Ubisoft sets sail on DRM-free waters. The Internet steals their boat.
Ars Technica is reporting that the PC version of Prince of Persia will not contain any kind of DRM. For those not hip to the Digital Rights Management scene, it means that there will be no checking or authenticating to make sure you're running a legitimate version of the game. Of course this doesn't apply to your Steam purchase, which will still be married to the Steam interface.
Now this is some DRM I can get behind.It's admittedly a weird move, but as the article points out, it's maybe not as benevolent as it may seem. It appears that the game's publisher, Ubisoft, is calling the bluff that people are using SecuROM and other DRM methods as an excuse to pirate games instead of purchasing them and will use this DRM-free exercise to show that the absence of security is not an answer. When folks complain about adding back ever-stringent forms of DRM they need only reply with "we tried to work with you and look what you did to us, you stole from us when we were being so nice!" It's guaranteed that this game is going to be pirated, regardless of any DRM, so why not paint yourself as a selfless martyr? It's a cynical view, to be sure, but we live in dark, DRM-laden times...
In related news, Dawn of War 2 will apparently not limit the number of PCs on which you can install it. In an interview with VideoGamer.com, associate producer Jeff Lydell had this to say:
We are looking at some form of DRM for Dawn of War II, but we're heavily concerned with the consumer end of that, and the consumer experience. We want people to be able to play their games on multiple PCs. We want them to be able to play it with their friends, and most importantly we want any authentication to not be annoying or a detriment to the experience.
I definitely feel for the publishers and developers who want to curtail PC piracy. I'm not sure how that's going to be accomplished, considering games are cracked and distributed with abandon, sometimes before they are even officially released. I'd definitely be interested in seeing if there is any difference in the pirating of games without any DRM versus with, if such a thing is even able to be tracked.
