Fallout 3 to respect consumers and use less evil DRM measures?

4:18 PM on 10.02.2008   |   Jim Sterling

22 comments

With Electronic Arts continuing to use the despised SecuROM in all of its games, the dual subjects of piracy and Digital Rights Management have been in the gaming press for quite a while. Seemingly more than happy to distance his company from EA's shifty shenanigans, Bethesda spokesman Pete Hines has stated that Fallout 3 will not be using invasive DRM when it hits the PC market.

[Fallout 3 will be] pretty similar to what we did for Oblivion, which was -- we basically don't do any -- we do the mildest form possible. I actually don't know if I even want to get into what it is that we exactly do, but we try to be really noninvasive when it comes to that stuff.

And it is a pain in the ass -- it is a pain in the ass that we have to do it at all in the first place. But when you spend tens of millions of dollars, we don't think it's right to just put something out there and let everybody do whatever they want and pass it around ...

But no, we're pretty mild about how we do it, and we try to do it in a way that prevents folks from exploiting and distributing our games that we worked very hard on... It's very important for us not to ruin the experience for the person who did buy a copy, so we try to be very careful ... We want to remove anything that is a hindrance or an annoyance to the player, we're trying to just get to the game and have fun ...

Hooray! It's awesome that some companies out there don't like being c*nts about this whole thing, although I'm sure PC gamers would like a few more details. One of the most aggravating parts about DRM is the secrecy surrounding its implementation. Still, the less invasive the better, right? Electronic Arts could stand to learn a thing or two.