Entertainment as a Service
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Not only do I think DRM a huge risk, I think there is another way. I'm not sure which way is better, dollar for dollar, but the second way is far less risky and, frankly, more pleasant and enjoyable, both for me as a developer and for customers. So I'm going with it.
This other direction that I'm talking about is to treat game development not as selling a product but as providing an entertainment service. You don't just develop a game and drop it in peoples laps. You continually interact with and serve your customers, growing the value of the thing they have paid for. It's this concept which makes people willing to keep paying for MMOs, if you ask me. A continuous stream of (new stuff) keeps pulling people back in and paying those fees every month.
Not only does it draw in customers, a service is a lot harder/time consuming for pirates to emulate. They'd have to sit there and doggedly crack/distribute each and every update you put out. While some may keep it up for a while, the nature of these hacker kids works in your favor. Most hacker groups are jostling for prestige. Their focus and attention is mainly on the big name titles, the new and shiny. The group who cracks Mass Effect 2 the week it comes out gets more kudos than the guys who crack the 45th small update to some game that came out a year ago, yes? In all likelihood I think that after a while they'd just not be paying attention anymore. Even if they were, the pirated copies on torrent sites would get outdated. Some might have a few of the updates, others might have a few more, but people looking for the latest version of your game would have a harder time sifting through the old stuff for it. And all the while there is the temptation to just go to your site, pay the price and get all the updates easily. The balance shifts and the draw of convenience now favors the developer instead of the pirates.
