The issue of DRM - Digital Rights Management - use in videogames has been a hot topic of late, specifically Spore in which all the pre-release hype appeared to wither away under a dark cloud of arguments and press releases. Restricting the number of the times the game could be installed and relying on signing into EA’s servers had communities up in arms, and it’s not hard to see their point. Consumers are buying a product which installs malware onto their PC’s, and is then dependant on a server as to whether the game can be played or not. The same applies to Steam, although not anywhere near as frequently these days. When Steam shuts for maintenance, so do your games. Time to grab a book or go out to see a movie, because no matter how much you type on an internet forum, you can’t play your games until the server is back up and running.

Games companies only profit once when selling games to a retailer, who’ll then sell it on to the consumer for a small return themselves. There’s very little profit involved for stores and has seen the likes of GAME venture into supplying their own brand of gaming accessories to boost their takings. In fact, GAME make just £2.17 on every PSTwo (the redesigned PS2 model) sold; to get around this shortfall, many specialised games retailers accept trade ins of pre-owned titles and then sell them on for a third or even twice the price they bought them in for. It’s a very clever system and this niche sector of retail has become rather lucrative, so much in fact that developers and publishers have started to sit up and take note. None of the cash generated from pre-owned sales makes its way back to the people who sit in front of computer screens all summer long programming and coding, and they’re none too happy with it. However, the games-making folk are wise enough to see that retailers also publicise their work and so any restriction on re-sale harms everyone down the line. So they’ve decided to harm you, the gamer, with Digital Rights Management.

Tailoring certain identification from the media to the computer, even uninstalling a game makes it worthless to the next guy in line. Orange Box is testament to this, requiring a lengthy phone call to Steam’s customer support helpline and various faxing of activation numbers and personal ID to try and convince the distributors to allow you to play. Other methods include limiting the amount of times you can install a title on your machine, which creates enormous problems for those that clear clutter from their workspaces by simply formatting their systems. Those that upgrade often need also be cautious as any change in specification without uninstalling beforehand can void your right to play. The method that gets up this writers nose is that of online verification. A little man comes free with the game, jumping off the disc and into your computer when you first install it, and every hour or so he’ll shout to one of his friends at the developers server, via your internet connection, that everything is OK. Should the server be down or your internet somehow becomes unusable, the little man inside your computer halts all play until he can talk to his little friend at the other end of the cable. It’s a needless experiment, especially since any error that the consumer isn’t guilty of hampers their playing experience.

So why can’t the games companies and the retailers play nice? It’s a little more complicated than that, see, and through some lengthy paragraphs I’m hoping to explain this complex argument that rages from the boardrooms of companies across the globe to internet forums and blogs reaching into the nether regions of the intertubes. The retailers offer developers and publishers alike publicity, and none more so than through the second hand market. Consumers love a bargain, so what better way to reach out to gamers by giving them cheaper titles? The stacks of pre-owned titles offer the back catalogues of developers, some of which reputations began, for knock-down prices. If the music and film industry is anything to go by, a person that picks up a cheap and early version of a motion flick staring Robert De Niro, or an early single by Muse, will investigate their more recent offerings. Why else were retailers piling up the Indiana Jones trilogy when the fourth instalment hit the cinemas? A gamer that finds Freedom Fighters could well check out the Hitman series and then Kane and Lynch, and suddenly they’re putting down money for a pre-order of whatever that studio produces next.

The theory of retailers handing over a percentage of their takings for resale has several implications; the retail industry is notoriously fickle, and any breach of trust is usually met with a cancelling of a contract. Annoy the seller and suddenly the developer doesn’t have a buyer - catastrophe. The other distinct problem would be regulating the market; keeping an eye on the likes of GAME, HMV and Woolworths maybe easy but what is the process regarding the independent videogame store, the ones that survive purely on the market that we’re trying to control? And of course, what happens to eBay?

