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Story by Nathan Grayson

Wed, Apr 13, 2011 | 09:02 BST

Good Old Games: DRM’s effectiveness “close-to-none,” often causes piracy

Ever grapple with some particularly heinous DRM and think to yourself “I’m one dropped connection away from pirating a crack of this dumb thing”? Well, according to Good Old Games’ PR and marketing manager Lukasz Kukawski, you’re definitely not alone.

“What I will say isn’t popular in the gaming industry, but in my opinion DRM drives people to pirate games rather than prevent them from doing that,” Kukawski told Bit Tech. “Would you rather spend $50 on a game that requires installing malware on your system, or to stay online all the time and crashes every time the connection goes down, or would you rather download a cracked version without all that hassle?”

“I know people that buy an original copy of the game just so they don’t feel guilty, and then they will play a pirated version which is stripped of all DRM. That’s not how it should be. Let’s treat legitimate customers with respect and they will give that back,” he added.

Not content to end on that note, however, he then questioned the flimsy pretext that’s still propping up DRM at all in this day and age. It’s an issue that many developers are almost frighteningly willing to sweep under the rug, but Kukawski tackled it head on, saying:

“If you see the news on gaming portals that a highly anticipated title has leaked before the release date, and you can download it from torrents without any copy protection because it has been already cracked, how can you possibly believe that DRM works in any way to reduce piracy?”

Well, entire gaming industry? We believe the man just asked you a question.