Two major game publishers have spoken out against gaming DRM, saying controversial anti-piracy measures may do more harm than good.
GOG, a game distributor known for their anti-DRM stance, has once again spoken out against software based anti-piracy techniques, also known as Digital Rights Management systems, for games.
Promoting their new DRM-free GOG Galaxy game client, vice president GOG North America Guillaume Rambourg told Eurogamer Germany that DRM unfairly penalises the very people doing the right thing, those that pay for games.
"DRM is only impacting the good-hearted passionate gamers out there. The very same gamers who are ready to spend $50 or more to own their favourite triple-A title and support our industry," Rambourg says.
"Our industry should be cherishing and treating all gamers with respect, those people who pay our wages, servers, development projects and what not. Instead, we just make it frustrating for them to buy games. How schizophrenic is that?
"DRM is not protecting any product," he added. "It is harming your fans and your brands in the long run ... Let's make it easy and rewarding for gamers to buy games. They are not criminals and they do not need DRM," added Rambourg.
Meanwhile, major game publisher Ubisoft expressed similar sentiments when talking to GameSpot.
"I don't want us in a position where we're punishing a paying player for what a pirate can get around. Anything is going to be able to be pirated given enough time and enough effort to get in there," said Ubisoft VP of digital publishing Chris Early.
Early says that the key to fighting piracy is to provide services beyond just what the core game offers.
"So when it's a good game and there's good services around it, you're incentivized to not pirate the game to get the full experience," explained Early.
Early also stated that it was a mistake to consider pirated copies as lost sales, because there are people out there that will always pirate and never buy the game.
Ubisoft's curent stance on DRM is particularly noteworthy due to the company's previous pro-DRM stance, and its use of especially controversial "always-on" DRM. Ubisoft dropped their use of this type of DRM in 2012 due to a strong public backlash.
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