Piracy

You know how it goes.

Really, there's not much to see here, as this happens all the time. Some new digital rights management scheme fails in a day, and piracy ensues. I understand the need for a company to protect its intellectual property, and to make money from the product they spent thousands and thousands of dollars and hours to make in the first place, but DRM, as it has been, is far beyond a flawed approach. The mantra goes nowadays, "You only hurt the real customers who have to go through all the hoops to get your game to work. The pirates circumvent all your protection, so they don't have any of the hassle." This is entirely true, yet we see this situation repeated ad nauseam in the entertaiment businesses as a whole.

The typical response goes a little like this. The argument presented ignores a lot of things, here. First, nothing is said about the legitimate customer. I've seen personal accounts of DRM so invasive that people who buy the game have to pirate it anyway because the game doesn't work, and pirates fix it. That shouldn't be a part of the playing of a game; the game to get the game to work. It's not a matter of inconvenience, it's a matter of even being able to play the game they bought. This should be a sign of a broken system, yet people are actually defending it. Secondly, who says a game must be bought before you get to play it? Why not a trial period, a demo, or even shareware (remember that)? What happens when I go over to a friends place and play the game over there first? I didn't buy it, but I'm playing the game. If getting an idea of what you're buying into before you buy it is criminal, I'm not interested in legal activities. I like Tycho's statement in the news section: "Pirates always win, on a long enough timeline. Honestly, the timeline doesn't even need to be that long."

Being exclusionary only hurts the image of a notoriously exclusive hobby.