As you very well might know Spore finally came out a few weeks ago and the response seems overwhelmingly negative from the hardcore PC gaming crowd which seems a bit unfair. Most of the controversy seems to stem around the whole SecuROM DRM fiasco. I will be first in line to say that PC games need to find a much much much better solution to this problem. However, I think that the “hardcore” crowd needs to rethink their position. Then again, so does EA.

Here is the basic problem. DRM in and of itself is a business failure. It assumes that your customers are trying to steal from you. Not just the thieves, all of your customers. DRM by default says to the consumer, “I think you’re a thief, so I’m going to stop you from stealing my game”. I don’t see why any company would want to tell their customers that they are thieves, but yet here we are, being called thieves before we buy the game. Even worse, after you pay for the game, you are still considered a thief until you prove otherwise.

What happens every time you want to reinstall the game? You have to prove you aren’t a thief. What about when you install the game on too many machines over a period of time? You have to call EA and explain that you have a laptop, you rebuilt your machine recently or reinstalled Vista, etc.. and that you aren’t a thief. That’s right, if you buy this game, you’ll have to prove to EA that you didn’t steal their game. Even worse, what happens in ten or fifteen years if you try and play Spore again? Will that number even exist? As a customer, it just plain sucks. Any company who does that to their customers is no friend of mine. I mean, just think if you wanted to put in Duck Hunt in your NES 15 years later and you had to call Nintendo first to have them unlock your NES for you. Would you ever buy from Nintendo again?

Of course, I don’t advocate piracy of games either. Stealing a game just to prove to EA that you won’t put up with DRM is a cop out. All that does is show EA that you aren’t a real potential customer, you’re just a thief. Thieves aren’t customers, their criminals. Also, throwing a fit on Amazon, by making a bunch of negative reviews is not the answer either. It just makes people look like whiners who again are more likely to pirate the game than to actually buy it.

What is the answer? First, if DRM is such a huge deal for you, support games that don’t use DRM. Blizzard does a good job of using very non-invasive game protection - CD Keys. It’s only a minor annoyance and overall, as EA has shown, it could be a lot worse. CD Keys are a start, but how about a complete lack of DRM in the first place?

Check out Stardock’s games like Sins of a Solar Empire, it’s a quality game without any DRM at all. Why do they do it? Apparently they figured out that DRM makes their PAYING customers unhappy, so they just don’t have it. Their sales numbers are healthy and they are a successful game developer because they are making their customers happy.

Of course, if you are EA and want some kind of protection for your product, a great opportunity is Valve’s Steam product. Steam started out with some problems when Half Life 2 launched, but over time it’s evolved into the best digital distribution system in all of PC gaming. It’s fantastic for both the consumer and the game company as well and here is why. It makes DRM a completely moot point. You sign into your account and all the games that you’ve bought are just there in your account. If you want to remove the game from your computer you can, if you want to re-download and re-install a game, you can and you don’t have to worry about fighting with EA over whether or not you’re a thief.

The best part is if you get a new computer, re-install Windows, or whatever happens, you can install Steam on your new machine setup, sign in to your account, and download all of your games to the new machine. You obviously have to download and install the games, but you don’t have to track down old game CD’s, you don’t have to mess with CD keys, you just install the game and you’re good to go. It’s a genuinely enjoyable experience that more companies need to embrace.

Between Steam, traditional CD Keys, and ditching DRM alltogether, companies like EA have plenty of options to find a nice balance between protecting their product and keeping customers happy. A great company puts customers first, knowing that if you keep your cusotmers happy, you aren’t going to have to worry about piracy. Greedy companies are breeding criminal customers. You can see it already happened in the music industry and CD sales have since plummeted.

The game industry needs to wake up and save themselves the painful 10 year lesson the music industry is learning. Stop treating your customers as thieves and start treating us like we want to be treated. We aren’t thieves, we are paying customers. When we buy a game, we want to own it, play it, and enjoy it.