In a smashing interview (both in the British sense, and in the sense that John Walker no doubt broke some bones in the course of putting this together) with Ubisoft, the PC gaming blog Rock, Paper, Shotgun revealed this morning that Ubisoft has quietly backed away from its controversial always-on DRM.
Ubisoft’s always-on DRM, in which PC users had to maintain a constant internet connection even while accessing no online content, has been defended by the publisher in the past as an effective anti-piracy measure. RPS’s John Walker sat down with the publisher’s worldwide director for online games, Stephanie Perotti, and its corporate communications manager, Michael Burk, to drive a few hard questions:
RPS: So you say you’re not talking about data. I find that quite interesting bearing in mind data is the one thing that’s lacking in this entire discussion, across all publishers, the whole spectrum. The one thing no one’s ever shown is any data whatsoever to show DRM’s efficacy. Why do you think that is?
Perotti: I think they are complex topics, and as a company we do not disclose this kind of data for confidentiality reasons. As I said earlier, the situation can be very different, from different games, from different territories.
RPS: Whose confidentiality is being broken by publishing piracy rates?
Burk: It’s internally confidential meaning competitive, not necessarily that we’re breaking anyone’s confidentiality. It’s competitive information and therefore confidential.
RPS: Do you think that’s why no publishers publish such data?
Burk: It’s hard to say. I think as Stephanie said it varies, from game to game, region to region, and so the example that you gave – like Stephanie said, we’ve seen internal and external data to show that it can reach that high. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is that high for all PC games, or that it is that high for all companies, or across all regions. I think that’s one reason why companies are not necessarily broadly publishing this, because we’re trying to get a handle on what it means for different games, different titles.
RPS: But do you understand how damaging it’s been to your argument to never actually say these numbers?
Perotti: Yes.
It’s a pretty raw look at the corporate apathy and doubletalk coming at the heels of years of heated criticism about the company’s DRM practices, which has been growing for some time now but definitely reached a fever pitch with the introduction of always-on DRM in 2010. Walker performs admirably in calling the Ubisoft representatives out on their contradictions and lack of data, and in doing so demonstrates he has far more grit than most journalists covering election politics (sad to say). It’s just a shame that Perotti and Burk squandered what could have been an excellent opportunity to be candid with their PC consumer base and instead dodged Walker’s questions as much as they could, but the interview is still a very worthy read.
You can (and should) check out the entire interview over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
