BioWare to fight piracy with customer loyalty?

It was not long ago that BioWare, in an effort to curb piracy, announced a controversial security measure that would require users to do an online re-authentication for their games every ten days so that they can continue functioning. The overwhelming outcry from the community led to a quick backtracking of their plans, opting instead for a friendlier yet still flawed system.

The tone at BioWare has changed quite a bit, it seems. It turns out that the developer now says it has an alternative strategy to combat piracy: provide add-on content for its games, access to multiplayer and simply promote consumer loyalty.

Indeed this could be the most successful path to prevent piracy, but I’ll skeptically wait for the studio to back its claims when it releases Dragon Age tomorrow. Certainly some type of built-in copy protection is due, I just hope it is not as draconian as in the PC version of its sci-fi RPG Mass Effect.