Capcom undecided about PSN DRM

By Robert Purchese Published 30 September, 2011

"It neither helped nor hindered us."

Whether Capcom will continue to use DRM on PSN games hasn't been decided, Christian Svensson informed Eurogamer.

The PSN DRM requires a constant internet connection in order to play a game. Final Fight: Double Impact and Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 both opted for the anti-game-sharing protection. But Street Fighter 3: Third Strike was DRM-free.

"Sony has a form of network DRM that we have chosen to use on a couple of titles, really as much as an experiment as anything else, to see what the impact was," Capcom's US vice president Christian Svensson told Eurogamer.

"Inconclusive, frankly," he said of the results. "As far as we can tell, it neither helped nor hindered us.

"We continue to look at it on a case by case basis."

That's that solved, then.

Third Strike.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (38) Latest comment 8 months ago

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  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #1 8 months ago

    Well its hindered your users, so surely the answer is obvious, stop encouraging piracy and remove any DRM that hurts your customers.

  • TONYgr #2 8 months ago

    Well me personally won't buy any capcom games that have drm.I did it once,i won't do it again.

  • Malek86 #3 8 months ago

    Well, if it didn't make a difference, isn't it less work for them to simply not implement it?

  • HL706 #4 8 months ago

    As David Jaffe said - "I think game sharing on PSN is utter horse shit. Why is it ok to buy a game and give it to 2-5 peeps 4 free? Insane!"

    Well as Capcom have discovered, those '2-5 peeps' probably won't buy it anyway - so stop messing the people around that do actually support the developers!

  • jellyBelly #5 8 months ago

    Why do you need drm for something of the psn, its not that you can pirate it anyway?

  • RawNinjaKid #6 8 months ago

    Constant internet connection or a connection required upon boot up is a BAD idea. PERIOD!

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #7 8 months ago

    @djclownshoes,

    That does need sorting out, but at the same time, if i own 2 PS3's which i do, why should i legitimately not be allowed to play the game on both!

    But account sharing with mates is no different than lending your mates your box products in reality, so maybe they should just make sure a game can not be played on 2 consoles at the same time, as i cant put a disk in 2 consoles at the same time.

  • dsmx #8 8 months ago

    Well almost certainly it didn't help you and at best it hindered you because there are people who don't have a constant internet connection so they won't buy your game. Regardless of if you agree with the gifting thing that PSN has going on or not stopping people from playing your game offline is a dick move that serves no benefit to your customers, ever.

  • miiiguel #9 8 months ago

    Well as Capcom have discovered, those '2-5 peeps' probably won't buy it anyway - so stop messing the people around that do actually support the developers!

    Can I just say I have no money and I won't buy *any* game and have them all for free ?

    That does need sorting out, but at the same time, if i own 2 PS3's which i do, why should i legitimately not be allowed to play the game on both!

    I have to 360's and I can play all my DLC on both, and Live doesn't have "game sharing".
    Edited by miiiguel at 30/09/11 @ 12:21

  • Vilhelm #10 8 months ago

    I didn't buy BCR2 because of the DRM so I can say with certainty that it was a hindrance between my money and Capcom...

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #11 8 months ago

    @djclownshoes

    Way to edit out half of what i just said and then throw it back at me, as i clearly stated, they should change it so only 1 person can play it at a time.

    I also know 360 has a way to deal with the sharing problem but it also has its draw backs, i.e. the second xbox can only play the game if your using the account that bought it, now if you have a family where your son has his own xbox, it means he cant play it, now you could argue he should have to buy his own copy, but that doesnt happen with any other entertainment media, so why should it with games.

    Its a difficult area to solve fully, but i think most agree sharing games among family members that live in the same house should not be banned, just cos they want to use there own account.

  • miiiguel #12 8 months ago

    I also know 360 has a way to deal with the sharing problem but it also has its draw backs, i.e. the second xbox can only play the game if your using the account that bought it

    That's easily solved, by using the account on the xbox which didn't buy the content, which means, Live "solution" only draw back is if a family has 3 members/xboxes who want to play the same content at the same time.
    Edited by miiiguel at 30/09/11 @ 12:35

  • Eoin #13 8 months ago

    This form of SRM does hinder Capcom, but unfortunately not in any obvious way.

    In many cases, the people that bought the games with that DRM would not have been aware of it, or would have underestimated the effect of it (since many people have an attitude of "meh, I'm online all the time anyway";).

