Musing: A Modest Proposal About DRM

In 1729 an Irish writer by the name of Jonathan Swift published a satirical essay anonymously about the growing problem of poverty-stricken children in Ireland and how they could be put to use in such a way that is beneficial to society at large.  As anyone who attended high school English classes may remember the essay was a commentary on the plight of the Irish poor and the British policies concerning them that all but prevented them from reaching a higher standing in life.  What readers of the essay do remember however is its proposition: the selling and cannibalization of impoverished Irish children by the wealthy.

While Swift’s essay about the consumption of (potentially delicious) children was designed to draw reactions of disgust and provoke thought amongst his audience Swift’s approach to it was logically-driven and played the much needed part of a devil’s advocate.  In a similar manner to the Irish living conditions in the 18^th century it seems that the gaming industry is, from a developer and publisher perspective, suffering from a funding problem thanks to pirating and the sale of used games.  What can be done about this?  Not much currently but with a little industry-wide cooperation and perhaps lending an ear to this modest proposal we could find a way to solve these issues.

Be forewarned readers as I am about to play devil’s advocate and you’re not going to like what is to be said below.

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A Boatload of Problems

The internet is a vast and widely used tool for which information can be stored, tracked, and shared between billions of people across the world.  Unfortunately though, given its open nature, it is prone to being used for illicit actions such as pirating.  Ten years ago the big problem with pirating was in the music industry thanks to peer-to-peer sharing services like Napster, Kazaa, and Limewire.  Go ahead, try and lie to me and say you didn’t illegally download or share a bunch of songs back then.  See?  You couldn’t do it because pretty much everyone who had access to a dial-up connection wanted to get their “fair” load of hundreds of songs for free without having to purchase “bulky” CDs.  The RIAA did all it pretty much could do but given that it is hard to track down the people actually responsible for distributing the music it couldn’t do much short of suing the most elicit offenders and placing near-draconian software on the discs to prevent sharing on the albums.  We all know how that worked out.

Equally as troublesome today we see digital buccaneers trolling the internet to torrent video games but whereas people ten years ago were sharing $10-15 albums of maybe a dozen songs a piece, making for an hour or so of listening time, today they are instead downloading $50-60 video games which can be made up of hundreds of hours of entertainment.  While I hate to say it the music recording industry, which has been going strong for well over a century, is something that is used by pretty much everyone on the planet whereas the video game industry has only been around for a few decades and still has a growing audience with only roughly 500 million gamers worldwide.  That may seem like a lot of other players out there but, mathematically, when your audience is only 13% of the overall population, developers have a hard enough time finding people to buy their products given that gamers are further subdivided by such things as genres, consoles, purchasing power, and online connectivity.  They don’t need pirates any less than the recording industry does but it is even harder for our game-bearing developers and publishers to continue to create content when they can’t actually make a return on their investment.

So why is it that developers spend years and thousands of man hours advancing a creative vision from paper concept to full release, sacrificing time, energy, and even loved ones for the sake of a product that is meant to bring people enjoyment when a large portion of their audience simply download an stolen version of their product?  Does it seem fair to you that the effort of thousands of man-hours do not return a monetary value, regardless of the quality of the product?  It is a shame to see people unwilling to reward a developer or publisher for the hard work they put into a title regardless of the reasons behind their actions.

Now I understand why some people pirate and the most commonly used excuse seems to be that they’d actually purchase games had they been able to afford them.  That is understandable; after all, video games are probably one of the most expensive hobbies to have.  Considering that it requires a console, controllers, a decent audio/video setup and, most importantly, the games themselves, the average gamer with a high definition system can look to be spending hundreds of dollars each year.  Given the state of the recovering global economy you can probably only afford to get a handful of games a year and you don’t want to miss out on those other great experiences your friends are raving about.  I am probably in one of the top 10% of gamers out there that has the adequate purchasing power to experience most of the great games that come out across the various platforms and I’m very appreciative of this fact.  However, I say to you, digital bandit, there are plenty of alternatives to pirating due to financial strains, the most prevalent of which are renting and waiting for the price to go down.

