Spacehamster’s Blog

I couldn’t have put my sentiments more eloquently than this -

Management persona has since evolved so that the people in charge can now make those “hard decisions” without the intervention of consultant or conscience. What has risen to the top is a breed without qualms about the bodies in its wake.

They simply stuff the money in their pockets and go home to a nice dinner behind their mansion doors.

As the world digs itself out of this economic hole, the lessons of the times must be taken to heart. Lessons about values and people and the role of the economy as servant of society rather than its master.

About the type of people who run our corporations and financial institutions. Let’s hear it for the monkeys — people who at some point are satisfied that they have enough and are happy for others to have a share. The pig has had his day.

Firstly, big kudos to Bethesda Software for not implementing an EA-style DRM scheme for their latest release. Nevertheless, software piracy is still a major concern for many major gaming companies, and understandably so.

Many gamers have stated if they reduce the costs of games then they would consider buying. I’m not sure that this argument holds water with me, because it misses one very important fact - that humans (particularly gamers), are a self-centered greedy bunch and will continue to pirate stuff because it’s free. Piracy is prevalent for the same reason the stockmarket crashed - because some (if not most) people are greedy.

So what’s one possible approach then? My preferred approach would be similar to Apple iTunes. The iTunes software allows 5 activations. You use up an activation whenever you install your account on another PC, or upgrade your OS or hardware. Sounds like EA, right? But there’s one big difference - when you use up all 5 activations, you’re allowed to reset your activations and start all over again. What a great idea!

iTunes has been around for a very long time. So why didn’t EA implement a similar scheme? It’s funny how people are screaming about how bad DRM is, but no one ever brings up iTunes as an example. Probably because iTunes implements DRM in such a sensible non-intrusive way that doesn’t punish the consumer.

Perhaps EA should think about that before releasing their next game. And call Steve Jobs.