Can Digital Distribution and Game Ownership Coexist?

2013-04-24T11:49:00-07:00

In the past decade, the video game industry has introduced three things that change the way consumers interact with publishers and distributors to get access to the content they consume. Each of these brings with them a wave of change that, to many people that are part of the "old school" generation, encroach on various aspects of consumer rights and are turning games into services instead of objects that you can buy copies of. The three things that have brought this change are downloadable content, digital distribution, and DRM.

Downloadable Content: the new, diluted "expansion pack"

Downloadable content (DLC) began as a way to supplement disc-based games with hard-drive bound content that added new things to the game. In essence, DLC began as expansion packs to existing games. Oftentimes, they were additional chapters in the single player portion of a game, or additional maps and character skins for the multiplayer portion of a game. They were often priced competitively ($3-10 USD on average), and were not available on the game disc itself. This allowed avid fans of games to get additional content and show their support for the game with smaller transactions over time, creating a trickle in profit for the developer and publisher. Because the content wasn't on the disc, it allowed developers time to create more DLC that was better made.

Today, a good portion of video games are released with the DLC already on the game disc, but locked away unless you pay the additional fee associated with it. So instead of getting access to all the information on the disc at a premium $60 price tag, the gamer who wants access to this must pay $60 to get the disc and then an additional $5-20 to access the rest of the information on the disc (the full game). This is a dishonest and greedy way to do business, and an attempt to nickel-and-dime the consumer.

Prior to the advent of DLC, most additional content was found on PC games, and they released tons of content on a brand new game disc. In essence, it was a full game's worth of content, for about half the price of the original game. It was a great bargain, and many gamers clamored for such expansions, because they brought depth and replayability to their favorite games. Most DLC in today's era does not fit that description. Instead, they're small additions that do very little to add to the gameplay and should have been part of the final product. At worst, the DLC is already on the disc and gamers are charged an additional fee to get access. Despite the logistics issue of manufacturing the discs and distributing them, expansion packs from the 1990s and 2000s were a better deal and enriched the value of a game by at least an order of magnitude compared to modern DLC.

Today's developers should take a page out of history's playbook and not be afraid to spend a long time on large, slightly more pricey DLC that, for example, brings an entirely new storyline to their game, or expands the skill system, or adds characters that enrich the game world. Games that did the expansion pack system properly are games like Diablo 2, Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Siege, and Half-Life, among many many others. A modern, upcoming example of good DLC is New Super Luigi U, which remixes every single level in the game and tunes it specifically for Luigi, effectively doubling the size of the game. If a developer that's criticized for being "behind the times" is creating DLC that adds so much value to their games, is it unreasonable to expect "the big guns" to add real, lasting value to theirs?

Digital Distribution: convenient or subvertive?

Digital distribution is a way that consumers can get access to a game immediately by downloading the game data instead of purchasing a disc. It brings a great deal of convenience to consumers by alleviating the need to go to the store and buy a disc, then maintain the disc and keep it clean. However, it also brings a few disadvantages: you can't lend it to a friend, play it on another person's machine (depending on the platform), or sell it to someone when you've lost interest in it years later.

These limitations of digital distribution aren't found everywhere. Good Old Games.com distributes games that don't have any restrictions on what you can do with them. You can archive your own copy of it or even lend a copy to a friend. Humble Bundle offers a similar service, but even these great examples fail to offer a means to sell your games to a friend. There's more to this than just digital distribution, though.

Digital Rights Management: "you don't own anything!"

DRM is a system of protecting game content from being copied and shared, to secure profit for the publisher. In the 1990s and early 2000s, DRM was mostly algorithm-based and did a fairly good job at protecting the games without inconveniencing gamers or encroaching on the right to sell their copy. When you wanted to sell your game, you simply included the authentication key along with it, so your friend could prove the legitimacy of the copy as well. This system found itself prone to abuse due to the poor algorithms that were chosen to generate and authenticate keys, so publishers moved to systems that were more invasive, and lawyers began drafting EULAs that limited the purchase of the game copy to simply a "license to play" that could be revoked by the publisher at any time, for any reason.

This shift in the industry made it clear that publishers did not care about the first-sale doctrine, or the troubles that legitimate consumers would face as DRM became more restrictive and cumbersome, while piracy remained at a constant level. Many publishers claimed that piracy was to blame for lower sales numbers, despite a changing economic climate and a change in the way gamers felt about systems that did not consider them legitimate customers without proof.

In a stroke of irony, piracy may have increased for some games because pirates were able to crack the DRM in some games and provide a less buggy or faster version of the games, unencumbered by the DRM. Even some legitimate owners turned to pirated copies of the games they owned because the DRM systems disabled their legitimate key, or arbitrary limitations (such as the number of times the game can be installed) were reached. Despite their desire to support the developer and publisher, the DRM systems betrayed their purchase and refused them access to the game, so they turned to piracy to get an unencumbered experience.

Due to this change in legalities, some game developers attempted to limit the reselling of their games by including single-use codes with the game, designed to be validated and installed only once. In their eyes, it ensured that only one person would be able to enjoy a single copy and, if their friends wanted to borrow it, they had to instead buy a copy. For various reasons, this resulted in either lower sales or higher rates of piracy since it stifles the social aspect of gaming.

All together now!

Today, we have DLC, digital distribution, and DRM all tied together in complete systems, such as Microsoft's Xbox Live, Sony's Playstation Network, Nintendo's eShop, EA's Origin, and Valve's Steam. Each brings with it a set of limitations and encumberments that are designed to protect the ~~greed~~ assets of the publisher, while limiting the rights of the customer. Some of these platforms, such as Steam, do things fairly well for a DRM scheme:

Steam allows you to play offline; you only need to be online to purchase and install the game.
Steam ties all purchases to your account, so if you lose your game data, you can simply login, connect, and redownload it
Steam adds value to their platform with a social network, game save backups, and periodic sales
Steam allows you to purchase a game as a gift and give it to another user.

The one key thing missing from this feature set that would make Steam (or other platforms) a great choice is allowing people to transfer or sell their copy to another person. As it currently stands, every platform has something wrong with it in the way it treats its users. Digital distribution is a great idea, but is limited by technology that enables the greed of publishers. If these platforms allowed people to sell or transfer games to others, it would create a virtual equivalent to the real world and go a long way to respect consumers and foster a sense of trust, while still protecting developer assets from being stolen. Why Valve hasn't taken advantage of this opportunity is beyond me. Perhaps the corporate interest of greed and money has blinded them to the civil side of their platform.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, the technology behind DLC, DRM, and digital distribution is here to stay. However, there are many things left to iron out before these platforms are a suitable analog to owning a physical copy of a game. Until these platforms mature and begin respecting consumer rights, they will prevent themselves from captivating the entire "old school" market that got them where they are today. Gamers that have been playing since the 1970s to the 1990s understand the social value that game ownership has, and we took advantage of these things before the Internet became ubiquitous. Word of mouth and try-before-you-buy are incredible ways to increase sales and spread the image of great games. If game publishers continue to step on the toes of gamers by limiting what they can do with their games and nickel-and-dime them to death with DLC, we will simply exit the market or turn to independent developers, who are breathing new life into the industry at a fraction of the cost.