One of the big issues creating something of a barrier for PC gaming is widespread piracy. As one of the biggest devs to express a commitment to the PC game biz, what does BioWare (getting set to show us some more Dragon Age tomorrow, by the way) feel is the best strategy for combating it?
MTV Multiplayer asked BioWare co-CEO Ray Muzyka, and he says the key is pretty simple: make it worth the customer's while to buy the product, with ongoing DLC releases, an enduring multiplayer experience and a good relationship with the players:
"We're doing a lot of post-release downloadable content on all of our PC titles going forward," said BioWare co-CEO Ray Muzyka to me last week. "We think it's a good thing to encourage players to make them want to buy a PC title. That's ultimately the best, most successful path to prevent piracy is to have players that want your games, want to believe in them and think they're high-quality and realize they're going to get a lot of value out of them as platforms for long time afterwards."
Muzyka also told Multiplayer that we can expect Dragon Age to follow the same long-tail pattern as Mass Effect. Now that online play and downloadable content is such a huge part of gaming's business model, PC games seem to be leading the shift away from the idea of a game as a one-off retail product and more towards the idea of "software as a service," which is a win-win situation.
BioWare's Answer To PC Piracy: DLC, Multiplayer, Loyal Fans [MTV Multiplayer]