News

Blizzard want their teams "focused on content" not "anti-piracy"
Posted: 27.05.2010 12:55 by Simon Priest Comments: 1
Using DRM for PC releases to combat piracy is "really a losing battle" says Blizzard, because the community is "always so much larger".

Either because they want free stuff, or it's "a curiosity for them," groups of people will break DRM technology. Blizz prefer to stick with 'cool content'.

For years many studios have been trying out different methods of PC DRM, with the latest from Ubisoft even demanding that you stay connected to the Internet at all times regardless if the game supports online play or not.

“If you start talking about DRM and different technologies to try to manage it, it’s really a losing battle for us, because the community is always so much larger, and the number of people out there that want to try to counteract that technology, whether it’s because they want to pirate the game or just because it’s a curiosity for them, is much larger than our development teams,” Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce told VideoGamer.com.

"If we've done our job right and implemented Battle.net in a great way people will want to be connected while they're playing the single player campaign so they can stay connected to their friends on Battle.net and earn the achievements on Battle.net," he said.

"The best approach from our perspective is to make sure that you've got a full-featured platform that people want to play on, where their friends are, where the community is."

"That's a battle that we have a chance in," noted Pearce. "We need our development teams focused on content and cool features, not anti-piracy technology." Outrage last year came from their decision to drop LAN from StarCraft II, citing a piracy safeguard.

Is it better for studios to focus more on content and win the 'hearts and minds' of gamers than it is to try and weed out illegal copies through DRM? There's always going to be an element wanting everything for nothing... history teaches us that.

Comments

By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on May 27, 2010
herodotus
Well at Blizz see the truth in that opening statement. It's a shame other companies don't realise what Stardock initially stated, and Blizzard has carried on with. All this money wasted on DRM, and the losses in legit sales because of gamers refusing to accept the harsh DRM forced on them.
The really aggravating part, and one that companies such as Ubisoft don't get is that a lot of legit owners of the games require cracks to get them to play without internet connects.