Ubisoft's Passive-Aggressive Decision To Drop DRM

from the yet-again dept

Ubisoft has a long history of bad DRM choices, and tops it off with a usual misunderstanding of DRM, but its latest move is curious -- in a sort of passive-aggressive way. The company has decided not to include DRM in Prince of Persia, but posted an accusatory note about it:

You're right when you say that when people want to pirate the game they will, but DRM is there to make it as difficult as possible for pirates to make copies of our games. A lot of people complain that DRM is what forces people to pirate games but as PoP [Prince of Persia] PC has no DRM we'll see how truthful people actually are. Not very, I imagine.

Of course, no one said that the only reason people pirate games is because of DRM, but it is most likely a contributing factor. So, there will certainly be plenty of piracy, but other experiments have shown that if the game is good and worthwhile, plenty of people will buy it as well. But of course, part of getting people to actually want to buy the game is treating your customers with respect, which is exactly the opposite of what this guy's note did.

And, of course, the guy is wrong in saying that DRM makes it "as difficult as possible for pirates to make copies." Once someone makes a copy, it's available everywhere. That's the core reason why DRM is ineffective. It's not about stopping each individual. For DRM to work, it needs to stop EVERY individual, because as soon as one makes a cracked version available, it's available to everyone, and no amount of DRM in the world will matter.

Filed Under: drm, prince of persia
Companies: ubisoft