Compromise?

So we've seen what the increasing rate of piracy has caused developers to do and the case of Ubisoft adding always on DRM through the internet connection is a great example of how desperate they have become to protect their property. What contests with this though is that many people believe that once you have purchased a game, it becomes your property and at that point you can do anything you want with it and as a society, anything to the contrary isn't clarified to us. So at this point, either side will always have an argument against each other. In the end it's obvious to almost everyone that piracy is wrong, but it's hard to resist when it's so easy to do so and so hard to pay for everything.


For those interested in creating content for different forms of digital media, at some point they will need to purchase software similar to photoshop or any software that requires a license. The initial problem though is that these licenses can cost several hundreds or thousands of dollars and that initial investment in order to be able to even make money is too steep for some, so pirating the software becomes the logical conclusion. For those that want to make a living off of their work though, it's best advised to obtain a legal copy of the product, but first its common to download the program and then purchase it later. The same holds true for people who download a game first and then buy it. Some studies have shown that people who pirate tend to the "content industries 'largest customers'." What this means is that those who pirate actually spend more money on games, music, live events and other forms of media than non pirates do. Partially this could be theorized because those who pirate have a greater desire to experience more forms of media and will purchase things more frequently. This report came from Sweden, which is often considered to be the piracy center of the world, especially with "ThePirateBay.org" being hosted from the country, but either way, their population of pirates purchase more things than others. There are many reasons why people feel entitled to sharing their property or simply getting things for free, but in the end that just won't work.

The awkward agreement

As more companies begin to adopt new DRM policies, it will become common practice for users to have to authenticate their games and possibly jump through other hoops in order to play the game. The truth is that DRM will not go away and will only become more complicated and Ubisoft among other companies believe this will allow them to "invest in the development of creative and innovative games." So if developers are able to invest more money into a game to make it truly innovative and an experience you couldn't have anywhere else, people would be more motivated to purchase the game, but the moment people feel slighted, the cycle will repeat itself.

With the direction that DRM and other anti-piracy policies are going these days and the constant increase in piracy, there is a clear sign that for a solution to come up between the two parties, things will end up getting much worse before they get better. At some point though as things change drastically, people will get used to the concept of buying products that they feel truly deserve the purchase and companies that spend too much time defending their products instead of focusing on making unique content will suffer because people will be more likely to pirate their products. People want to say that they own something they really love and enjoy, so that's what developers need to strive for. It needs become apart of our culture to focus on making products the best the can be and for consumers to only have what the can actually afford. There will always be a large group of people that will continue to download digital content illegally, but I see it becoming increasingly common to legitimately purchase games when services such as Steam create great incentives to buy games such as lowered prices and extra content that motivate people to be responsible.