Publishers 'scared' to go DRM-free, says online game distributor

CD Projekt CEO Michal Kicinski has stated that videogame publishers are "scared" of letting their games go on sale without being given a hearty DRM vaccination. CD Projekt is setting up its own games-on-demand distribution service, GOG.com, but the CEO says that its DRM-free policy is frightening potential collaborators.

"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 pirated widely so it’s better to sell them for small money than make the customer’s life difficult and get some more revenues’.

We’re gamers and we are using all these digital distribution platforms. I had Steam but I had the problem that my internet provider could not work with it so I couldn’t use the games I bought. I think that if somebody is paying for the game then they deserve own it, not with a certain list of conditions and sometimes the list of conditions can be long."

Kicinski certainly has a point. DRM has done very little to even so much as slow down the rate at which people pirate videogames, and it seems that the people who buy PC titles are the kind of people who would always be willing to pay good money anyway.

Getting rid of DRM probably wouldn't affect piracy levels at all, considering how ineffective it's been. That said, I still feel a lot of DRM is more about exercising control than stopping theft.