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Last updated on: April 21, 2023
Digital rights management (DRM) solutions have evolved in many ways in recent years. They have had to evolve in order to combat the increasing threat of piracy and scammers. Today, video games are the most pirated pieces of digital media content. Yet many within the video game industry have yet to take the necessary steps to secure their digital rights and intellectual property (IP).
Video game developers and publishers both suffer when piracy is allowed to run rampant throughout the industry. One of the best ways to combat scammers and safeguard your IP is via a DRM protection solution. So, how can DRM protection be applied to video games? And, why should your business take action today and start investing in the best DRM solutions?
In this blog, we’ll be discussing how game developers and publishers can benefit from DRM protection in video games, including topics such as:
For many years, the video games industry has been targeted by scammers and bad actors. To further complicate things, there is a culture of piracy within the video games industry that is to some extent normalized. Indeed, 1 in 10 gamers illegally downloaded or played a pirated copy of a video game in 2022. With this level of piracy, what can video game developers and publishers do to protect themselves?
At Red Points, we believe the most effective solution is to incorporate a Digital Rights Management (DRM) platform into your workflow. DRM protection in video games is generally used in relation to copy protection and technical protection.
Video game companies will use DRM protection to limit the ability of pirates to manipulate, copy, and misuse game content and data. DRMs will be used to validate that the user of the game has a license for their purchase – ensuring that pirates cannot use or sell unauthorized copies of the game.
In practice, when a user launches a game, the DRM platform will check the license associated with the account. If the DRM finds a legitimate match it will launch the game. If the DRM does not find a license, then the game will not launch. This will prevent pirated versions from functioning. The impact will extend further because users will be deterred from engaging with pirates, scammers, and shady marketplaces if they know that they will not be able to play the game.
In an increasingly digital world, DRM protection limits the avenues scammers can use to pirate video games. From a wider perspective, this will mean that developers and publishers will be able to make cost-effective Anti Piracy decisions while at the same time focusing on making the version of the video game they want to make.
DRM protection is also good for video game consumers who want to have a good user experience. With DRM protection the power is in the hands of the developer and publishers. If they can be assured that their users are engaging with legitimate versions of their games they can then dedicate more time and resources to making quality-of-life improvements to the game. DRM protection is a win-win scenario for gamers and game companies because it cuts out the opportunity for scammers to take advantage of either party.
The direct effect of DRM protection is that less money is lost to scammers and pirated games. Scammers will be limited in their ability to sell unauthorized versions of the game because DRM protection will restrict the game’s functionality. Ultimately, this will allow developers and publishers to forecast and receive the revenue they expect. The obvious impact of this will be that staff can get paid and, on top of that, businesses can reinvest this revenue into producing more exciting and creative games.
DRM protection ensures that you can provide a consistent and enjoyable user experience. If there are pirated versions of your game on the market you have no control over the quality or type of experience the gamer has. DRM protection makes sure that users are funneled toward an experience that developers and publishers can control, adapt and improve.
When piracy is allowed to run free and untethered, many users will have a bad experience with your game and they will form a bad image of the brand. This will result in an increased number of complaints and correspondence to your customer support team.
Often your customer support team will not have the capacity to deal with queries about piracy and scams because such questions will usually fall outside the scope of their expertise. This will lead to your customer support team dealing with unsustainable levels of stress. A DRM platform will limit the number of gaming complaints and reduce the overall level of stress for your customer support team.
Competition is a vital part of the gaming industry. Most gamers get their enjoyment from competing against other games. However, this system only works if the competition is fair. DRM protection can help to uphold a good level of fairness by reducing the opportunities for game cracking. When a game is cracked it can be manipulated to give the user an unfair advantage, especially in online play. DRM protection prevents widespread game cracking which results in less cheating and a more rewarding competitive gaming experience.
Red Points’ DRM software is tailored to ensure that you can protect your content and pursue bad actors. We can protect your content via 3 simple and effective steps:
Empowered by automated bots and machine learning, our detection service scans online marketplaces and social media 24/7. We are constantly detecting potential infringement and using photo analysis to enhance every search. We can also monitor for individuals attempting to circumvent our DRM software.
We then focus on retrieving real evidence and reporting the infringements. We run test purchases and verify how your video game software is being sold. You then have the ability to set high-risk shortlists to prioritize potential infringements and capture all the relevant details.
Once you confirm that it is in fact a genuine infringement then we immediately move forward to our takedown process, which is done entirely by Red Points on your behalf.
As stated above, once an infringement is verified by you as the IP owner, then we immediately initiate our automated takedown process. We will block and takedown any infringing activation keys that violate your rights or threaten your brand. After enforcement, you can assess the impact of the DRM software via insightful reports and useful digital dashboards.
With the threat of video game piracy looming, the best protection game developers and publishers can employ is a sophisticated and modern DRM. Red Points’ DRM software enables businesses to protect their revenue, ensure a consistent user experience, reduce customer support issues, and enforce a fair gaming environment.
Through detection, validation, and enforcement our DRM software can help game developers and publishers safeguard their software. To learn more about our DRM solution, get in contact with us today.
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