The other main issue pirates always seem to thrown in front of them in the face of criticism is the age old argument of not wanting to be burned by purchasing a bad game.  I could cite a dozen reasons for which you can prevent such a thing from occurring especially in an age in which information can be transmitted and received faster than any other time in history.  The answer is clear: don’t buy it on day one and listen to what your peers (and critics) have to say about it.  Chances are that if it walks, talks, and looks like a duck it probably is so why on Earth would you use such an excuse when you are downloading great games like Call of Duty Black Ops, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Dante’s Inferno?  These excellent titles also earned the titles of being the most pirated titles on the PC, Wii, and Xbox 360 respectively in 2010 according to TorrentFreak.com so your use of being afraid of being burned by a bad game just went out the window.

I could cite dozens of other reasons for pirating video games but I don’t have the time, effort, or necessary column space to go down the checklist and say that what you are doing is wrong and why.  Suffice it to say that if you feel that your money isn’t worth investing in the existence of a development studio and the hundreds of employees therein whose goal at the end of the day is to entertain you then you probably don’t deserve to play what they created.  What you’re doing is illegal and isn’t helping anyone at all.  Stop it.

Jim Sterling of Destructoid recently released a new episode of his editorial video series “The Jimquisition” and it strong sums up my feelings about piracy in general so I’ve included it below (thanks Jim!).

Sometimes Overkill is Necessary

So how does one go about solving two of the biggest problems in the gaming industry?  The answer lies in a process that PC gamers have been all too familiar with: Digital Rights Management.  DRM is one the more controversial pieces of anti-piracy tools and has been implemented in a strong amount of PC games over the past ten years.  But the true potential of DRM can’t be realized however simply because of the platform in which it is used: the PC.  But what if you could find a way to implement it on a console?

The console space has always been considered a region in which it isn’t proper to utilize DRM because, among other things, it is perceived as such a proprietary field that it isn’t necessary to use it.  Yet, as we are well aware, thousands of players have been banned over the years for pirating games on all the major consoles.  For a recent example you can look to the Call of Duty Black Ops mass banning on the Playstation 3 thanks to its 3.56 firmware update.  If this isn’t a great example of why we need a modern reinvention of DRM for gaming I can’t think of a better one.

So with this in mind I think it is about time that the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) and the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) along with the major software and hardware manufacturers should band together to create a new version of DRM to be utilized in the console space.  Such a measure is certainly possible given the nature of the problem at hand and, while the current technology available wouldn’t support it properly, the time is right to consider its creation given that we are at the point to where hardware manufacturers are preparing to begin design work on the next generation of consoles.  But how should such a creation work?

I think that a next generation of DRM can be built upon what has already been tested and tried on the PC.  Utilizing a serial code system similar to what is used in most physical copies of PC games nowadays the collective might of the console gaming section of the industry could actually create an easily updateable, simple and user-friendly system.  After all, the foundations are there; all you need to do is to start laying the bricks and mortar.  Such a new DRM system should be composed of three main components: a serial number system, a user-friendly confirmation system, and, most importantly, a checks-and-balances system to make sure it all is maintained.

The serial code system is the easiest place to start from.  An ideal creation would be one that can allow for a theoretical maximum of several hundred quadrillion or even quintillion unique combinations per system that can accommodate both physical and digital software purchases.  Inspiration can be taken from something that’s actually quite common: bank routing numbers.  Take the American routing number system for example.  Composed of nine digits, the first two digits identify the regional federal bank in which a check is processed, the next two corresponding to the processing center and state in which it comes from, and so on.  Similarly, one can make an alphanumeric serial code composed of, say, thirty digits with certain digits within the code identifying the developer, the publisher, the type of software it is (physical or digital), the platform in which it will be played on, and the region in which this version of the software is published (I’m a strong advocate of region-free gaming but an identifier would help in anti-piracy cases).  The rest of the code would conform to a unique code tied to that disc only.

A Simple Process

Here’s how it would work in an ideal scenario.  Joe Blow gamer decides to go pick up a copy of Mega Shooter Duty 7 and heads on into his local retail store.  After selecting the game he takes it up to the counter and begins the standard transaction.  During the transaction an automated process would begin at the press of a button as soon as the customer has paid for the title.  As the receipt gets ready to print out the cash register’s system would dial into a proprietary server belonging to the developer or publisher of the game and tells it that the disc with that a certain serial number has been purchased and is awaiting activation upon the console it would be primarily played on.

