DRMs are one of the most persistent woes in gaming for close to two decades–originally intended to curb piracy for good, the implementation of many DRMs have ended up punishing the legitimate customers in many different ways. And one of the biggest offenders in DRM solutions today are Denuvo–something that is proven to cause a dip in FPS in almost all the games that use it. But if the reports are true, a new DRM could be on it’s way to the Playstation platform and could prove to be a lot more worse, for all gamers in the near future.
According to several players on the Sony platform, a timer has been added in their digital games which requires them to check-in via an active internet connection once every 30 days in order to keep their licenses active. A recent video from Modded Warfare claims that the strange (and draconian) DRM only occurs in case of the latest 13.5 firmware for the consoles.
A recent tweet by @ManFightDragon, explained the new DRM aptly: “Hugely terrible DRM has now been rolled out to all PS4 and PS5 digital games. Every digital game you buy now requires an online check-in every 30 days. If you buy a digital game and don’t connect your console to the internet for 30 days, your license will be removed.”
However, according to @DoesItPlay1, the DRM issue is completely unintentional and based on words from an anonymous insider: “Sony accidentally broke something while fixing an exploit. They’ve known about the confusing UI for a while, but didn’t see it as urgent. Hoping for a clarifying statement now.”
There hasn’t been any official statement from Sony on this but even if it actually turns out to be totally unintentional and nothing but a bug, it’s still alarming for multiple valid reasons.
One of the biggest drawbacks of modern gaming is that almost all of the control lies with the companies or publishers and almost none with the actual players. It’s already accepted that if you buy a game today, you only acquire it’s license and not the actual product itself. And even glimpses of DRMs like these make it so that you lose all control and ownership on that license too which is just completely wrong in so many levels.
