly the same level of interest (impossible to judge), but one with DRM and one without, and then compare the sale stats. Companies that use DRM have always used DRM, and companies that don't never will - any comparison between companies on different titles will be completely meaningless.

Good DRM is proven to reduce piracy and does not impede sales.

Then why has DRM become more annoying, and why has the piracy rate increased? What is a definition of a "good DRM" anyway?

Gabe Newell's Valve is no stranger to DRM, because Valve's Steam game download service has it. But the default level is not intrusive, and since the whole service is Net based, people are used to the fact that it connect online to authenticate games from time to time. What makes Steam special though is the discount pricing made available from time to time (for example, Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 is now available for only $4.99 as a weekend special and Unreal Tournament 3 Black Edition for $11.99). With these kinds of discount pricing (and deals with ISPs to set up local Steam mirrors with unlimited download quotas), nobody will bother to pirate games anymore, and so the whole debate of having (easily hacked) DRM or not is moot.

[drfsupercenter]

No DRM is good... piracy also isn't stealing. Last time I checked DICE or whomever still has the original, so what was stolen? All someone did was write a stream of 1s and 0s to their own hard drive

But yes, many people only pirate software because it has DRM. I avoid DRM'ed titles altogether if possible. (And in the case of music, it's actually legal to decrypt it assuming you paid for it...)