DRM Sucks
or Why I'm Not Going To Buy Diablo III
I am your average video game publisher's wet dream: a 20-something male with disposable income and free time. I spend not an inconsiderable amount of both time and money on video games. My Steam account alone lists 62 games. 62 games at an average cost of $40 means that I've spent $2,480US in the two years I've been using Steam; that's an average of 2.5 games each month and doesn't include that one time I accidentally bought a 10-pack of Red Faction: Guerrilla and had to initiate an impromptu giveaway among some friends.
Blizzard's Diablo series has long been a favorite of mine. I own both Diablo and Diablo II along with all the expansion packs; I have defeated all three of the Prime Evils several times. Like most Diablo fans I've been waiting for Diablo III for around a decade. Now that it's finally being released (and looks like it's an incredible game) I'm saddened that they chose to saddle it with what I consider to be unreasonable Digital Rights Management (DRM) conditions.
DRM and I have a history almost as long as my history with the Diablo series. As a newly minted adult in the early 2000's I engaged in numerous acts of, uh, creative acquisition of software merchandise. Why? It's hard to say exactly. It may be telling, however, that my penchant for piracy diminished over the years in inverse proportion to my disposable income such that now I don't pirate at all.
I tend to think that my experiences with piracy are not unique; that members of my generation happened to be old enough to want games at the same moment when broadband internet and multi-million-dollar blockbuster games became commonplace, but yet not old enough to usually have any kind of spare cash to throw around. Broadband internet access continues to grow, blockbuster games continue to be released, and new generations of cash-poor gamers are being sired every day. As long as these three states are maintained, game piracy will flourish.
To combat this, many game publishers have turned to software methods which aim to ensure that every instance of a game is a licensed and authorized copy. This makes sense to me, but only if these measures don't create a situation where pirated copies are more usable than legitimate ones and don't penalize legitimate users for giving money to the publisher. An example of perfectly acceptable (to me) DRM is the use of product/CD keys which need to be entered when the game is installed and which are registered at that time, or every time the gamer logs on to some multiplayer service, via the internet with the publisher.
This is fine! I don't mind! But publishers have taken things way beyond these reasonable steps.
One method which will immediately and permanently take a game off of my "to buy" list is any DRM that tries to control my computer outside the game. Scanning my computer's memory for verboten software, scanning my hard drives for illicit files or intercepting, modifying, tracking, proxying, or eavesdropping on network communications unrelated to the game are all examples of DRM tech that are irresponsible, indefensible and intolerable. A game, and by extension the game's publisher, are guests in my computer. I don't let my houseguests inventory my underwear drawer and I don't let software peruse my computer. My skid marks, just like the contents of my computer, are nobody's business but my own and I must insist that they stay that way.
Another, perhaps less invasive but still just as onerous, method is to require that the computer remain constantly connected to the publisher's authentication servers. This method of DRM makes a number of faulty assumptions: that the internet, as a whole, is a reliable medium (which it's not. TCP/IP was designed explicitly to compensate for the ingrained unreliability of the network;) that the user has an internet connection and it is reliable and always available; that the publisher's internet connection and authentication servers are reliable even under heavy load; and that it's OK for a product not to work sometimes.
These assumptions are categorically untrue. By incorporating the embodiment of these assumptions (DRM) in their products, the publisher is reneging on the social contract which exists between consumers of goods and services and the producers thereof. Since time immemorial it has been considered the hallmark of good business to create the best product you can manage and to replace defective merchandise when the defect is your own damned fault. By this logic, I contend that any consumer who has purchased a software product and was even once unable to use the product due to a DRM snafu ought to be entitled to either a full refund or to a non-defective version of the product (i.e. with all DRM stripped from it.)
If you purchased a microwave oven and it refused to nuke your frozen bananna guacamole because it couldn't contact the manufacturer's servers, or if the microwave sprouted legs and started snapping pictures of your kitchen to make sure that only authorized foodstuffs were present (or worse, sending those pics back to the manufacturer,) you'd probably return it to the store for an exchange or refund. Why should software be any different in this respect?
Of course, software publishers have the right to include any DRM they desire with their products, provided the precise nature and behavior of the DRM is explicitly and obviously detailed prior to purchase. This simultaneously informs users who wish to avoid such digital detrius to take their money elsewhere and gains the consent of those who do not mind.
For this reason, I have to commend Valve for the way they present games in their Steam catalog (see the above image.) If a title employs any DRM scheme (other than the built-in schemes of the Steam Client) then it is listed among the games features right up there with the other vitals of the game. On more than one occassion I have refrained from making a game purchase based solely on this information.
But, to return to my original point, Diablo III has been rendered un-purchaseable by the inclusion of a DRM scheme which demands more than I'm willing to concede. If and when Blizzard makes Diablo III more worthwhile to me by removing or curtailing the DRM, I'll probably buy it. Until that happens, Blizzard can keep their game and I will keep my money (and so should you keep yours.)