DRM Is Often Used to Please Investors, Not to Prevent Piracy, Paradox CEO Says

Digital Rights Management software packed in current PC games is nowadays employed by companies just to please shareholders and investors, not to actually try and combat piracy, at least according to Fredrik Wester, the CEO of Paradox Interactive.

DRM and other such anti-piracy problems have been criticized from all directions nowadays, as quite a lot of companies, including digital distribution service Good Old Games, believe they don’t actually prevent piracy and just impose severe restrictions on those who get the original games.

Now, Paradox’s Fredrik Wester is the latest to criticize such software. Besides just listing the regular reasons, however, the CEO sheds some light on the ‘politics’ behind a company’s decision to ship DRM with their PC game.

“I think there's a lot of politics, especially in bigger companies,” Wester told GameSpy about this issue. “It's simple for me being the CEO and half-owner of Paradox. I can basically call the shots I want to call, and if the board wants to ask questions it's like ‘OK, we can take this into consideration.'”

According to him, DRM programs like Sony’s SecuROM help a game company’s investors feel more secure, even if they know nothing about the current gaming industry.

“They're there because they're some investment company or something,” Wester said about shareholders, “and they ask "So what are you doing to protect our game from pirates?" And then they can reply "We're buying this solution from Sony." So I think it's been a way to cover your back, previously.”

Nowadays, however, Wester believes these solutions are just obtrusive and impose unneeded restrictions on customers who actually get original copies of PC games.

“Now, I see no reasonable explanation for why people keep on adding it. Especially the kind where you have to be online all the time, like Ubisoft. I think that's, to me, 2003,” Wester concluded.

As of yet, however, quite a lot of PC games continue to sport one form of DRM or another, so the trend will continue well into the following years, at least.