Excuses on the High Seas

[Anton P. Nym]

The economic downturn is visible to the consumer, you have an immediate effect on your wallet and jobs are being lost daily. The movie industry then claims to lose $1,000,000,000+ to piracy, next in the news Hollywoods 100 million dollar movie has smashed records and made a gross of 150 million, their CEO is giving himself a $100,000 bonus this year and they've just signed deals to pay some actor $1,000,000 per week!

Piracy is a scapegoat, the movie/gaming industry isn't losing much if any money to it and they continue to release AAA titles and huge budget movies and continue to report even bigger profits. They make a big deal of piracy because no. of downloads x price is a big number but even if piracy was wiped out overnight, they wouldn't see a penny of that figure entering their figures.

In a limited sense I agree. The industry is still somewhat profitable despite piracy, spokesmen have made the issue out to be worse than it is while diluting their message with big sales numbers, and they've done such a clumsy job of combating piracy that they're alienating some of their honest customers.

However, it's the details where I disagree that change my point of view.

The industry is still profitable because it works on the "hit" model; one massive success brings in tons of sales, a few middling titles break even more-or-less, and a bunch of lesser titles crash-and-burn... but so long as the massive success is massive enough, the studio (or publisher) can still make money. Illustrative point to hand: Microsoft Game Studios sales figures for 2007 were skewed massively by the release of one title, Halo 3. The skew was big enough that game sales for 3rd quarter of 2008 appear to be down from last year for the console industry as a whole. As proud as that makes me as a Bungie fan, it's not a sign of a healthy industry when one title can so distort it.[sup]*[/sup]

Piracy won't kill the hits; they will indeed keep selling. Piracy also won't kill the duds because the duds are already dead. But piracy's effect on margins could tip the balance on a middling title from break-even to money-eater, and that's where it really hurts.

A variant of the "hit" model is Blizzard making money hand-over-fist because they have World of Warcraft; the secret to its profitability is their subscription model, wherein you have to pay not only the software cost (and upgrades) but also on a monthly basis to access the WoW servers. A steady income stream from loyal customers pays their bills, so they can take risks on other titles; and it's a revenue stream that pirates can't sap.[sup]**[/sup] No wonder Activision wanted to aquire/merge with them, and why other companies are trying to compete in the MMO sphere for some of that assured income.

The effect of piracy isn't to kill the industry, not overall. The effect is to change the industry by making it tougher for small studios to keep going, making it more attractive to big studios to focus on "blockbuster" games with the broadest possible appeal, and driving developers more and more to the "game as service" model reflected by browser games and MMOs.

If you want fewer people making big games, more generic big games, and more ad-supported or pay-to-play games, then by all means keep pirating.

-- Steve

[sup]*[/sup] As a side point to this, the public tends to fall for the lottery fallacy; people remember the big hits, and assume they're the norm because they forget about the failures. That's a problem in public perception, and it's exacerbated by studio and publisher PR campaigns that try to portray themselves in the best light by sweeping the failures under the rug.

[sup]**[/sup] Indeed, their problem is ruffians and scoundrels paying them money in order to sell virtual merchandise to those steady customers.

 

[DaveMc]

I'd like to see piracy suddenly become exponentially more popular and so common that it would crash the entire entertainment industry and all production of games, movies, tv-shows and music would grind to a halt. Then, by the power of immense unsatisfied demand, a new media made for the people by the people would emerge. People would only pay if they want to, there would be donator unions forming which seek to get 10$ from a million people so a new game can be developed, there would be more low budget, fresh and innovative titles, though less high profile high graphics games.

I'd like that, too. Also, I'd like a pony.

More seriously, I think it's perfectly possible for an alternative media "by the people for the people" to emerge (in fact, cheap online distribution by small companies is already a step in this direction), but I wouldn't hold my breath for it to emerge because of the demise of traditional Big Gaming. Big, complex games of the type many people really enjoy are inherently high budget operations, and I don't think demand for them will sudden vanish.

 

[Say Anything]

Funny you should drop a link to the World of Goo site and yet fail to read what they have to say about Piracy and why they consider DRM is a "waste of time and money"...

http://2dboy.com/2008/11/13/90/

Note that World of Goo is the second best seller at Amazon after WotLK.

