[Gaming] Nickel and Dime

As content distribution methods evolve, so does the business of selling games. The idea of downloading game content has positive connotations for both the purveyors of said content and the consumers who use it. A creator can extend their product life and, simultaneously, reduce the costs of distribution, while the consumer has an opportunity to buy more conveniently and "own" their purchase in a new, more robust way. Unfortunately, these can be turned on their heads to paint a darker picture for everyone involved.

DRM as a concept is not evil - it helps foster trust in digital distribution amongst content providers - but misguided or malicious use of it can leave customers feeling ripped off. This is a throwback to the classic, physical method of distribution; when a person "buys" a video game, they feel like they truly "own" it, as it is tied to a physical object. What digital distribution does is break down that connection and reveal the reality: You do not truly buy a video game (consider that the game itself costs many thousands or millions of dollars to produce), but you buy a license to use it and a physical mechanism with which to do so. If the industry was willing to reorganize their pricing system to reflect this reality, perhaps they could foster some acceptance of this idea, but we all know that isn't going to happen.

Steam is the perfect example of how to do DRM right. Games are "priced to own," but the service still offers good deals. They're controlled by mildly intrusive DRM, but the buyer is also given new freedoms otherwise unavailable to them - they can re-download and install the game any time they want on any PC they're using, all through an incredibly easy-to-use interface. This mechanism offers both convenience and protection, and no other service offers such succinct freedom. Other PC DRM systems are intrusive and even damaging to consumers' PCs, so much so that people will resort to piracy as an alternative, not out of malice or immorality, but simply to escape what they perceive as corporate tyranny.

Current consoles also offer reasonably well-rounded DRM for their download services (now that Xbox Live's formerly-broken DRM has been mostly mended), but it remains to be seen if they will retain the same permanence that Steam has by benefit of being on a persistent, non-iterative platform. Come the next generation of consoles, will you be able to retain your Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and WiiWare games? Backwards compatibility is going to become even more of a lynch pin in the console and handheld world as digital distribution takes more bites out of the traditional method. The idea of permanent title retention is also an exciting one - to think that nearly every game that comes out could remain available in permanence after its release (more like how the movie industry now works) is simply astonishing when compared to the hobbyist practice of trolling eBay for that rare PlayStation RPG you missed out on in 1999.

The industry has a broad opportunity available to them. Distributor-led rental systems via digital download (something Microsoft already has in place for movies on Xbox Live) could revolutionize the way we buy games and the amount of money they generate. The piracy and homebrew sector has already out-thought and out-innovated the industry itself, and to truly compete, publishers will have to find new pricing and distribution methods that make the user enjoy paying for games. Rather than punishing paying customers, wouldn't it make more sense to lure your users into wanting to pay you?