DRM is "a Waste of Money" - Paradox CEO

Gamespy recently interviewed Fred Wester, the CEO of Paradox, a relatively small games publisher that doesn't use DRM. In it, they talked about Paradox's commitment to PC gaming and the use of DRM by other companies to enforce copyright restrictions. In short: a futile waste of time and money that only alienates the customer and doesn't stop pirates.

Ok, rather than have me pointlessly paraphrase this part of the interview, here it is in all its uncut glory:

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.



GameSpy: So why do they do it?

Fred Wester: I don’t know. I think there’s a lot of politics, especially in bigger companies. It’s simple for me being the CEO and half-owner of Paradox. I can basically call the shots I want to call, and if the board wants to ask questions it’s like ‘OK, we can take this into consideration.’ If you’re a CEO, you need to cover your back. And the people who ask, the board, know nothing about games. They’re there because they’re some investment company or something, and they ask “So what are you doing to protect our game from pirates?” And then they can reply “We’re buying this solution from Sony.” So I think it’s been a way to cover your back, previously. Now, I see no reasonable explanation for why people keep on adding it. Especially the kind where you have to be online all the time, like Ubisoft. I think that’s, to me that’s 2003.

Yup, it gives a terribly negative experience, doesn't protect the content and it's the clueless suits that want it, forcing company executives to cover their backs by implementing this expensive waste of time.

There's lots of other good stuff in the interview worth reading, including a few words about DLC and whether it's just missing content or genuine additional value. The answer to this one was surprisingly convoluted...

What's interesting, is that Paradox are not the only forward-thinking company that have realized DRM is all bad and even an executive at Valve Software (think Half-Life, Portal, Left4Dead, the Steam platform) described pirates as "underserved customers" some time back. Quite.