Smart man. I suppose you don't know that World of Goo has an 82% piracy rate. [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/11/15/world-of-goo-piracy-rate-82/]

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

Although, if you download the game and it works, are you then honest enough to run to the store and Do The Right Thing?

For what it's worth I've done this before. I think I've pirated 2 games in my lifetime, both of which once I got through the first "level" I bought it from whichever digital distribution store it was on. For Dead Space, it was direct to drive, and then it came on Steam a month later, which made me wish I was a bit more patient.

 

[ShadowKirby]

I honestly hope publishers bite the dust soon. Sure the big name titles will disappear, but is that such a bad thing? Who the hell wants to play the 27th iteration of some FPS with moderately improved graphics?

According to sales charts, a lot.

But man, what the holy fuck. Pirates are not some sort of freedom fighters sticking it to the man. They copy games because they are too cheap to buy them. It is not a statement against corporations. If you were so against the evil corporations I doubt you would post here with your high-end PC. The Che would probably get out of it's grave and kick your ass.

 

[Ray Huling]

The industry is still profitable because it works on the "hit" model;

I'm not so sure about that.

The largest game companies have drawn record revenues and suffered record losses, precisely because they've invested in the hit model, but don't quite know how to make it work.

Piracy did not make this happen. Nor did the economic downturn, if you believe the argument made in Slate last week. Here's the nut from that piece:

how can publishers lose money amid such incredible sales and record growth? The answer is simple: They're spending more than they're bringing in. Game development budgets have ballooned, and publishers are reeling because they can't keep the costs under control.

so long as the massive success is massive enough, the studio (or publisher) can still make money.

This is precisely what's in dispute.

The game companies think that the only way to make money is to load up on a killer ap, but they've consistently underestimated the cost of producing a blockbuster. Here's the argument from GTAIV, again from Slate:


Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV, released last May, is the prime example of a blockbuster game. GTA IV sold 6 million copies during its first week, bringing in $500 million. True to form, it cost Rockstar $100 million to produce, 1,000 people worked on the project, and it took three-and-a-half years to complete. Six months later, sales began to founder--a major setback to a publisher that bet the farm on the title and predicted sales throughout 2009.

But piracy's effect on margins could tip the balance on a middling title from break-even to money-eater, and that's where it really hurts.

You're saying this, but you're not providing any evidence for it.

If you want fewer people making big games, more generic big games, and more ad-supported or pay-to-play games, then by all means keep pirating.

Again, there's no reason to believe this. A better argument would be that bigger, more generic games result from investment in blockbusters, which has nothing to do with piracy.

The problem is that the video game industry doesn't understand its own sales. Yes; video game revenues exceeded those of film DVDs for the first time this year--a natural development as game revenues have long exceeded movie box office. But look at the number of sales.

GTAIV has sold about 10 million copies. The Dark Knight sold 23 million tickets in its opening weekend and has moved 12 million DVDs to date. Video games are not as popular as the game industry thinks. This misunderstanding lies at the heart of the publishers' woes, not piracy.

 

[Arsen]

So I should HAVE to pay for something that is horrible? Sorry, but just because software is easier to copy doesn't mean I shouldn't be guaranteed a full product to my consumer satisfation. That's basically the videogame company telling me they don't have to give me a quality product and I should accept every single game as a modern day FF7 out of sheer mercy to the dollars they've lost.

I've never pirated and fully agree on paying for what I want, whether it be a music CD, movie, book, ticket for a concert, etc etc etc... however there comes a time to where the videogame companies need to assume responsibility and not make me pay for a product that isn't worthy of dollar. If I am going to upgrade a PC or buy an enitire console I'd BETTER be getting my moneys worth. Otherwise they are ripping me off.

And where's the "You can't rent PC games" option?

 

[Arsen]

Edited.

 

[Odjin]

I just want to try it out, and if I like the game I pay for it.
Counter-Question. If the publisher refuses to give out a demo and therefore strips you from any chance to judge if a game (1) runs or (2) is fun, is it still incorrect to shoot back by stripping them from any chance to get your money? I know it's a gray area but I remember times where demos of games had been the defacto standard. Nowadays publishers seem to think customers are pricks that can be milked by serving products they can't be held reliable for. Nearly all games ( except some due to recommendation from friends or having played it there ) I bought so far has been because the demo convinced me.

