DRM Damns Will Wright’s Creation, Everything

You know you’re damned to a life of nerd-dom when you’re a kid and like watching Bill Nye the Science Guy way more than Full House or Saved by the Bell. (I can still hear that theme song, which is still cool, BTW.) Being a nerd, I’m also a gamer; and, ipso facto, I’m in love with Spore… wait. I lied. I’m not. It’s because DRM is the worst thing that ever happened to the digital era.

Spore should have been the most amazing game ever created, not only in “fun factor” but in the mere scope of the game. It starts from the microscopic and progresses to the interstellar. Simply, the magnitude of the game should make a gamer amazed/awe stricken. Even after initial reviews saying the game is simpler to play than expected, the idea to guide life’s evolution from its beginning to its indefinite terminus is still plenty cool and entertaining.

So, blah, blah, blah, Spore should be insanely cool… especially to Bill Nye lovin’ nerds, but it’s not. EA mistook the years of anticipation for Spore as an indicator that it had to have strong DRM to prevent pirating of their game. And it failed immediately. Actually, it failed before that.

The constant reviews around the net show that people don’t want to pay for DRM, whether it be in games, music, or movies, and this isn’t just pirates. Amazon is like the Wal-Mart of the internet, but the reviews from their customers are overwhelmingly negative about the DRM. Consumer’s are becoming more and more aware of DRM as more and more of them are running into the restrictions DRM places on their purchased digital IP. And therefore, more and more people are going to speak out against the concept.

Big game developers and big music and video producers have not yet realized that DRM is something no one wants to buy. They tell themselves good customers won’t mind it, only pirates will. Not so. Their DRM scheme takes up system resources on my aging computer. Therefore, I have to pay for a faster computer not just to play my game, but to host a separate program that monitors my activity like an Orwellian Big Brother.

So to the media moguls: There’s something you have forgotten: trust. You have to trust people. Yes, there will be bad people downloading your game from a torrent site with nary an intention to pay. But keep your loyal customers informed, well served, and don’t rape them on the price. These are the good people; reward them. Also, keep in mind that every shared copy is not lost income. In fact, I daresay most aren’t. And, if you don’t treat everybody like pirates, perhaps they’ll be more apt to buy from your company in the future without throwing a fit in the process. It’s called good faith. Try it. You might like it… and make a boat-load of booty in the process.