I’ve had my eye on Torchlight for a while now. I got some Christmas money, and I’ve been thinking about purchasing it. So today I dropped by their site to have a look at the options, and noticed something that makes me really happy about the boxed version (which comes out on the 5th). Something that, for all the accolades I’ve read, I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere.
The boxed version? No DRM.
Now you and I both know that, somewhere around 1:43 AM on the 5th, Torchlight’s DRM-free version will have been ripped to .iso, uploaded to several major torrenting sites, and will be happily on its way to a number of nonpaying customers across the globe. Thing is, I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, and I’m really super glad that Runic Games is taking this approach. (If you want some detailed discussion on the trouble with DRM, I direct you to Shamus Young — this article seems a good summary, but there are also a lot of great articles on his blog. I really don’t feel like going into it here.)
Before, I was thinking maybe I’d buy Torchlight, looks pretty cool, sounds fun. And really, it is right directly up my alley. But just because it’s up my alley doesn’t guarantee I’ll buy it – I might well have just passed it up. I mean, I have Diablo II. I play Crawl more than is really healthy. Dragon Age sounds amazing, but pricey. I wanted Spore really badly for a while, but I got better. But no DRM? I’ve gotta support that.
Of course, it’s worth noting that the digital download version does have DRM. They have an explanation of why in their purchase FAQ, and it sounds reasonable enough to me — I would have done it a bit differently, but then I’m not them. (And how often do we see a rational explanation for DRM ahead of time?) And having some (relatively friendly in today’s market) DRM on the digital version in no way undercuts the sheer awesomeness of the DRM-free physical version.
Go take a look at Torchlight. You might be impressed.