No offense to you in particular, but I'm really sick of hearing this excuse about lack of demos. If after reading 3 or 4 well written reviews you still can't decide if you'll enjoy a game, you need to explore your taste in videogames more.

Let's clear up a couple of points since you got something wrong here. You mention reviews. The intention of a review is to give you a textual description of what a demo does. Now comes the problem or in fact they are more than one. Reviewers have to express their feeling and views of the game in words. As we all know speech is a very inappropriate way to convoy these informations. So it is next to impossible to get a clear idea if a game really is good or not since reviews are always written by the colored-glasses syndrom ( meaning, the text is biased by the writter and read biased by the reader ). So reviews are totally useless to get an educated idea about a game. And worst comes last the majority of reviewers are prone to the glamour-bandwagon syndrom which means they have to give positive or even hyping reviews to games to not loose their position ( see the drama about lynch and kane back then ).

So in the end reviews are utterly useless. They are not worth more than a piece of toilet paper. The only thing which can give a you real educated and correct view of a game is a demo. There is no other way. Even trailers are worse than reviews in that they show just what the game creators want to show us. But with a demo you see anything: the good and the bad ( no pun intended ). You get to see what they want to hide from you with sugar talking. And then you often see how a game does suck even though the reviews tell you it's the next best thing since sliced bread.

So I reject your attack on the opinion of people about demos. The miss of them is a problem due to the above mentioned reasons.

 

[Odjin]

Abandonware
That's quite a gray-gray area you mentioned there. Honestly I don't know exactly how the legal situation works out there. Can rights on a game run out over time? Can it run out if the company producing the game doesn't exist anymore? What if the game can no more be bought anymore? There exists an association in the states trying to deny any use of games after their date ran out but what use is a game you can no more obtain unless from an abandonware site?

Actually, it's not gray at all, here in the US. Pretty much all games are still under copyright protection, unless they've been explicitly released by the authors/developers, and consequently, distribution of said titles is illegal.

Yes, copyrights are supposed to expire, however Berne convention compliance removed the need for specific registration, while there have been several extensions to the original term of 26 years. I believe the current term is 90 years, though I think the term was only 50 at the inception of the video game age. In fact, this was one of the arguments in the Grokster case, that while Congress did have the authority to extend copyright term limits, the perpetual extension of unexpired terms was unconstitutional, as the explicit intent of copyright was for a "limited term."

Now, as for the specific companies in question, many are still around, though in significantly different form (Atari, Activision), many are owned by EA (Origin), in some instances, the creators have reacquired the rights to their titles (Intellivision), and in many instances, the rights exist solely in the back of some file drawer in a liquidation company or bankruptcy attorney's file cabinet.

All that being said, while the illicit copying of abandonware is strictly illegal, when there's nothing being legitimately marketed, it's kind of hard to argue that there's any sort of moral infraction, though it can be argued that such distribution harms the development of any future markets for such titles. But that doesn't seem to have been the case to date.

There's an additional type of abandonware that rarely gets mentioned. Unlike original titles, games that rely on third party licenses are typically only licensed for a limited term, so all those Pern games, and Trillium software's sf adaptations will likely never see rerelease, as you would not only have to negotiate with the current holders of the game rights, you would also have to relicense the IP tie in.

Don't know the system in America as I'm from the other end of the world but in economics if a company does not protect their IP/license/patent whatever then they silently agree to give it up altogether. Hence if game companies do not care about their old and abandoned games to be distributed for free this would turn their rights nonexistent. Conflicts somewhat with this "automatic 50 years protected" rule up there. As far as I know though abandonware sites are not shut down as long as they do not host games of publishers in I think EAS or something it's named ( this association thing EA is part of too ).

 

[Say Anything]

I just want to try it out, and if I like the game I pay for it.
Counter-Question. If the publisher refuses to give out a demo and therefore strips you from any chance to judge if a game (1) runs or (2) is fun, is it still incorrect to shoot back by stripping them from any chance to get your money? I know it's a gray area but I remember times where demos of games had been the defacto standard. Nowadays publishers seem to think customers are pricks that can be milked by serving products they can't be held reliable for. Nearly all games ( except some due to recommendation from friends or having played it there ) I bought so far has been because the demo convinced me.

