14 DAY TRIAL // DRM, or Digital Rights Management, has been quite a popular subject in the last few months. Upon the release of the eagerly awaited Spore title, a lot of critics said that the SecuROM DRM system was pretty strict in terms of user rights. These statements created such a backlash that people who actually felt the impact that DRM had on their property and weren't so happy about it would stop buying the game or sabotage its reviews on Amazon or other websites. They assaulted the Electronic Arts forums demanding that the system be removed from their game and even took the big gaming company to court.
It was a true period of rebellion for the buyers, who felt like the strict rules imposed by the developers and publishers of gaming titles were too severe. Although there are a few ideas that are pretty tough, the main purpose of DRM systems like SecuROM of StarForce is to protect the investment of gaming companies. In order to make a profit that will fund the development of other titles, piracy must be prevented by using these systems.
Recently, EA boss John Riccitiello tackled this sensitive issue with some quite interesting statements. He went on to say that only a small part of the public took notice of the DRM system implemented in their games, but they rallied up all of the other users against his company. He then added that piracy was the main problem that caused the implementation of DRM systems and that his company would like to no longer use them, but that would be a catastrophic idea in this day and age.
"We implemented a form of DRM and it's something that 99.8 percent of users wouldn't notice. But for the other .2 percent, it became an issue and a number of them launched a cabal online to protest against it. I personally don't like DRM. It interrupts the user experience. We would like to get around that. But there is this problem called piracy out there."
A pretty interesting idea, but things could have worked differently if the public had been told about the DRM system that came with the game. Had EA offered them an explanation, maybe this whole scandal could have been avoided.