Ubisoft’s DRM measures on the PC are something that plenty of PC gamers know about and dislike. It also greatly inconveniences legitimate customers, but Ubisoft’s digital head Chris Early outlined a lot of strategies to discourage piracy and eventually ditch all these DRM policies.
He also tried to justify the current DRM practices by saying that people shouldn’t enjoy their content without them receiving anything in return, but they also do not want to create inconveniences for people who pay for their products. It’s obviously a very delicate matter, and finding a correct balance is very difficult.
Ubisoft has been very blunt in the past when it comes to their DRM policies, and they’ve even went as far as to say that “there’s simply no way to bypass that, and we do not have more copies for you.” For such a company to abandon DRM entirely won’t be easy.
“Is it fair for someone to enjoy our content without us receiving some value for that? I think at the core of that is, no,” he said to Eurogamer.
“Otherwise, other than works of charity, there would be few games made. The balance, however, is, how do we do anything about that and not harm the person who is giving us value for that?
“That’s been the delicate balance that the industry has walked over time. It continues to be one that we grapple with as an industry. How do we create content and receive good value for that, and at the same time, not inconvenience the player who has given us value there?
“I don’t know that there is a perfect answer today. There are some technological answers. There are some design answers. There have been different approaches from different publishers at times, some doing no DRM and just assuming it’s the cost of doing business,” he added.
Ubisoft wants DRM to go away, but for that to happen, they need to figure out a way to provide a lot of value to PC gamers so that no one would want to pirate their games.
“Some are doing a very strict DRM. Some doing an on-going content revision. I don’t think we have a single, good answer yet. The interesting thing will be, how do we create enough value that that need for DRM goes away?”
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