Will Wright says consumers will never accept always-online DRM

Will Wright says Microsoft's decision to back away from always-on DRM was the right thing to do, adding that it was "very impressive" how the Xbox One manufacturer reacted to negative consumer sentiment to its former strategy.

Wright is best known as the creator of The Sims and SimCity franchises. He is currently involved in mobile and social gaming startup Syntertainment.

"From the consumers' point of view, I can really understand a lot of the backlash to DRM," he said in an interview with CNNMoney. "If something's required on the Internet that means they can't play it on the airplane or if their Internet connection goes down.

"It was interesting watching the Microsoft thing," he added. "I thought it was very impressive how responsive Microsoft was to that. Gaming has had a long history of piracy, but you can't use DRM at the expense of the customers. I'm not really sure I have a clear answer to this except that it's going to be something that we slowly acclimate the player base towards."

Wright said that players are happy with always-online when is comes with benefits to them, but will not tolerate being forced to constantly check-in online merely for the benefit of games companies. "It's really not a lot different from if you have an MMO or peer-to-peer game that requires connectivity with other players, but a lot of games don't necessarily require that," he said. "If you're just going to require it for DRM purposes only that's obviously where it upset the consumers."