No offense to you in particular, but I'm really sick of hearing this excuse about lack of demos. If after reading 3 or 4 well written reviews you still can't decide if you'll enjoy a game, you need to explore your taste in videogames more.

So reviews are totally useless to get an educated idea about a game.

...they show just what the game creators want to show us. But with a demo you see anything: the good and the bad ( no pun intended ). You get to see what they want to hide from you with sugar talking.

Red: Really? Do you base your decisions off of one review or something? Is it supposed to be a coincidence that every game I've bought within the last two years I've enjoyed? Is it a coincidence that before picking up the game I search around the web and see what it's like and how other people are feeling about it? I'm not saying you should go see the starred review at Popular Game Website, but if you look at what twenty other gamers who have two hands and two feet just like you, you should be able to develop a sense of how the game plays and what is good and bad about it. If someone tells you Game is the most innovative and enjoying game they've ever played and you go out and drop $60 on it, that's your fault. You should've read the other 19 reviews stating they killed the franchise, and realized "hey, this sounds like everything I hate in a game. I shouldn't go out and purchase this."

Blue: Oh, yes. Because demos are the most unbiased form of game testing, huh?

 

[Odjin]

Oh I have plenty of downloaded MP3s on my hard drive. All legit. Emusic is pretty decent.

And you know why many don't? MP3 is a shit format. If you have good ears like I do you know what I talk about. If they would start selling OGG then we could talk business. And reencoding to OGG sucks ( encoded reencoded is worse than encoded ).

And you apparantly don't even know what piracy is. Recording a show off of the TV isn't piracy, it's time shifting, there are a number of court rulings backing that up.

It's the same as with the old cassettes for taping audio or the VCR tapes. You record it for later use being it once or multiple times. These court rules are as mushy as the laws they are based upon. Taping is a form of piracy even though a tolerated one. And this is accepted by the publishers. Do you know why? Cassettes or VCR tapes contain an extra fee which is the "copyright" fee. With other words with every cassette or VCR tape you buy you pay an extra fee for potential piracy. Funny not? It's in the system yet you deny it.

And no, I don't record songs off the radio, quality is crap, and I support artists by purchasing.

Radio stations pay fees to be allowed to air their music. And depending on the country ( as in mine ) you pay for the right to listen to radio stations. So you have already payed for all this. Where's the deal? Since otherwise you would be pirating already while listening to the radio station at all.

I don't photocopy full books, I buy them or use the library.

You obviously never did studies don't you? Any page copied from a book is potential piracy ( unless covered with proper credits to avoid plagiarism ). I can't count the tons of page papers I had ( or received from the prof ) to copy during my studies being it for exercise articles or exams. It's a hypocrite attitude to think you never pirated a page of a book. Again it's a form of tolerated piracy but one nevertheless.

And I don't borrow games, nor anything else, really. I have this funny attitude of if I need or want something, I'll go out and get my own rather than being a sponge on the people around me. Call it odd, if you will.

So you are a cat-in-the-bag man? Buying anything without knowing if it is good? I doubt it. How often comes a friend like "hey seen this? it's cool". You plug it in your machine and test it. And hey if it's really good get your own copy ( so you can play online against your buddy ) or wipe it from your PC since it sucks. Where in gods name is there a problem? It's like borrowing a car to your buddy. Although it's registered on your name he can take it for a drive to fetch his girl friend. People totally overrate this borrowing. Do you know that games even used this to their advantage? N.I.C.E. for example allowed to borrow a copy of the game to your pal and you could even play together ( 2 players only with the same CD ). And guess what, it works. People should not blind themselves to such things as there exist various funny ways to make things work in economies.

I'm a content creator myself you see.

Me too, so I take the right to call that rubbish you just said

Hopefully, once you grow up and get a job, you'll actually find that the customers value what you produce enough to pay you what you ask for it.. rather than just thinking they're entitled to it because.. hey.. you've already done it anyway.

You don't know economics obviously. It's called win-win. If I assign the same value to a product as you do and I'm willing to pay we have win-win ( I get entertainment value, you get monetary value ). But if your product fails to deliver then I'm not willing to pay. No win-win, no contract, no sales. If I then happen to buy ( which can be for 0.- ) at the competitor ( let's say some warez page ) then you did not have an attractive enough product to fulfill the win-win situation. So the trick is to be better than your competitor and this doesn't mean to be 0.- or anything like that. It means to make a product/service where the customer is willing to pay your demanded price for. And if you fail at offering a win-win to a customer then you do not have to be astonished if they switch over to the competitors.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

so long as the massive success is massive enough, the studio (or publisher) can still make money.

