http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/03/microsoft-1.arsTuesday at GDC Microsoft announced a number of upcoming additions to Games for Windows, including stronger protection against piracy, as well as some nifty features to make playing your PC games simpler if you have multiple systems. There will also be storefront support added so publishers can add sales directly into their game. Drew Johnston, the product unit manager for the Windows Gaming Platform, and Dave Luehmann, GM for Microsoft Game Studios, described to Ars what these updates will entail.
You can call it whatever you want—as long as you don't call it DRM. "What we have is anti-piracy measures we've put in place. I wouldn't quite categorize it as DRM," Johnston tells Ars. "We have zero-day piracy protection—this helps reduce the leakage of IP before release. The bits are encrypted, and there is a one-time activation that checks to see if the game has been released or not, and we'll send out a decrypt code so the game can be played."
So if you download a leaked version of a game, or even have a boxed copy that was sold prematurely, you won't be able to play until the game is unlocked online.
This doesn't help after the game is released; the technology will only keep early copies from being enjoyed. "We've heard from publishers that preauthorized release before streetdate can... they can lose half the sales, the revenue of the game. This is specifically aimed at helping reduce that for the publisher."
Johnston is incredibly understanding when it comes to gamers downloading early versions of this game, which is a striking change from the demonizing you hear from most in the industry. "They want to buy the game, they're not pirates, these aren't evil people. They just really want to play the game. If we can just keep that excitement until street date, they'll actually buy. That's what we want to provide."
The second part of this protection is making sure there is a license attached to each account, via server-side authentication. You can sign in and play your game on as many systems as possible, but you have to have a license attached to your account. Of course, this only works for online games, and is relatively useless for offline titles. "You can install on as many systems as you want... whereever you want to," Johnston says. The game simply authenticates whenever you log into the online servers. "This is really IP protection," he says, admitting that DRM is a dirty word.
"Whereas traditionally DRM is really about copy protection, what we're trying to do is license protection," Johnston clarifies. "Make as many copies as you want!" Luehmann stresses.
They tell the story of a publisher who says they'd be the first person to put the game on BitTorrent. "If you can't play the game without a license, it solves my distribution service, I don't care," they quote their source as saying. This again only works with online games, but it's funny to think of publishers encouraging gamers to get the game via BitTorrent, as long as they buy a key.
Game saves will also soon be saved in the cloud, so you can play, save your game at one location, and pick it up at another. There will be the ability to sell in-game items directly through the games. Does this sound like any other PC gaming platform you know?
"We obviously pay attention to what Steam is doing... in some cases we do compete with Steam, and in some areas we'd love to see them continue to do what they're doing." They both stress that Steam is great for the Windows Gaming ecosystem. "From a Windows platform perspective? Steam is fantastic."
I ask about Games for Windows, and Games for Windows Live being more deeply integrated into Windows 7 to get gameplay entwined into the OS. "Say hello to my friend, the Department of Justice," Luehmann says, laughing darkly.
