Namco Bandai Partners supports 'always on' DRM, for now

Namco Bandai Partners, the former Atari Europe operation acquired by Namco Bandai last year, is a bit more supportive of Ubisoft's "always on" DRM for PC games than Blizzard -- but only a bit. Speaking to CVG, Namco Bandai Partners VP Olivier Comte called the technology "a good [approach] for one reason: I have no alternative today." He added that it's "certainly not" the best option, and "if I can make something else I'll do it, but it's better to do something than not do something."

It seems likely, then, that the same kind of DRM that has beset the PC versions of Assassin's Creed 2 and Settlers 7 will be present in Namco Bandai's Test Drive Unlimited 2 and The Witcher 2, at least in Europe.

Despite his reluctant adoption of DRM, Comte lamented the futility of such attempts to curb piracy. "I'm convinced that whatever system you put in place you can be sure that two hours before putting it out it'll be cracked in Russia," he said. "I think that the combat against piracy is very complicated because it's very complicated to explain to a 12-year-old that drag and dropping a file on a PC is piracy -- he was born with this."

[Via Big Download]