Upon arriving home Joe puts the game into his Playstation 4/Xbox 3/Wii HD or whatever is on the market at the time and connects the system to the internet.  As the game is activating for the first time (whether or not there is a required installation to the system’s hard drive) the system would identify the serial number contained on the disc and connect to a server belonging to Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo.  This one would contain both the user’s account information along with the console’s ID number and would record the disc’s serial number.  Based on the key identifiers in the code it would dial into the developer or publisher’s server that the retailer from whom the game was purchased from and it would acknowledge that it is both a legitimate copy of the game and would send back to the game console’s server a unique primary response code along with five other codes that would allow for use of the game on another console (guest codes if you will).  At this point a popup will appear on screen alerting the player that this is the first time the disc has been used and will ask him/her whether he/she would like to mark this console as the primary console in which it will be played on.  Should the answer be yes the primary code would be recorded into the user’s account information and, along with the serial number and the console’s ID, the game would thereby be permanently connected with the console the player is using and would associate it as the main console in which it will be played upon.  Should the player say no to this it would instead do only assign the guest to that console.  This process would occur only once and the system would reconfirm the serial number every time the player starts the game much the same way as many PC games do.  This confirmation process could also take less than ten seconds to accomplish and could be easily hidden behind a loading screen or perhaps a logo display. 

Now let us suppose that the gamer in question doesn’t have internet access at their house or place of residence.  As the gamer arrives home and unwraps his/her purchase, savoring the sweet smell of new plastic in the process, he/she would boot up the game as per normal.  However, given that the system doesn’t have internet access a message pops up saying as much and, while containing the game’s serial number, informs the gamer that they have 24 hours to activate it on the console’s servers.  From there the gamer can continue on and play through as they normally would while the console keeps track of the time.  Should the gamer not register the game within that amount of time the console would deny the gamer the ability to play the game on that console.

In order to complete the registration without connecting the console to the internet the player would either have to log in to the console maker’s website or actually call them over the phone and, after going through the process of confirming their account information, would record both the serial code and the primary response code (obtained from the developer/publisher’s server) to his/her information.  The response code would then be given to the player who would, from the dashboard of the console, enter the system’s settings, identify the permanent memory file of the game and enter it into it.  From there the player can start up the game without hassle.

Friends and More Friends

There is always the scenario however that the player would want to bring the game over to a friend’s place to show it off.  This is easily solved in almost the same manner as the fist situation.  This time however the console maker’s server would recognize that the serial number is already in use on another system.  Should this case occur the server would assign one of the five other response codes the owner originally obtained to the guest player’s console and their information on the platform maker’s server.  This event would be recorded into the owner’s information as well and would identify the guest console by the last four digits of its ID number and the guest’s login name.  For security reasons the owner of that copy of the game would be asked to login to confirm this action is desired, lest the game having been stolen.  Should the friend not have an internet connection the owner of the game would be forced to retrieve one of the guest codes from their information online or over the phone and enter it into the memory file for the game in the console’s system settings.

In the unlikely scenario that the player decides that he/she wants to share the game with more than five people a bit of commercial ingenuity can be utilized.  Logging into the developer/publisher’s server the guest player would be informed that the main player has exceeded the five guest response codes they were allotted.  Should they still desire to play the game on that particular console the owner of that copy of the game would be asked to login and purchase another guest code for, say, $5-10, this money going directly to them instead of a retailer or the console maker’s.  Given that only an insignificantly small portion of the gaming community would end up doing this a public response about this would probably be minimal.  In the event that the owner is unwilling to purchase another game code he/she could simply log onto their console maker’s website, access their account information, and simply deactivate one of the response codes but I mean come on, who shares games with more than five friends?  Isn’t the small sacrifice of having only six game consoles to play it on before having to spend more money on it a fair trade off for preventing the game from becoming an illegally pirated copy?

Need help trying to sift through that process?  Check out this handy flowchart.

