The two docs of DRM
Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester was interviewed by Jim Rossignol over at Rock Paper Shotgun. The whole thing is very much worth reading, but I’d like to highlight this bit:
We don’t use any DRM. We do however use Steam installers sometimes, but we’re not using that as an anti-piracy DRM. Actually we are using it as a way to make sure that our distributors actually pay us money. We’ve had problems with that in the past with box products, and not being paid, so having control of the Steam framework means we can turn off all the games in a certain channel and that puts pressure on distributors to pay up. That’s the whole story. Steam is not a DRM for us. Some people don’t like Steam, and I respect that, but it’s been useful to defend ourselves from unpaid distributor bills.
I wonder how often this happens? Which retailers are not paying for games? Which publishers are getting screwed? Is it localized or is it global? Perhaps most importantly: is there any way to deal with this that doesn’t punish end customers?
They say PC games retail is dying. I bet this is a large part of the reason why.
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