It’s hard to exaggerate just how much EA’s CEO, John Riccitiello, misses the point here.
I personally don’t like DRM. It interrupts the user experience. We would like to get around that. But there is this problem called piracy out there.
That’s what he said at some hoity-toity media conference, referencing the Spore-DRM brouhaha. First, the pedantic tone—“there’s this problem called piracy out there”—doesn’t really help EA’s image. Second, and more importantly, pirates got off easy; the DRM didn’t affect them at all. Go check ThePirateBay (or your private tracker of choice) to see how many pirates are enjoying the game despite the DRM.
The importance of this DRM mess, the message to take back to EA HQ, is that DRM, ostensibly present to prevent piracy, did no such thing. It’s the people who went to the store and paid their American dollars who ran into all sorts of problems. They’re the ones who got bitten by the DRM, not the pirates.
And until EA (and the rest of ‘em) realize this, they’re gonna have to deal with more and more angry Internet mobs.
DRM will be nothing but a legend in thirty years. Our grand kids are going to roll on the floor laughing when they learn about the time when music and software were loaded with this crap.
If John was really bright, he’d stop spending all that money on DRM and use it for something more important, like say game design, or better yet – plastic surgery. Man, that guy has a creepy smile!
I couldn’t agree with you more. I am an older gamer (56) and am so close to shit canning gaming as the effort is not worth it for me. I can find lots of other entertaining things to do with my computer besides gaming and my peers are following suite.
I am not surprised that EA takes such a stance as they are a typical ‘big corporation’ with stockholders to appease, not their customers. On their behalf, they are simply “staying with the crowd”.
Nick,
Can you get an interview with this guy?
I have to disagree with everyone here. Yeah, people reading this probably do have a “tracker of choice” (I certainly do). But most people don’t know what a bit torrent is, much less how to take advantage of all the wonderful image sites out there.
DRM is enough to keep most people from pirating games, because it adds a little obstacle to the whole process. That’s enough to make it worth it to these studios. Obviously, DRM in its present form won’t always be around, but that doesn’t mean companies won’t keep innovating new ways to do the same thing.
And yeah, I understand DRM sometimes affects how people play games. And yes, its annoying. But in theory, I don’t have a problem with it. Companies need and deserve to paid for investing in the products (some) people feel entitled to.
Most people who actually game already know what a tracker is, all you have to go is google the game and you will most likely return a tracker result within the first page.
And the point of stopping piracy is to stop lost sales, if little Billy lent some classmates his Spore disk, would all those kids really have purchased the game if they coudlen’t pirate it? Maybe 1 or 2 out of 20 or so, is that money made worth the thousands they put into licensing and adding the DRM, then the millions lost in bad PR?
How do you define somebody who “actually game(s)”? I’m calling BS – just people somebody plays a computer game doesn’t mean they know how to use Bit Torrent. Maybe you and your friends do, good and great. Most of my friends just aren’t interested enough to care and learn, and these aren’t stupid people. And its not like playing a game means there’s going to be a flashing “GOOGLE THE TERM TRACKER” across the screen.
OK – so is Billy lending twenty Spore discs, or one at a time? Its an important distinction. Unless Billy stocks up on games he buys, he’s not going to be providing his classmates with games every time one comes out. He’ll probably lend it to a friend or two AFTER he’s done playing it. Since most game sales are made in the first months after a game is released, chances are one or two of Billy’s friends aren’t buying the game because they plan to borrow to it. The others are hearing about the great game and bugging their parents to get them a copy. And the nerdy kid in the corner is downloading a new game on Bit Torrent on one monitor while playing a pirated game on the other.
And where on earth did you get the “millions lost in bad PR” number? If these studios were losing millions in bad PR, they would stop using DRM, plain and simple.
DRM SUCKS DICK!!!!!!!! And Stupid CEO Of EA John Riccitiello is wasting millions just on this fucking DRM shit? He could have bought a couple of Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron Grand Sports each year with this amount of money instead of making all these crap!!!
I DETEST DRM!!! Why must these people torture and make life a lot goddamned harder for everyone by introducing the DRM technology?! If you are reading this, I STRONGLY encourage that you make your views known by posting your comments and making more websites that show your anger towards DRM technology.
Games are to entertain people, not to annoy people, so those game companies are digging their own graves if they incoporate DRM technologies into all these games, because these technologies will give the gamers a secong thought as to making the decision to buying the game, because these technologies will cause them a lot of inconvinience. Besides, DRM will interfere with user experience. Doesn’t it make sense to you?