Rented and Used Games

The process I detailed above is designed to make a rather complex problem a bit more easy to understand and, in the end, help combat it.  While it does answer the question of how one can control piracy on the console side of the industry the question remains as to how one would handle rental services and the major issue of used game sales.  For those my friend the solutions are actually quite straightforward as well.

Rental services are still a big part of the gaming industry today and while many of the previously venerable institutions like Blockbuster have gone the way of the dinosaur new services like Gamefly and, most recently, Red Box, have taken the video game rental market by storm.  Providing good service for low prices in a timely manner one could play a game for a month for the same price as playing a game rented from a brick-and-mortar store for five days and not having to worry about annoying late fees.  Given the nature of the proposed DRM system one would think it nigh impossible to utilize by these types of services.  The solution however is actually quite simple: instead of just limiting serial numbers associated with discs to a certain amount of response codes to utilize these discs would have an unlimited amount of guest codes.  All one would have to do is simply include a slip of paper with the disc when it is shipped out that includes the necessary login information (which could easily be matched to that of your login information for that service) and the necessary response code.  Should someone want to purchase the game from the renter the service would only have to send the primary response code: it’s that easy!

The used games market is something of a strong divide between consumers and the content providers.  Gamers love the ability to purchase games for lower prices at almost no sacrifice to gameplay quality while developers and publishers hate them because they do not receive any of the money spent on the title.  Unfortunately there seems to be no way for content providers to force places like Gamestop from selling used games or forcing them to pay a portion of the sales fee because they are, at least in the United States, legally  considered to be a pawn shop.  With a little creative usage of this system however a developer or publisher could easily get back at least some of the money that’d come from the sale.

Let’s suppose again that Joe Blow has decided to sell his copy of Mega Shooter Duty 7 in favor of the upcoming and highly-anticipated Mega Shooter Duty 8: Personal Edition.  Should he want to sell the game to an individual and not a retail store he would need to access his account information, select the serial number and primary response code for the game and have them transferred to the account of the intended buyer.  In doing so it would deactivate the other response codes associated with that serial key, thereby preventing anyone associated with Joe from playing it and allowing the new owner to disseminate them as he/she sees fit.  This process wouldn’t affect the save file for the game but it would prevent Joe from being able to play that particular disc unless he got the game back and reinstalled it.

The process would be even easier however should Joe decide to sell it to a place like Gamestop.  Similar to the process of the initial sale a signal would be sent to the developer or publisher’s server that would tell it that the disc with that particular serial number is about to transfer ownership to the store.  With that out of the way Joe could easily continue his transaction and purchase his next big game.  Either way however developers and publishers can take advantage of this transfer of ownership by charging a transfer fee which, while not enough to recoup the cost of a normal used game sale, it does put some money back into their wallets.  This transfer fee can also be applied during or possibly after the game is resold to another customer.

Doing the Right Thing

This entire system may seem to be scary at first and overtly limiting but if you think about it this is far from the case.  DRM is something that gamers are going to have to get used to one day and while various experiments have been applied on the PC such as SecuROM and while these have met with limited success at best their attempts to prevent piracy have ended up infuriating gamers to the point of actually not purchasing those titles.  This system, in my opinion, would allow content providers to control the use of their product in a realistic manner that isn’t limiting to the player.

At the end of the day though this DRM system isn’t about making sure that people don’t pirate and play their games legitimately so much as it is about getting more money into content provider’s hands.  $60 may not seem like much of a loss when compared to that of the overall profits from a game but the fact of the matter is that when thousands upon thousands of people are doing this at a time you’re looking at millions of dollars being lost, money that could be put forward to their next project, extra game content and even perhaps keeping costs from ballooning from what they are right now.  Five years from now it isn’t hard to imagine that video games will again rise in price to perhaps $70 but a system like this could help delay such an event because more money would get back to the creators.  People’s livelihoods are at stake and when you pirate you’re denying companies the money they worked hard to earn and it could cost their employees their jobs.  Do you really want to be responsible for the termination of a game creator who could be responsible for the next great game like Call of Duty, Halo, or even Zelda?

Stop cheating the system people.  Pay for what you play and we can hopefully avoid a future like this.  Otherwise, well, I hope you’re caught up on your Orwellian novels…