The auction behemoth is a collectors paradise for young and old gaming enthusiasts alike. The issue surrounding market control suddenly swings to what is considered profitable and that which is not; what defines a classic title? Many conform to the standard that an item becomes collectable when it is no longer in production - eBay favourites such as Radiant Silvergun and Samba de Amigo were never produced on a great scale. By limiting or prohibiting the sale of such rare goods, the industry steps on its own foot as newer generations cannot sample the fruits of earlier consoles. Pity the gamer that never played Chu Chu Rocket or Lylat Wars. The second hand games market targets those that were simply too young, too poor or simply uninterested when the bandwagon went steaming past, and let’s other reminisce in long forgotten memories.

Yours truly finds himself on a low income and totally in love with an expensive hobby; pre owned games are my ticket to forgetting the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Digital distributors don’t have the same problems as their high street counterparts such as stock space and changing market trends because their stock exists purely as data. As such, they aren’t compelled to lower the price of vintage games unless in extraordinary circumstances because market rules are completely different. Steam, for example, retails the hugely successful and soon-to-be a year old Call of Duty 4 for almost £40; Amazon Marketplace is offering the digital copy for little over a quarter of that.

The obstacles that exist with fixed pricing on the digital download format are that very little preview content exists. It’s down to the developer and not the distributor to offer a demonstration, a try before you buy, and without such courtesy consumers have little to go on besides word of mouth and sometimes wild ranging reviews. As such, only the content that publications shout from the rooftops about would be bought on impulse and so smaller companies operating on tighter budgets and attracting luke-warm reviews would find it difficult to attract buyers. Without the ability to re-sell a title that wasn’t as expected, consumers become hesitant at jumping into a purchase with both feet and acting on a gut feeling. There needs to be a service in which gamers can sample content for a limited time before deciding to purchase it fully, or perhaps a time-span in which refunds are allowed, subject to fair use. Xbox Live Marketplace is perhaps the best example of a selling format with both hands tied behind its back. By offering no refunds or previews on gamer pictures or dashboard themes, buyers are hesitant to take a gamble. The official website offers little encouragement to splash out on a new look for your interface and several independent websites have simply gone out of business trying to buy content to preview to customers.

Laughably, the way to bypass these restrictions is to simply not buy, but download - illegally. Work-arounds exist for those who choose to file share to simply ignore any process of verification and play the game unhindered; by not purchasing, their outgoings are nil, and so if a title doesn’t match their expectations they haven’t lost anything of monetary value. As much as I’m the sort of human being that enjoys on sticking two fingers up to “the man” on any given occasion, it’s of my opinion that a real gamer buys their games in the flesh. Digital downloads of the legal kind are fabulous when bed ridden or out of shopping hours with money burning a hole in your bank account, but nothing beats thumbing through a good old manual or caressing the case and reading the blurb printed on the reverse. Call me old fashioned, but what sets the gamer from the downloader, the hardcore from the casual or whatever you want to label them, is that those really interested in videogames care about their purchases. I may come from a time when games were released in cardboard sleeves and not the mass produced plastic DVD cases of today, but nothing beats having the game art there on your shelf to gaze at and an instruction manual to study when you’ve reached a point in the game what appears to be a dead end. Ico has a place in many hearts thanks to a release in a delicate card slip case prone to tearing, it felt so delicate, like a new born baby. Ok, so one that cost you £50, but my point still stands.

A real gamer cherishes and respects what they buy and play, a downloader voids the system because they can. Perhaps to deter consumers from buying second hand or resorting to pirating, publishers should look at the way they market their own products rather than leaving it to the retailer. Tin cases and plush toys are old hat; Fallout 3 is making a mockery of the system by charging £60 for a lunchbox. No, what set the standard was Bungie’s Legendary edition of Halo 3; oodles of extra goodness all housed within a replica Spartan helmet. If that doesn’t show how to market a game, nothing does.

The DRM argument is a very complex and tricky squabble to fully understand, and hopefully this article has, in some way, explained the jist of it to you. A problem exists in that games studios are going out of business because their products aren’t breaking even, let alone making a profit, with gamers that want value for a product and unrestricted access whilst using it. Clearly, something has to give, but what happens next is anyone’s guess.