Dec 08, 2008 | By Ryan Morgan Gamasutra Takes a Close Look at Software Piracy
Piracy continues to be one of the top concerns in the PC gaming industry, but steps to address the issue are being taken by a number of leaders within the gaming space. Leigh Alexander, in a two-part feature for Gamasutra, picked the brains of both the PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) for insight into the way software piracy has affected and will continue to affect PC gaming.
The first half of the piece, found here, focuses primarily on the current piracy landscape, from online IP protection to anti-plagiarism education. The second half is chiefly concerned with countermeasures like DRM, about which Christian Svensson, PCGA member and senior director of strategic planning and research at Capcom, had this to say:
We don’t make money by making your lives difficult. If we didn’t feel it was absolutely, positively imperative that we have this for our business, we wouldn’t do it.
While the PCGA, ESA and many others are working towards finding an ideal solution, everyone wholeheartedly agrees on the challenges of the current situation. Maggie Greene of Kotaku sums it up quite nicely: “[PC gaming companies] don’t like DRM any more than you do.”
Of course, these companies and organizations won’t make much progress without the support of gamers. Articles like these help to impress upon consumers everywhere the negative impact they could potentially have on developers and publishers each time they’re tempted to find a torrent instead of buying a legitimate copy. Dedicated developers like 2DBoy deserve better than a 90% piracy rate in return for their years of hard work, else labors of love like World of Goo may become a thing of the past.
