SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - View Single Post - The facts of life: A heartfelt defense of Ubisoft and DRM

Frederf · 03-11-10, 07:52 PM

It's the Internet, everything's a contest!

Guys, give MattDrizzle a break. What he meant is that "don't stop fighting a war because don't you have complete success." Just because he happened to pick WWII as his war in his analogy doesn't make it any less apt. And he's not calling UBI "Hitler" either, in fact it would be the opposite in this case as UBI/DRM/etc are the allies and piracy is the axis.

He chose his analogy poorly because the whole Hitler thing is way too easy to be distracted (and other posters were misled and distracted away from the point). He could have used some more plain arguments like "Why don't we stop having police officers since there's always going to be some crime?" or "Why don't be stop having doctors since people are always going to get sick?"

His argument is that DRM as an anti-piracy measure still has merit even if it is not 100% effective. If 99 people crack the game and 1 is foiled by DRM then that's 1 less case of piracy than if DRM was absent.

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THAT BEING SAID
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Personally I think UBISoft is not naive and they have no delusions that DRM can significantly curb piracy. However DRM is an excellent anti-consumer-rights scheme that can be easily marketed as anti-piracy. Sure, you might not stop many pirates but honest consumers are far less likely to be able to engage in second hand sales (which is a consumer right being undermined). This is like the police gathering revenue from automobile tickets under the guise of public service. The ticket-able offenses aren't curbed but at least they are making cash.

Another viewpoint is that even if certain people inside UBI understand that DRM is more hurtful than helpful, they have narrow-sighted corporate policies that oblige them to engage in DRM even though it's a bad idea. The analogy would be soldiers stationed in a war-torn country's city. The fact that soldiers are there makes the locals mad and causes violence. It would be smarter to remove the soldiers but the military is obliged to add more soldiers "because it's dangerous there and it's our policy to add soldiers where it's dangerous" when a more free thinking and insightful military would decide otherwise.

03-11-10, 07:52 PM	#199
Frederf Seasoned Skipper Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 665 Downloads: 79 Uploads: 1	It's the Internet, everything's a contest! Guys, give MattDrizzle a break. What he meant is that "don't stop fighting a war because don't you have complete success." Just because he happened to pick WWII as his war in his analogy doesn't make it any less apt. And he's not calling UBI "Hitler" either, in fact it would be the opposite in this case as UBI/DRM/etc are the allies and piracy is the axis. He chose his analogy poorly because the whole Hitler thing is way too easy to be distracted (and other posters were misled and distracted away from the point). He could have used some more plain arguments like "Why don't we stop having police officers since there's always going to be some crime?" or "Why don't be stop having doctors since people are always going to get sick?" His argument is that DRM as an anti-piracy measure still has merit even if it is not 100% effective. If 99 people crack the game and 1 is foiled by DRM then that's 1 less case of piracy than if DRM was absent. --- THAT BEING SAID --- Personally I think UBISoft is not naive and they have no delusions that DRM can significantly curb piracy. However DRM is an excellent anti-consumer-rights scheme that can be easily *marketed* as anti-piracy. Sure, you might not stop many pirates but honest consumers are far less likely to be able to engage in second hand sales (which is a consumer right being undermined). This is like the police gathering revenue from automobile tickets under the guise of public service. The ticket-able offenses aren't curbed but at least they are making cash. Another viewpoint is that even if certain people inside UBI understand that DRM is more hurtful than helpful, they have narrow-sighted corporate policies that oblige them to engage in DRM even though it's a bad idea. The analogy would be soldiers stationed in a war-torn country's city. The fact that soldiers are there makes the locals mad and causes violence. It would be smarter to remove the soldiers but the military is obliged to add more soldiers "because it's dangerous there and it's our policy to add soldiers where it's dangerous" when a more free thinking and insightful military would decide otherwise.