Good Old Games's managing director says that DRM does more harm than good, and warned publishers to stop using it, while also revealing the full dominance of Steam in the digital game distribution market
Good Old Games, purveyors of DRM-free classic games via digital distribution, and also belonging to the same company that develops the Witcher franchise, has warned of the dangers of DRM, and also revealed the overwhelming popularity of Steam compared to other digital distributions services.
Speaking at the London Game Conferance, GOG's managing director Guillaume Rambourg warned publishers not to embrace DRM, as "customers hate DRM".
"The reality is DRM does not protect your content. Every game is pirated within a few hours of release or more often before it's released. DRM is not protecting your product or your sales, it's going to harm your sales in the long run," Rambourg added.
And as DRM doesn't protect publishers from piracy, and that pirated copies already have the DRM removed, the only gamers it affects are the actual legitimate buyers. "By putting DRM in your games you are working against your consumers, you are harming those you should cherish. It's only hurting your loyal consumers, which is counter-productive," warned Rambourg.
Interestingly, Rambourg also used the talk to reveal the dominance of Steam in the digital gaming arena. Referring to sales figures for Witcher 2, Rambourg revealed that GOG, the official distribution platform of the game, sold 40,000 copies of the game. Other digital distribution platforms sold a combined 10,000 copies, but Steam single-handedly managed to sell 200,000 copies.
Steam was hacked last week in which the user accounts of 35 million users were accessed, including encrypted credit card details.
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