Lately I’ve had a lot of really good experiences regarding DRM, or should I say, the lack thereof.
In reverse order, I just got through playing Unreal Tournament 3 and had a blast. In the past I was used to installing Unreal Tournament 2004 (Amazon.com, GoG.com), installing the latest patch and I was good to go, no need to keep the cd around.
With 2008 being the year of DRM revival, I was a little worried that I would be hunting down another NO-CD just to play without having my disc in the drive.
But no, I was pleasantly surprised to find that wasn’t the case. I installed from disc, used the latest patch and added the Titan Pack. The first time I launched the game it wanted my key and after that, I was good to go; I haven’t been prompted since.
Then there are the digital downloads I’ve gotten myself into lately, Good Old Games and the Blizzard Store.
Good Old Games
This Thursday I was waiting with baited breath to see what publisher Good Old Games was going to announce in their latest publisher lineup, and was surprised to see that it was Ubisoft.
I shouldn’t have been as they’ve been on a DRM-free streak lately:
- Prince of Persia 2008
- Tom Clancy’s EndWar
- World in Conflict: Complete Edition
- Tom Clancy’s HAWX
- Shaun White Snowboarding
This article sums up the recent Ubisoft releases on GoG.com and includes comments from some of the GoG.com staff.
When I refreshed the homepage for what was possibly the 20th time that day, I saw the news and immediately added Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Beyond Good and Evil (recommended by a friend) to my collection. I was psyched. 
A month prior I bought Spellforce Platinum for myself and Simon the Sorcerer for the wife. Both have turned out to be good games and I’ve certainly not regretted purchasing them.
Blizzard Store
I had heard of downloading games from the Blizzard Store and had heard rumors that the games were DRM free, but I had yet to try it for myself. Well, last week I finally did so. While searching for information regarding Warcraft 2 Battle.net edition, I came upon a forum where someone was having trouble installing from an old disc of theirs. They got several suggestions that they use their cd code and register it on their Blizzard account. They could then download and install from the downloaded copy.
I did a test using my Starcraft cd and it was very painless. More importantly though I did not find any DRM nor any phone-home attempts from the digital copy. I even found mention in the EULA that I could still resell my game (there was a mention of a possible fee though), and the install package could be backed up (burned to media, etc) and installed without an Internet connection. I was floored. I immediately went and registered Diablo 2 + expansion, and Warcraft 3. I will be tempted to purchase Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 digitally on release from their store, but even if I don’t, I’ll be registering them ASAP.
Kudos to Blizzard for serving both their own interests (having the user register the game) and their customers (ability to redownload in the future, back it up to media and not require a net connection).
Other
Last but not least I have Spellforce 2 Gold that arrived today and I’m about to install it. Scanning it with PROTECTiON iD shows just a simple serial check, so it looks like I have yet another DRM-free title in the collection.
Awesome is just too small a word for this.
