Concept art from The Witcher

The issue of DRM seems to be one that is popping up in the news a lot this week. Following yesterday's story regarding the DRM of Spore, developers of The Witcher, CD Projekt have spoken about their own strategies in combating piracy.

In a recent interview, Michal Kicinski CEO of CD Projekt has outlined some problems they've encountered with their upcoming digital distribution project, GOG.com. Kicinski was concerned that few publishers were signing up to the initiative, with reasons that a DRM-Free environment is one of fear.

GOG.com, the "home of Good old Games", is CD Projekt's (relatively new vision) of bringing classic games to modern gamers. They intend to sell them cheap (US$5.99 and US$9.99), and without any DRM. In addition, support for old games on Vista and XP are enabled due to a "handsome programming team". While the service is not yet launched, it looks to be a promising initiative. Games which appear on the site as shining examples of "good old games" include the Fallout Series, MDK, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, and Operation Flashpoint.


Fallout 2, and Operation Flashpoint are two titles that will be released through GOG.com
Kicinski argues that offering gamers value is far better than criminalising them, with attempts to reassure publishers as to the safety of a DRM free environment:

We're trying to convince them there is nothing to be afraid of. DRM-free, that is something they are really scared of, but on the other hand we can say 'all of those games are available [and] pirated widely so it's better to sell them for small money [rather] than make the customer's life difficult and get some more revenues'

Kicinski noted that digital distribution platforms for other media are beginning to do-away with DRM, making life much more comfortable for the consumer.

It's the same with buying music online with DRM, Amazon has decided not to provide it with DRM, iTunes is doing this iTunes plus. DRM makes customer's lives too complicated, and this is usually because of some corporate ideas, policies and trying to be smart, too smart, in how to get customers and how to keep them and no[t] let them go somewhere else. We are believers in the free market and bringing freedom to customers.

The DRM used in Spore is an example of making the consumer's life hard.
Yesterday, in response to our story relating to Spore's DRM, community member Submariner suggested that publishers need to "find a way to attract pirates to buy the game," and I tend to agree. It is no secret that piracy damages the industry, but the increasing use of DRM on video games sets a disturbing and backwards standard.

Kicinski follows a simple business model in this respect:

... we believe that GOG.com makes such a good offer that it's not worth pirating... We attract people to buy the original games instead of pirating them and that's the most efficient way of fighting piracy.

Stardock, publisher of Sins of a Solar Empire have also remarked on the issue of DRM
With Stardock recently announcing a Gamer's Bill of Rights, there appears to be (limited) but increasing awareness amongst publishers that draconian DRM does not increase sales. We all know that piracy is a problem, and that it is bad. However, many publishers do need to take a step back and review the larger issue at hand before making consumers jump through countless hoops to simply play a game.

Michal Kicinski recently spoke to GameIndustry.biz.

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