Gaming Everything
Will Wright, creator of The Sims and Sim City, is impressed with Microsoft’s reaction and subsequent reversal to the Xbox One’s policies.
Wright’s comments specifically pertained to DRM. Earlier this month, Microsoft lifted restrictions on used games following a slew of controversy and backlash.
Wright said:
“…From the consumers’ point of view, I can really understand a lot of the backlash to DRM. The fact that if something’s required on the Internet that means they can’t play it on the airplane or if their Internet connection goes down. It was interesting watching the Microsoft thing. I thought it was very impressive how responsive Microsoft was to that. DRM is going to be an ongoing negotiation because there are features to the DRM, or at least Internet connectivity, that is a very attractive solution to the piracy issue. Gaming has had a long history of piracy, but you can’t use DRM at the expense of the customers. I’m not really sure I have a clear answer to this except that it’s going to be something that we slowly acclimate the player base towards. It’s really not a lot different from if you have an MMO or peer-to-peer game that requires connectivity with other players, but a lot of games don’t necessarily require that. If you’re just going to require it for DRM purposes only that’s obviously where it upset the consumers.”
