A developer for the upcoming and delayed-a-few-times RPG Raven’s Cry has addressed the matter of TopWare Interactive’s serial key-based DRM, or at least what ‘people perceive’ as a scheming system.
CEO Dirk Hassinger of TopWare tackles the DRM elephant in the room over their policy of having to activate serial keys in their third-party accounts system. It’d be ”much easier to wave it.”
Simply put, Hassinger argues it’s more about having a system for tracking who owns their games in the event people can’t find a copy to get hold of but are entitled to one. The example he gives is if Steam were to disappear or undergo a huge policy shift with subscriptions or new ownership that threaten game libraries.
”It seems that no one really understands our intensions. Handling these activations is a lot of (really stupid) work for us. It would be much easier to wave it,” he admits.
”The DRM is not a copy protection. First of all - 10 minutes after release of a game - everyone can find a hacked Version in the net. Beside this, who does not pay for games can find a cracked copy anyway.”
He goes on to say that Steam ”is great,” and they’re friends with Valve, but no one can foresee the future and the landscape may change to something people no longer like. ”Company policy may Change, ownership may Change … and what happens with your purchased games in such a case?”
”A Steam Publisher has limited possibilities to help a Steam customer. We e.g. cannot give any refunds. We can not identify a user. We have only Information about the customers who activated or registered their games with our DRM,” said Hassinger.
”I do not want to defend our DRM, but once we realease a game without it, we do not know who bought it. And if anything happens all your games are gone.”
Raven’s Cry releases on PC January 26th - for realsies this time.