This is precisely what's in dispute.

The game companies think that the only way to make money is to load up on a killer ap, but they've consistently underestimated the cost of producing a blockbuster. Here's the argument from GTAIV, again from Slate:

Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV, released last May, is the prime example of a blockbuster game. GTA IV sold 6 million copies during its first week, bringing in $500 million. True to form, it cost Rockstar $100 million to produce, 1,000 people worked on the project, and it took three-and-a-half years to complete. Six months later, sales began to founder--a major setback to a publisher that bet the farm on the title and predicted sales throughout 2009.

The model they're (and I was) templating from is the movie and book industries. It's possible that it doesn't translate perfectly to games... and I certainly don't dispute that production budgets have spiralled thanks to the requirements of ever-higher resolutions for art assets and other additional costs that come from creating a game to the A or higher standard these days.

Still, I'd miss the A titles if they were gone... and if us consumers don't support those A titles (while falsely signalling to the industry what that support is by using so many unauthorised copies, and while whinging more and more over polycounts and framerates) the A titles can't last, as you point out.

But piracy's effect on margins could tip the balance on a middling title from break-even to money-eater, and that's where it really hurts.

You're saying this, but you're not providing any evidence for it.

The closer a title gets to the "break even" point, the more weight small factors that affect revenue have to tip the balance between "slender profit" and "loss". I was going by arithmetic there; even if piracy has a small effect (which I dispute, but alas have no statistics to back up) that effect is particulary magnified on titles which already have small margins.

Of course, if you have statistics that indicate that piracy is benign then please bring them up. I admit that my objection to piracy is primarily a moral one (it just feels deeply wrong to me to take advantage of others' efforts without contributing something back in return) but I don't see how piracy could not have an adverse effect on the industry.

-- Steve

 

[Odjin]

Red: Really? Do you base your decisions off of one review or something? Is it supposed to be a coincidence that every game I've bought within the last two years I've enjoyed? Is it a coincidence that before picking up the game I search around the web and see what it's like and how other people are feeling about it? I'm not saying you should go see the starred review at Popular Game Website, but if you look at what twenty other gamers who have two hands and two feet just like you, you should be able to develop a sense of how the game plays and what is good and bad about it. If someone tells you Game is the most innovative and enjoying game they've ever played and you go out and drop $60 on it, that's your fault. You should've read the other 19 reviews stating they killed the franchise, and realized "hey, this sounds like everything I hate in a game. I shouldn't go out and purchase this."

I never failed so far at my purchases. But this is NOT because of reviews but because I'm a smart person to especially knows game development. I can see behind the game from various sources and my gut feeling never cheated me so far ( so I smelled crap even if every ass around me hyped it ). But the average Joe out there is not a smart person, is not a game developer, is not a tech-savvy person. He has to find out somehow if he wants to buy it. Reviews nowadays are nearly all hyped and over-positive. Granted if a game really is utterly crap even hype-reviews can't sugar talk it anymore but the majority of over-hyped blockbuster titles which suck major balls don't. Or why do you think so many games end up on second-hand? For sure not because every person in the world is a moron. It's because people are stripped from their chance to make an educated choice and personally I call this a crime on the consumer ( from the perspective of Economic Ethics ).

Blue: Oh, yes. Because demos are the most unbiased form of game testing, huh?

Sure, and you know why? A demo ( usually ) is for example the first chapter of a game or the first 2 or so maps or areas. The demo is supposed to be like the game just with only a small part of the content which can also be not all the possible items/weapons/skills ( for example Puritas Cordis giving you the first chapter or Sacred 2 which gives you 2 towns and skills up to level 20 if I remember correctly ). Granted they could cheat and make something else in the demo but they want to keep costs down so locking down the game to a small part and shipping this as a demo is the cheapest way and also the way which gives the player a 100% accurate view of the game... since it IS the game just locked down in some areas.

