Canada Added to Priority Watch List for Pirating

I wrote this up a few days ago, but completely forgot to post it. No need to be wasteful though, right? So, here’s the article:

Canada has been added to the Priority Watch List for offending nations who are just pirating far too much IP from US companies.for offending nations who are just pirating far too much IP from US companies. Our happy, hockey-loving neighbors to the north are joining the ranks of nations such as China, India, Thailand, Russia and seven others. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has come out to praise the move with their statement that “Canada’s weak laws and enforcement practicies foster game piracy in the Canadian market and pave the way for unlawful imports into the US.” Harsh words, indeed.

Now, I have an interest in game development. I’m doing a bit of indie development currently as well. Admittedly, my world view isn’t colored by working for a large company that could certainly feel threatened by piracy, but I find myself rolling my eyes at this news. I don’t support piracy, personally. I happily buy my music from Emusic, get my TV shows and movies from Hulu and Netflix, and I tend to purchase my games from Steam or your standard brick and mortar store. That said, this bit of news just makes me consider the current state of the game industry when it comes to piracy. I am, after all, opinionated when it comes to keeping games (and other media) easily usable, and an enjoyable non-hassle for legit consumers.

I understand that the ESA and other companies want to do something to lessen piracy. Yet, I just keep finding myself more and more irritated with the steps that some games take these days. Nasty DRM is bad enough, but the desire to kill off the secondary market (even if I’ve never purchase a used game in my life) also irritates me. Lets not even talk about the use of Downloadable Content as a tool to enforce all of this – and I’m still quite sore my copy of FallOut 3 for the PS3 will never see any of those happy DLC add-on packs, but that really is a separate issue. This kind of stuff is just irritating for the actual, honest consumer and makes the game industry seem a bit more… well, I guess like every other form of media.

The music industry has started to loosen up on a few of these issues, but I’m curious what the game industry will end up doing over time.

None of this really had much to do with that Canada thing though, eh? Ah well. Who wants to talk about Canada anyway?