Paradox Interactive Interview
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GameSpy: Why is Paradox still so anti-DRM in a time when most publishers seem to be clamping down?
Fred Wester: I'm so surprised that people still use DRM. We haven't done that for seven or eight years, and the reason is that it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense from a gamer perspective - I hated it. I bought Civilization III when it first came out, and for the first three days I couldn't play it. It installed some other software, and it just shut down. I had to contact Atari support three times before I even got help. And that experience is terrible.
No one should have to purchase a product that they're unable to install because of the DRM. There might be other reasons, like the compatibility isn't correct, or whatever. But people who purchase a game should have just as easy a time as those who pirate the game, otherwise it's a negative incentive to buy a legal copy. And I just can't see why people are using DRM still. If you take something like Sony's DRM, SecuROM -- it's a waste of money. It will keep you protected for three days, it will create a lot of technical support, and it will not increase sales. And I know this for a fact, because we tried it eight years ago, and it never worked for us. Two major reasons: it costs money and it makes you lose money, and the other is that it's so inconvenient to customers.
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GameSpy: You're getting into free-to-play with Salem. Do you see that as a big future for Paradox, or are you going to stick with selling games?
Fred Wester: Free to play is a really interesting perspective - it takes a really different approach to gaming than I'm used to and that Paradox is used to. We normally manage our products based on the product lifecycle and what campaigns we do, whereas the free-to-play companies analyze the customer. (Well what did this guy buy, and how do we get him to buy the next item?) We don't really have that statistical backend to do that, so I don't think we'd be very successful in the coming year. But after that, it's definitely doable for us, and we're ramping up to do it.
But free-to-play and the retail model are basically somewhat the same thing: you're delivering a good game to the customers. I think some people are fooling themselves, thinking (Well we're free to play, so everyone should try it.) That's not the case. People are skeptical toward free to play. (Oh, it's free to play, that means it's kind of budget and bad.) So you have to have a balance on that as well. I think Salem works very well, because once people are in the game and try it, they can try it out, and they'll start liking it. And a lot of the fancy items you can buy mean nothing for the gameplay, it's just for the show. So I hope that we'll get a big enough group to play Salem, and a big enough group to pay for it, because that's obviously how we'll continue to develop it. But it's going to be a very interesting experiment, as a first game. You'll see more of that from us as well.