 

[matrix3509]

I never said pirates were some sort of freedom fighters, I know most of them are selfish pricks, but so are publishers. Publishers represent everything that is wrong with mainstream gaming, by re-releasing the same fucking game every year with minor graphical improvements, they are only stagnating the market. The hardcore gaming philosophy is a self-defeating one, in which all major publishers seem intent to exploit to their graves. So yes, the faster the publishers, and by association the hardcore gaming subset, dies, the faster new opportunities open up for the smaller developers. The current gaming market is currently built around one philosophy: exploit, exploit, exploit. Meaning they just exploit the current subset of hardcore gamers, which consequently, is growing smaller every year because of this philosophy.

The sooner the industry gets away from the chimps upstairs making the decisions, and back to making original games, the more stable and widely accepted the industry will be.

 

[1ronJ4m]

Hmm, nice thread, I agree with it. But, you forgot one type of pirate: the one who doesn't make excuses. I pirate games and movies and music. I know it's illegal and I have no right to do it. And I know it isn't right. Yet, I download them all.

-No excuses.

 

[Art Axiv]

and has a huge shelf of 100% legit games - most of which weren't worth the money.

I'm sorry for your loss of money Shamus. It happens unfortunately, quite often.

 

[jemborg]

Funny you should drop a link to the World of Goo site and yet fail to read what they have to say about Piracy and why they consider DRM is a "waste of time and money"...

http://2dboy.com/2008/11/13/90/

Note that World of Goo is the second best seller at Amazon after WotLK.

Smart man. I suppose you don't know that World of Goo has an 82% piracy rate. [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/11/15/world-of-goo-piracy-rate-82/]

Ah yes, "Rock, Paper, Shotgun", good site. I joined it myself a little while ago.

Ahoy thar matey, I'm not 100% sure of the tone of your post there, but judging from a previous post on this thread I'll assume it was what you think is a brilliant piece of witty sarcasm.

I'm gonna assume a few other things too... 1) You didn't actually follow the link I posted and read it; 2) You didn't bother to read any of the posts following the link you pointed to, including the ones made by other staff members; 3) You might think I am advocating piracy!

If you had read it you might have considered that I believed the piracy rate of WoG was 90%! So thanks for that, it was actually less than I thought lol!

You might have seen that the makers of WoG wrote..."preventing 1000 piracy attempts results in only a single additional sale....people who pirate our game aren't people who would have purchased it had they not been able to get it without paying." The author of the article you link to is not sure what to think... "If piracy figures don't represent lost sales, what do they represent? Is it an indictment of humanity? Are they free advertising? Could 2D BOY have benefited in any way from them? Or are they causing active harm?". Yet significantly, he fails to mention that World of Goo is the second best seller at Amazon after WotLK, and they are very proud of the fact. So it can't be doing them that much harm.

2D BOY goes on to say... "I'm hoping that others will release information about piracy rates so that everyone could see if DRM is the waste of time and money that we think it is." Well, that's what your boys did... and it's 8% less by their estimates! Also what this suggests is that according to 2D BOY's business model having DRM would have cut into their profits!

What I believe is that most media/software distributors are greedy fucking paranoid sociopaths who have had an easy ride for many years and won't adjust to a new environment; that DRM companies have scared them into thinking that they can prevent piracy so that they will buy their stupid product; that they aught to drop litigation lawers and court actions and DRM... pass the savings onto the consumer and drop prices generally; that high prices don't necessarily produce good product, because we wade through tons of shit anyway.

Recently I purchased the lovely Universe Sandbox god simulator, the guy only wanted a donation. I was going to pay only $5 but he begged me (via a couple of popups) for $11.50, amused I took pity and paid him $12. The makers of the very excellent QuickMediaConverter only want a donation and that is listed amongst the top twelve freeware programs at lifehacker.com - I've seen similar programs that do far less and asking for far more. People I know who cheerfully pirate have paid for World of Goo. And even though all my gear is HDCP certified I still have to use AnyDVD HD to play a rented Blu-Ray! Even iTunes have dumped DRM!

Personally, I couldn't really give a toss about piracy. It means fuck all!

You certainly will "Say Anything". How dare I appear to criticise the article you found so "...Extremely well written, and a great message..." you self confessed flamer. All I was doing was providing an interesting adjunct to it- the author doesn't care for DRM. So I have a question... "work for a DRM company by any chance?"

Yes, I am rather smart thanks.