PC Gaming Alliance Interview
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This past fall a small but vocal group of anti-DRM gamers have let themselves be known. What do you think about this group and their efforts to, say, affect things like Spore's review score on Amazon.com?
I don't think that the group you are referring to is anti-DRM as much as they are anti-Spore's approach to DRM. Their protest has been echoed many times on many gaming forums and the PCGA is listening.
Some people, like Valve's Gabe Newell and Stardock's Brad Wardell, have come down hard on current DRM practices in games and both developers sell a lot of PC titles. Isn't this proof enough that publishers should at least think about eliminating such set-ups for games?
If you ask both of the publishers that you mentioned here about the rate of piracy for their games you may find that one has rampant piracy and the other has almost none. The PC Gaming Industry's history is littered with examples of startups (including Stardock and Valve) that actually benefitted from wide spread piracy to grow a market for their future titles. Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating piracy... However, how would Quake, Doom, Starcraft, Counter-Strike, or Half-Life have been able to grow widespread brand recognition without a widespread network of gamers openly sharing these games. These titles (and many more) defined the industry. Personally, my first experience with a first person shooter was with Doom (back in the day) and I did not pay for it. Id Software turned the corner and has a very successful business built on the back of the early free/open source exchange of their games...
