Copy Protection

Penny Arcade is doing a bunch of articles by guest writers about copy protection in games, starting with this one. It got me to thinking about the issue in general. So here's what I thought.

I understand the desire to make money on something. I understand the idea of protecting what you sell as so it will make money. The problem is, in the case of PC games, you aren't actually stopping piracy.

Most copy protection that's used is basically the same three types. And these types don't appear to get any better over time. With each new release, the same protection is used, and it's broken fairly quickly.

The problem I have with copy protection is that after I've paid for an item, I don't feel like I actually own it. I can only install it on one machine, I couldn't make a back up if I wanted to. Meanwhile, someone who pirates a copy can do what they please with it since they've worked around said copy protection.

I read an interesting discussion on the Atari fourms about Neverwinter Nights 2's copy protection, which was giving a lot of users a trouble actually playing the game. Someone raised an interesting point, that the EULA usually allows you to make a backup of your game. However, copy protection is designed to prevent even that. The question raised was, does this invalidate the EULA since you're being prevented from doing what they legally agree you could do?

Gamers aren't taking some of this lightly, though. It was announced that Spore's original copy protection system would not only install a widely hated copy protection software, and require the disc in the drive, it was supposed to verify your install every ten days to make sure you still had legally obtained it. This was scaled back and loosened up, thankfully. But it just seems to further the idea that all paying customers are potential pirates, while pirates go about their merry way. A quote I read once, (I forget by who) said "Photoshop is pirated too, but you don't see Adobe making you keep the disc in the drive." Indeed.

I'd like to give kudos to the Stardock company who's basically said "To hell with copy protection." The time and money that could have been put into making sure nobody "stole" their work went into making games, and apparently that works.