    They would only later have discovered that the DRM existed, or that it could inconvenience them (for example, during the extended PSN outage earlier in the year, or during a routine maintenance, or when the purchaser was unexpectedly without an internet connection).

    So the sales of the games with the DRM wouldn't have been drastically lower than Capcom might have expected - but you can bet that a lot of people who bought those games are now extremely wary of similar purchases in future, and Capcom have definitely lost at least some goodwill as a result (though the effect of this may be even more difficult to measure, thanks to multiple other recent things that Capcom have lost goodwill as a result of).

  • ballshock #14 8 months ago

    When you lend a game to someone is that pirating? No it ducking aint.

  • HyperTails #15 8 months ago

    I don't get why Capcom even put DRM on PSN games. On PC, even though it can be cracked, I can see why they'd want to try and prevent piracy. But on a small budget, PSN downloadable title? Publishers might be able to get away with screwing their PC customers over with DRM but their in for a reality check if they think that it'll be smooth sailing to stick it on consoles.

  • ozthegweat #16 8 months ago

    So Capcom, sales of titles with always-online-DRM didn't triple as you, because of this saviour called DRM, expected? Wow, I wonder why that is...

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #17 8 months ago

    @ozthegweat

    probably because account sharing isnt anywhere near a big problem as some publishers would like to think, id be surprised if anyone has any concrete numbers on how much account sharing goes on, and even if they do they wont know how much is just people with multiple consoles in the family.

  • GamesConnoisseur #18 8 months ago

    OMG I vill BOYCOTT all Evil Capcom and Sadist Sony for allowing DRM on my 24/7 online connected console, and so it's now forever tainted with the parastic DRM.

    I ll have no choice but to sell PS3 for £1 and feel sorry for whoever bought the console. Maybe I should just burn it instead? To prevent the spread of DRM.

  • Rens11 #19 8 months ago

    Don't use it then!

  • madsox1 #20 8 months ago

    Wow. Games Connoisseur, was that sarcasm by any chance? lol

  • Bullet_Tunnel #21 8 months ago

    "We will continue to look into this, if we can find a way of making people pay through the nose somehow, then we will decide"
    Fixed
    Edited by Bullet_Tunnel at 30/09/11 @ 13:19

  • HyperTails #22 8 months ago

    @GamesConnosseur

    The problem people have is that being 'always connected' has its limits. PSN's been down for maintenance 3 times this last week, and if that happens you can't play your game. If your internet goes down, you can't play the game. And its already been proven, time and time again, that DRM is able to be cracked. Its pointless, and inconvenient. Its not affected me because the games with this have never interested me, but I can see why it would bother some.

  • mode7 #23 8 months ago

    Is game sharing against the terms and conditions of the PSN...?

    "One time fee for use of downloads on up to 5 activated PS3 systems"

  • GamesConnoisseur #24 8 months ago

    I dont experienced any problems with DRM to date myself and so yep my above post is quite tongue in cheek, and neg me but that is my own personal experiences and never realise which does have DRM or without.

    I suspect a great majority likewise find it easy to stay connected but sure its a problem for some for various reason. If Sony's PSN is not secured enough then DRM will be required, but if it is, then why.

  • Alestes #25 8 months ago

    I never bought Bionic Commando 2 Rearmed or Final Fight from PSN because they were infected by the DRM.

    That said, game sharing is wrong and I see their point why they included the DRM. You're not really allowed to game share at all, it's just incase you have multiple PS3 machines for some reason (or possibly for the future PS4, PS5, PS6 and PS7). You're not allowed to share your account details with others.

  • Machiavellian #26 8 months ago

    "We will continue to look into this, if we can find a way of making people pay through the nose somehow, then we will decide"
    Fixed

    OR it could mean, "We are a business who employ over a thousand people, who have families and who needs to get paided. We would like to make sure we make a profit so we can pay our employees and grow our business so we can continue to make games that people like to play."

    Thats the problem with most of you is that you think whats best for you is best for everyone which it's not. If you cannot afford to pay the price for the product you want then live without it. You are not entitled to something just because you can obtain it without the permission of the person or company who created the product.

    With that said, game sharing can help sales for the next product if the people you shared the game with like it and then purchase the sequel. The thing is how do you measure that, promote it without losing sales. I believe the steam solution where you can gift a copy of your game to a friend is on the right track.

