Hatin’ on DRM (and other things)

So, in case you haven’t heard already, Ubisoft has decided to release the PC-version of the game “Prince of Persia” without any DRM whatsoever. Read this if you haven’t caught up to this news yet.

I applaud this move, and I went and bought it because of this. I hadn’t actually considered buying this game, because Ubisoft has had the reputation of releasing extremely unfinished games and having to be dragged kicking and screaming to finish it (”Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific” being a prime example), and of using StarForce. However, now that it’s being released without any DRM whatsoever (even though the back of the cover says “”NOTICE: This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some DVD-RW and virtual drives.”, which I guess is probably just due to the DRM being dropped as a last-minute decision after the covers went to press), I just had to go buy it. I’ve been a fan of the very first PoP games, wasn’t really that much of a fan of the last 2 (just “something” was off, can’t put my finger on it), but hope this one’s going to be great.

I fear, however, that this is more an experiment on Ubisoft’s part which will end up in them saying “See? We told you so, no DRM == tons of lost sales!” and then move over to the console in its entirety anyway. And this I feel would be a mistake for a few reasons. First of all, the controllers suck for a lot of games. The pad, while usable, just isn’t as good as a keyboard/mouse combination. It dumbs down the interface even further, and puts a heavy reliance on auto-aim, and anyone who’s been in star wars: the force unleashed will know what major pain autoaim can be if the people implementing it sucks. Even mass effect worked okay on the 360, but it was so much better on the PC because you could just snap to the person you wanted to shoot, instead of panning.

This isn’t because there’s a good technical reason for it either. There are keyboards for use in Live, there are custom controllers for horrible games such as guitar hero etc, so why oh why can’t they make or allow controllers for FPS and RTS games? It wouldn’t take much, a keypad of 10-20 keys and a mouse should suffice. That way the xbox wouldn’t “become more than a gaming machine”. Yes, yes, I know you can connect a normal keyboard to the 360, but last I checked you could only use that in text messaging, allowing support for keyboard+mouse were strictly forbidden by microsoft. And being able to install the game’s data to a disk (if there is one) would be nice too. It would’ve cut down on the elevator travel time and texture popping in Mass Effect, as well as DVD drive wear and tear.

Therefore, I sincerely hope that this is just a beginning of when the publishers start dialling it back a notch or two from where EA has taken things, because that’s just taking things too far. However, after reading http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html (excellent article, albeit a bit negative on piracy … for a good reason, if those numbers are correct) and UbiRazz’ negative expectations, I’m worrying that  we are still heading down the EA route in the future, in which case I will no longer be a gamer, or we’re moving to the consoles, in which case I will expect MS to cough up/allow some proper controllers for proper games. Like Supreme Commander, Command & Conquer, shooty FPSes where aiming skill actually matters instead of learning the quirks of the autoaim system, etc.

Us hardcore gamers need love too. We might even have monies.