Case study #1: Kyle Wagner. This guy seems to be the one most cited by DRM apologists as having good reasons for why we should like corporations dictating absolute control over our games. Now, I could dissect each individual point of his arguments and show why they are almost all flawed in some way, but there's honestly just too much nonsense there to cover and it wouldn't even be worth it, so I'm only going to address some overarching points made by him and other DRM defenders.
First of all, this narrative that we are holding back the "evolution" of the industry by resisting DRM is just silliness. The implication is that we are being resistant to change simply because it is change and we're not really objecting for any rational reasons, which couldn't be further from the truth. I've got no problems with using the Internet to enhance my products. I use it all the time. I'm using it for this blog right now. My issue is not with the mere use of the Internet, but rather *how* it is being used. See, traditionally online functionality has been used to improve gameplay by offering new multiplayer capabilties that previously couldn't be achieved in games. But tell me, what tangible gameplay benefit is there in making me arbitrarily connect to the Internet to play a single player game? Answer: none. None whatsoever. All this does is restrict my use of the game with the needless addition of another requirement that must be met. Using the power of the Internet merely to restrict my products rather than expand their features is hardly evolution.
The other big argument I see often is the comparison to Steam. Like Microsoft, Steam's platform employs the use of DRM; requiring an online connection in order to activate your games before you can play, and therefore to criticize Microsoft while praising Steam for doing the same thing is somewhat hypocritical. To the first part of this point, I actually agree, though maybe not exactly in the way that apologists might be hoping for. Yes, I do think it is a bit of a double standard. In fact, I think far too many people let Steam off the hook when it should be scrutinized too. Just because Valve has done a lot of other things right doesn't make it OK to take away ownership of your games and dictate whatever terms of service they feel like which they can change at any time. So yes, the comparison here is fair, but that's precisely why you should *oppose* both platforms, not support them.
However, the other aspect of this argument is the assumption that, given time, Microsoft's service could easily become as robust and affordable as Steam's, and therefore it could be just as "awesome" with big sales full of cheap games. The problem is that this argument hinges on nothing but gigantic leaping assumptions, because I have yet to see any evidence presented that there is any actual link between Steam's DRM and cheaper games. Has Valve actually made any official statements claiming that it is directly as a result of their DRM that they are able to profit from hugely discounted sales? To the best of my knowledge, I could not find any sources stating such. In fact, if anything the reasons for Steam sales probably have more to do with the fact that Valve is still an entirely privately-owned company and has not gone public with its assets, so they don't need to answer to any shareholders and therefore have more flexibility to experiment with different business models. This theory is further bolstered by the fact that a while back EA senior vice president for global commerce David DeMartini criticized Valve's Steam sales, claiming that they were having a negative impact on the industry. Now what does this have to do with my point? Well, at the time of his statement, DeMartini was overseeing EA's own digital distribution and DRM client, Origin, which had accumulated a respectable 11 million users during that time; making it the second largest digital distribution client next to Steam. Now why would DeMartini be objecting to this business model if he himself should theoretically be able to offer the same deals with his platform? To me that says the issue has more to do with differing business philosophies rather than anything related to DRM, as here we have an exhibit A example of a company offering a DRM platform but still openly opposing Steam's sales model.
Even Kyle Wagner basically admits in his article that despite his assertions of DRM complaints being "so last decade", the problems people used to have with it still apply. It still forces a dependency on outside servers, and therefore it still amounts to a ticking time bomb/extended rental service for all your games. His only real counter to this is to just ignore the problems anyway because the benefits supposedly outweigh them. Well I'm sorry to say Kyle, but they don't. Most of your arguments hinge on good faith assumptions that we really have no reasons to believe. Moreover, there's nothing stopping Microsoft from still implementing all the features they originally wanted to have anyway. They could still have the 10-person share plan and games being linked to your Xbox Live account. All they'd have to do is just implement it only for their *digital* marketplace and then merely let players have the option to choose which method they would rather prefer. The fact that they decided to completely rescind the whole thing anyway simply tells me they were being petty and wanted to make us feel guilty on all the features we're now losing out on, so your blame should fall squarely on Microsoft if you're still honestly that hung up about it.
Steam and other platforms like it are not god's gift to gamers and I'm not some ignorant neanderthal that just hasn't yet been enlightened about their awesomeness. On the contrary, I've tried Steam and purchased from its sales before, and I've concluded that ultimately I don't agree with the policies of their platform even in spite of their affordable prices, so deal with it.
I won't applaud Microsoft for doing what they should have obviously done in the first place, but I will continue to maintain that they made the right decision here in listening to their customers and removing DRM. It's not "evolution"; it's not the "future of gaming"; it's just corporate greed overstretching its limits, and it's time everyone recognizes that.
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