The New York Times recently had a glowing review of “Dawn of Discovery,” a real-time strategy and trading game. The reviewer called it “the best new single-player strategy game I have played in several years.” I am a recovering Civilization III addict, so I stopped by the game’s Amazon.com page to see how much it cost. I was intrigued by the low score the game received (currently two stars), considering the praise it received from the NYT. As of today, it has 34 one-star reviews, more than all the other stars combined!
Looking at the one-star reviews, it becomes easy to see that the game-play or the graphics are not the issue. In fact, some of the reviewers didn’t even buy the game! What made the one-star reviewers so angry was the the game shipped with a particularity restrictive DRM, or Digital Rights Management. DRM is used by some content providers to control the uses to which the end-user might put that particular piece of media. For example, Apple originally sold music through iTunes with DRM protection, thought this is no longer the case.
In this case, the game company limited the number of computers the game could be installed on at one time to three (among other complaints). Here are the first four one-star review, ranked as being the most helpful by other Amazon customers:
- WORST DRM EVER – Avoid like the plague!
- Unable to play game with opressive DRM
- DRM Invalidates Merits of Game
- Almost purchased…glad I read reviews
It looks like a game devoted to creating a trading empire has doesn’t know it own customers very well.
This episode demonstrates both the power of social networks (the Amazon review system, in this case) and the danger of using technologies like DRM. If the one-star reviews had appeared on a specialized techie forum, it is likely that few potential game buyers would have seen them. The overall ranking of the game would have been much higher and more people would have purchased it. Instead, a fairly small group of interested consumers were able to spot the DRM restrictions (not featured in the product description on Amazon.com) and really make an impact. As the people who actually bought and played the game gave it positive reviews, the game company created a negative atmosphere around its game by imposing DRM on the end-users. As many reviewers pointed out, most DRM technologies are quickly beaten by pirates and only effect honest users of the game. And, as more and more content becomes free and easily accessible on the Internet, people will expect the products they spend actual money on to be just as, if not more, end-user friendly. In order to stay in business in a world of social media and new expectations, content providers will have to find a way to sell an easily copied product without alienating their customers with potentially onerous restrictions.
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