News Section Logo NEWS - Return to news section

 

GOG: "DRM drives people to pirate games"

Posted by: , 16:54 AEST, Wed April 13, 2011

Permanent Link     Add Comments
submit to reddit
Good Old Games's marketing manager comes out attacking DRM, questioning its effectiveness, and arguing against turning legitimate customers into criminals

Good Old Games specialises in allowing people to buy retro, discontinued games, and so they know a thing or two about the gaming business. Andhaving to frequently deal with DRM systems that are no longer supported by publishers, they know a thing or two about DRM too.

Which is why they've come out attacking DRM, and saying, quite clearly, that it not only does not work in stopping people from pirating games, DRM actually drives people to pirate the games.

Speaking to bit-tech, Good Old Games' PR and marketing manager, Lukasz Kukawski attacked the usefulness of DRM, saying that the actual deterrent effect is "None, or close to none."

"What I will say isn’t popular in the gaming industry," added Kukawski, "but in my opinion DRM drives people to pirate games rather than prevent them from doing that. Would you rather spend $50 on a game that requires installing malware on your system, or to stay online all the time and crashes every time the connection goes down, or would you rather download a cracked version without all that hassle?"

Kukawski then refers to recent games, such as Crysis 2, being leaked before the game is even released, complete with DRM stripped, and rightly questions just how is DRM supposed to be effective when this kind of thing is happening all the time. 

Kukawski also feels that many gamers, who are paying for full copies of games, are still turning to pirating tools and DRM cracks as a way to properly enjoy games, and "That’s not how it should be".

But if people think Kukawski is giving pirates the green light to continue their illegal actions, think again. "Piracy is evil," says Kukawski, adding that he feels that piracy disrespects the very creator of the content that people are enjoying.

Do you support DRM, or do you think that, since it doesn't work to stop piracy anyway, it should never be used? Post your answer in this news article's comments section, or in this forum thread:

http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=94744


Comments:

Related News:

News Icon Just Cause Creator: DRM is Completely Useless

posted by: Sean F, 13:53 AEDT, Tue March 29, 2011

News Icon PC Gaming Piracy On the Decline, Says Industry Head

posted by: Sean F, 14:11 AEDT, Sun February 20, 2011

News Icon Filesharers Manifesto Aims to Stop Movie, TV Piracy

posted by: Sean F, 15:44 AEDT, Sat February 5, 2011

News Icon Congress Wants Google To Do More To Stop Online Piracy, Including Filtering Results

posted by: Sean F, 00:13 AEST, Fri April 8, 2011

News Icon Minecraft Creator: Piracy Is Not Theft

posted by: Sean F, 14:02 AEDT, Thu March 3, 2011