DRM. Such a little, innocuous sounding term but one that incites anger and revulsion frequently when attached to a new release. It's a process that enables publishers to place limitations on the usage of their games in order to cut back on piracy. But just how evil is it really? Is it just a necessary evil? And how can it be done well without infringing upon the experience too much?

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While the strongest vitriol has only been directed DRMs way in the past couple of years, it's actually been around since quite a while before that. One of the earliest examples was Valve's decision to attach 2 to and it caused consternation at the time. The idea of being forced to go to activate a game was seen by some as an infringement of gamers' rights to choose how they want to play their games. Understandable really, considering the large amount of teething problems that Half-Life 2 had at the time. I have some not so fond memories of the day it came out and the Steam servers spectacularly dying. People were far from happy at being unable to play a game on the day of launch because of Steam's servers struggling under the weight of it all.

In hindsight it's amazing to think how many people hated Steam at launch. It's a ridiculously successful service now and clearly a pioneer in its field, but it's also a perfect example of how a bad launch can reside in consumers' memories for a long time after. Before Steam, consumers were used to serial keys and disc checks, a simpler form of anti measure, but one that was also very simple to circumvent.

Authentication via online servers appears to be the most popular form of checking the product is a legitimately purchased copy. and were both famous for encouraging this method outside of Steam thanks to their implementation of SecuROM. It wasn't popular though, with Spore reportedly becoming the most pirated game of 2008. It's understandable why a certain proportion of gamers might not be happy at this form of authentication. Not everyone has internet access at home for instance. For many others though, it was a protest against being told what to do and being restricted in their use of the relevant game. No one likes to be told by a company they're paying money to, that they can't be trusted and have to jump through certain hoops to get to their product. Controversially, the likes of Spore restricted players to only five activations meaning that if the game's owner switched PCs one too many times, they'd be unable to play the game without contacting Customer Services and hope to be given another activation. It's worth noting that surveys conducted by EA found that not many players actually needed to activate Spore on more than three PCs but then again, surely the freedom of choice is what was needed. It made Spore feel more like a long term rental than a game that players actually owned.

EA fortunately backed down by the end of 2008 offering a de-authorisation tool as well as introducing Spore through Steam, but the PR damage was done. and all its evils were firmly in the consumer's mind as a problem and something that could potentially put them off a purchase.

It's not just EA that have suffered though. also tried its luck with an efficient copy protection method in 2005: StarForce, frequently referred to as StarFarce by some 'fans'. StarForce would install drivers alongside installations of Ubisoft's games. This wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for the fact that it caused countless and compatibility problems. Some games such as Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory wouldn't even work under Windows XP 64bit edition thanks to StarForce incompabilities. It's no wonder players are apprehensive of these anti piracy measures.

Most recently Ubisoft reopened these festering wounds courtesy of Uplay. Sounding much nicer than the likes of SecuROM and the ominous StarForce, it sounds quite innocent. Instead it feels more like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut while still not 'curing' piracy.

Uplay has been introduced as a form of DRM alongside the releases of 2, Silent Hunter 5 and The Settlers 7. It requires gamers to be online at all times in order to play the game. If the network connection is lost, the game even pauses or, in some cases, crashes. There's a whole wealth of to be seen here. If Ubisoft's servers go down, either through being overwhelmed or through Ubisoft removing them as the game ages, the game becomes unplayable. Predictably this was demonstrated quickly after launch in March 2010 when due to a denial of service attack, servers went down and consumers were unable to play Assassin's Creed 2 and Silent Hunter 5 for a number of hours. That's assuming players are able to be online at all times. What of the consumers who don't have reliable connections? Or the holiday maker who wants to play a game but has no internet access at their resort? Or the commuter on the train without Wi-Fi? The list goes on. While many areas have consistent internet access with an abundance of Wi-Fi points, there are also many areas that do not.

Predictably Uplay has still been circumvented and pirated copies of many of Ubisoft's biggest titles are still easily available for the less scrupulous gamer, and more worryingly possibly even the more desperate player who actually wants to be able to play a game regardless of the state of their internet connection.

Downloadable titles on the major consoles suffer a similar fate with it frequently being vital to be online to actually play them. In the case of the 360, if you switch consoles but use the same hard drive, you have to be online at all times to play an arcade title. In recent times have added a license migration technique but this is restricted to being usable once per year which isn't exactly perfect for some.

If games are still being cracked and consumers are feeling hard done by thanks to draconian anti piracy measures, what can be done to keep everyone happy? There are a few different ways of encouraging people to not pirate. Offer them something they can't get anywhere else. Give them a free piece of exciting downloadable content in exchange for them buying the game brand new and legally. Bring back the decent game demo; offer an hour long trial so that players go there to see what the game's like instead of being tempted by torrenting and newsgroups. Give them such enjoyable games that they're happy to pay good money for the title. There will always be a small minority of people who will still pirate. Not because they're too poor or because they're making a stand, but simply because they're too cheap to do anything else.

But what have we learnt? First of all, it takes time for consumers to get used to new forms of DRM and publishers to get these measures right. When launches such as Steam and Uplay go so badly, its no wonder that people become so vehemently opposed to them. Now that Steam is reliable though, the trust is there. A small minority may still be against the service but the majority are happy to rely on Steam and dont mind the DRM hidden away within it. Perhaps the same will be true of Uplay but only if the backing is there from Ubisoft. Consumers need a reason to trust such services. Consumers hate to be distrusted. No one likes to be treated as a potential thief by a massive corporation. The vast majority of gamers are law abiding consumers who just want to enjoy their games with the minimum of stress involved. They don't want to feel as if they're only renting a game, they want to be 'owners' of the game. They don't want to be forced to be online at all times in order to play; sometimes it's just not practical. Most of all though, they love games just as much as the publishers and developers do.

By Jennifer Allen