  • schnide #27 8 months ago

    @spacedelete

    That comment sir, is horseshit. With lending discs only one game is in play at any one point. With game 'sharing', several people have the game at once. Example 1 does not have any lost sales. Example 2 very potentially does.

  • Machiavellian #28 8 months ago

    I would be surprise if any developer would be happy with game sharing the way that it's setup on the PS3. So one person buys the game and can then share it with all his friends and all of them can play at the same time. Thats much different from gifting the game to a friend which means you just gave them your game for them to play.

  • alcides #29 8 months ago

    "As David Jaffe said - "I think game sharing on PSN is utter horse shit. Why is it ok to buy a game and give it to 2-5 peeps 4 free? Insane!". "

    David Jaffe is a stupid evil bastard. And so is anyone questionning this very fair policy of SONY's.

  • arcam #30 8 months ago

    Example 1 does not have any lost sales.

    Of course example 1 has the possibility of lost sales. You lend (or give) a game to a friend, and he plays your copy instead of buying one himself.

  • funkateer #31 8 months ago

    Game sharing on PSN is a good feature. I'd even go further and say that it's a mandatory feature for digital distribution.
    You should be rewarded for buying a game, never limited by it!

  • Zastai #32 8 months ago

    @mode7: depends. If you go to a friend's house, log on to your account on his ps3, download the game (activating his ps3 with your account), then I guess it isn't. However if you do it for 4 friends and your ps3 has YLOD, you probably lose access to the game (Sony support is unlikely to reset an activation when it looks like you gameshare). I've only got the one ps3, but it's my third one, so a chunk of my games and dlc only has two activations remaining. I'm sure Sony will sort it if in 6 years or so I'm on activation #6 (if i even care at that point), since the activations are not concurrent and 2 years apart - but they're not even required to do so.

    But usually gamesharing involves sharing account passwords, and that's against the PSN T&Cs.

  • callum9999 #33 8 months ago

    Lending friends a disc is a ridiculous analogy and I genuinely question the intelligence of anyone who thinks otherwise.

    If you want an analogy, it will be you making 4 copies of the disc and giving them to friends, something that is quite clearly piracy. Somehow I don't think 'I'm just lending to my friends' won't stand up in court...

  • TudeScud #34 8 months ago

    @callum9999 While you're right that the equivalency isn't exact, the approximation to piracy is also more distant. Note that between a disc copy and a digital copy, it's the disc copy that has resale value.

    OT: I'm pretty sure one of the higher ups in Sony fully condoned game sharing at one point, as long as it was done by legitimate means (not sharing your password). I think this is a very positive move, as without it, the scenario of sharing your games with friends pretty much goes out the window. Plus it incentives PSN purchases ("I don't want this game that I can't resell... but hey if I can share it with my friends it might be fun/worth it";) which currently is greatly needed, as they have reported before on how the online component of PSN has not broke even. It also reduces the incentive for otherwise well-meaning individuals to break the TOS and share their account --- just so that a (close) friend can play.
    Edited by TudeScud at 01/10/11 @ 13:23

  • AmethystSword #35 8 months ago

    Hated it for my Xbox 360 games. Really wish it would not come onto PSN.

  • GozuTennai #36 8 months ago

    not that I buy from the capcom games recycling company anyway but drm = nah.

  • jamieleng #37 8 months ago

    What planet do these people live on? If most of your potential customers don't like it & there is no proof it actually made any difference to piracy, then it's a hindrance. Then again, what do I know? I've never put a product to market.

  • SHPanda #38 8 months ago

    I don't know why people are debating the moral and legal perspectives of game sharing and DRM with those people who are comparing it to lending a disc to a friend.

    Everyone who's suggested such so far is also of the belief that the words 'borrow' and 'lend' are somehow inter-changeable.

    Sorry for being a pedantic online grammar policeman but my god it's worse than when people confuse 'brought' and 'bought'. Rant over.

    DRM sucks, game sharing promotes piracy, though unlike out and out piracy it does mean one genuine purchase was made in at least every five copies being played. I also doubt game sharing is that widespread an issue, and it's impossible to ever gauge how any form of piracy translates into number of lost sales, as much as people hate the argument, there's no guarantees pirates would have ever bought the game if that was their only means of obtaining it.