Blizzard – Focus on Content, Not Piracy

DRM is a tough topic for all involved, consumers hate it, companies seem to love it, pirates… aren’t affected by it. So why go to all the trouble of implementing it in the first place when you can spend that time on the game itself? This is Blizzard’s mentality with StarCraft 2, concentrate on the game, not the DRM.

Ubisoft showed us what can happen when games such as Assassin’s Creed 2 and Silent Hunter 5 go overboard with DRM. EA did the same with Command & Conquer 4. The consumers were penalized and the pirates were playing away. With a report by VideoGamer.com, Blizzard pointed out that “We need our development teams focused on content and cool features, not anti-piracy technology.” There are far more people in the community ready and willing to counter any anti-piracy measure than there are developers.

“The best approach from our perspective is to make sure that you’ve got a full-featured platform that people want to play on, where their friends are, where the community is,“

I personally believe that the Internet is a Feature, not a Restriction, and it’s great to see this mentality actually taken up by developers. The problem is that Blizzard’s mentality and action’s are at odds with each other after they removed Offline LAN play as a ‘safeguard’ against piracy, instead insisting that players go through their much touted Battle.net system.

DRM isn’t going anywhere, but the form it takes keeps changing. Steam is a good example of DRM done right – and as such, enjoys the benefit of millions of users. If you can build a system based around content rather than restrictions, then people ignore the protection mechanisms and actually enjoy the game.

StarCraft II, due out on July 27, requires a one-off activation and a registered Battle.net account. Once completed, players will be able to get started with the game’s single-player campaign in offline mode.