Just like in real life, the people who are usually the least trusting are the ones that can be least trusted. So all this DRM means to me is that people feel that the products they produce are such low quality that they must screw over customers so it doesn’t get stolen. If these companies were to find a product that provides such rich content that it cannot be copied, it would be the perfect copy-protection, like you said.

Unfortunately mass-production means that these companies, because of under-capacity and low margins, simply don’t have the ability to provide rich content, which leaves room for smaller companies to provide such a service instead.

The other side of the coin to this is that as a companies production increases, their customer service usually goes down. At least, I think so. I would love to hear examples where this is not the case. I’m sure Apple is an example, but they are still at 10% market-share and have a fixed number of platforms to support.

The sad situation of adventure gaming today is well known and discussed a lot all around the web, but in my post I wanted to bring out the possibilites of episodic, casual gaming (spending 15 min bursts with a game, like Wii Sports, instead of multi-hour sessions, like most new games seem to expect, even Psychonauts) in the world of internet connected consoles in our living rooms.

The other point I was aiming at was how in niche markets superior customer or community service might be the key for success. I mean, Telltale wants returning customers, it’s their lifeline. Compare this to the fiasco with Vista Ultimate Extras. This is the way companies usually treat their loyal community base. DRM music? Sony’s rootkit fiasco? PS3′s blinking HDCP copy protection fiasco? Starforce copy protection screwing with your computer settings?

Even in this detail Telltale made the right call. You needed to activate the downloaded episodes for obvious reasons, but the games on the DVD have no copy protection. Thank you Telltale for not treating your customers as thiefs. This means also that in the future someone might be able to reverse-engineer them a la ScummVM.

Activation-based copy protections are not future-proof and I’d like to fantasise this is one of the main reasons Telltale left them off the physical DVD.

Still, I recently came across a game called Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy), by a Frenchman called David Cage (great interview here ), and it renewed my hope in gaming somewhat. It offers a puzzling story, multiple endings, and an innovative way to control characters during certain situations. Really an amazing game, also for PC, I think!