BUILD | SECURITY
Security Alarms DRM technologies might not be popular with gamers, but content has to be protected regardless. Ed Fear speaks with some of the leading security tech providers to find out how to get players to accept DRM…
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nyone who likes to keep up to date with gaming blogs or forums won’t have failed to notice a distinct rise in anger towards anti-piracy measures in PC games. Of course, it’s nothing new – similar waves of disgust welcomed the music industry’s attempt to regulate where and when its content was consumed, as anyone who remembers Sony’s rootkitinstalling CDs will attest. Things have moved on slightly since then – modern security technology isn’t quite so brute force as making discs unreadable on computer drives or refusing to install on machines with discburning software – but the sentiment amongst consumers has been less quick to change. BioShock, Mass Effect, Spore – all games that have launched to much fan-fare which quickly turned sour when gamers realised that new online licensing methods meant that they could only install their games a handful of times; all games where the publishers had to quickly issue apologies, patches or less restrictive usage terms. So, getting it right is important. But how do you go about that when the only security gamers really want is none whatsoever? “We have never been surprised by the various problems or concerns that many publishers have mentioned to us 58 | NOVEMBER 2008
from their experiences of digital rights management over the years,” says Richard Wienburg, senior vice president of operations at Softwrap. “Many solutions have attempted to lock themselves deep within the operating system and, particularly now that Vista gives software less access to the OS, it has caused headaches for many.”
first few weeks of a game’s release. There is no need to hold forever.” It’s this point that shows another slight change in the game DRM field – a shift towards protecting games before they even get to retail rather than locking down the discs themselves. The damage done by your game leaking three weeks before retail release – as in
“The only security gamers want is none whatsoever…” The lack of surprise is shared by StarForce, itself one of the companies that’s had the most vitriol directed against it. “I must say that personally I don’t see anything strange in it,” says Dmitry Guseff, multimedia PR manager for the Russian firm. “The best protection for gamers is its absence. Some gamers simply don’t understand the purpose of protection and its goals for overall game industry. Many gamers used to say that, regardless of the protection, it will still be cracked anyway – not realising that the main goal is to prevent appearance of illegal ISOs or cracked files during
Halo 2, or more recently Bethesda’s Fallout 3 – is, some say, far more troublesome. Marx Security is a company new to the games scene, but sees a gap in the market for protecting pre-release code sent to beta testers, journalists and disc replication plants – outlets often fingered as being the source of premature leaks. Its Crypto-Box solution brings the USB dongle method often used on more expensive applications to games, as CEO Philipp Marx explains. “The pre-release phase is a very important part of the development and production process for any new IP and is
a part that we consider ‘high risk’. We suggest applying the Crypto-Box solution for beta releases, press prereleases and other situations where the code has to be physically sent ‘off-site’ before the game is actually released in order to drastically cut the chances of any illegal pre-release code turning up on file sharing sites.” FALLOUT So how has the furore affected the development and current form of DRM technology? Given its position at the nexus of the anti-DRM storm, StarForce is keen to mention the proactive steps that it has taken to address those concerns raised by gamers. “We’ve made various changes: more information about what is being installed in users’ systems, the ability to remove protection at any time, built-in help, an informative and easy-tounderstand GUI, activate-and-forget methods, the possibility to quickly move e-licences from one computer to another, freedom to choose the way and protected programs launch, and finally fast and friendly technical support. But, as Guseff explains, their efforts are not just a reaction to the previous controversies, but also reacting to current concerns and popular opinion. DEVELOPMAG.COM