14 DAY TRIAL // Video game publisher Square Enix says that using Digital Right Management solutions for its video games boosts the bottom line of the company and that means there are no plans at the moment to eliminate the measures in the near future for the PC market.
Adam Sullivan, a senior manager of business and legal affairs at the American division of the company, tells TorrentFreak that profit is more important to his company than trying to maintain good relationships with the fan community.
He states, “We have a well-known reputation for being very protective of our IPs, which does deter many would-be pirates. However, effectiveness is notoriously difficult to measure — in short, we rely on the data available to us through our sales team and various vendors, along with consumer feedback.”
Basically, it seems that Square Enix has limited information about the efficiency of DRM for its video games, but it’s easier to keep the system running than to make a big change and simply see how the market reacts.
Sullivan adds, “The key to DRM is that it can’t interfere with the customer’s ability to play the game. It’s not uncommon for people to get a new computer every few years, or to have multiple computers. Sometimes they don’t have reliable internet connections. There’s no perfect solution yet.”
For the foreseeable future, Square Enix will try to find better ways to protect its video games from piracy while also making sure that legitimate gamers can play them when they want without having to deal with any frustration.
Sullivan also believes that the fast growing field of free-to-play titles requires solid DRM because even if they are not asked to pay for the experience, there are many gamers who are ready to hack the titles in order to boost their performance, which tends to affect the entire community in negative ways.
A number of companies working on the PC have abandoned complex DRM measures for their own titles because they see them as inefficient, unable to stop piracy and a hindrance for gamers who actually buy the experiences.
Developers are saying that a good relation with the player community and an improvement of overall quality are better ways of creating loyalty among fans and improving overall sales.
Square Enix has long-term plans for the PC space, including an entirely new Deus Ex video game that will be revealed in the coming months.