how can these assholes justify a limit on how many times I install software that I purchase? Yet another company to avoid. Greed surrounds us. We should rise up and lynch mob these fuckers.

or maybe just refuse to buy from them. They don't care about making a good game. They are counting their money before the dev of the game is even started.

This comment was edited on Jan 22, 2010, 18:05.

I think watching this whole thing play out is potentially more fun than Bioshock 2 itself.

Agree

game over, man .. GAME OVER!

I wish they got their story straight. The way I interpret this is that this DRM shit is so fucked up that they don't even know what the fuck is going on.

How many more layers of DRM do you need? Steam (if you get from steam), gfwl, and securom. It's already ridiculous to have the steam overlay and the gfwl overlay at the same time.

Agent.X7 wrote on Jan 21, 2010, 16:27:
It bewilders me that people that have no mastery of the English language get jobs representing companies in public. Yes, not only can you not get your stories straight about how many times this game can be activated, but you also look twice as douchy for incorrectly using "it's" in a sentence.

Better to be to be a douche than to get bent out of shape over one of the most common spelling/grammar errors in the English language. Go take your meds.

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure

Classic!

That made my day thanks!

Creston wrote on Jan 21, 2010, 15:30:

J wrote on Jan 21, 2010, 15:21:
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure

Now wait a minute. This installation has a certain dollar value attached to it!

Nuking the entire site from orbit is worth at least five whole dollars!

Agent.X7 wrote on Jan 21, 2010, 16:27:

That is it's only use

Its = possessive form of it.
It's = IT IS

It bewilders me that people that have no mastery of the English language get jobs representing companies in public. Yes, not only can you not get your stories straight about how many times this game can be activated, but you also look twice as douchy for incorrectly using "it's" in a sentence.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

Verno wrote on Jan 21, 2010, 15:25:
As far as Games for Windows — LIVE is concerned, you can install anywhere you want, as many times as you want.

There's still the limit of one GFWL account per key code, and there's no way to transfer the game to another account once the code has been registered. So, while you can install the game as many times as you like anywhere you want, you can only play it online with the one GFWL account to which it was registered in a supported country.

Another issue to be aware of for non-U.S. buyers or for those from the U.S. who travel internationally is you can't login to your GFWL account from an "unsupported territory" and play the game online. So, if you are in places like South America, Eastern Europe, Russia, or China you can't play online even if you register the game to a GFWL account. And, you won't be able to transfer the registration to another GFWL account so don't register the game if you are in an unsupported country or you will throw away your registration code on an account you can never use.

This comment was edited on Jan 21, 2010, 16:42.

This is actually becoming quite interesting. A few more fuckups and Bioshock 2 might be in the running for the top ten most fucked up launches of all time.

I can't wait for their litany of excuses to explain why the game didn't sell well on the PC.

Creston

My god this is confusing. Why can't they get their fucking story straight? Can I buy this game or not?

That is it's only use

Its = possessive form of it.
It's = IT IS

It bewilders me that people that have no mastery of the English language get jobs representing companies in public. Yes, not only can you not get your stories straight about how many times this game can be activated, but you also look twice as douchy for incorrectly using "it's" in a sentence.

Oh well, I wasn't planning on buying this anyway. I guess I am among the small percentage of gamers that thought Bioshock was crap. (Which sucked, because I liked System Shock 1 & 2 a lot.)

The activations are only account based if it uses what microsoft calls SSA Keys any game prior to GFWL 3.0 or a game that chooses not to use SSA after 3.0 has GFWL activation limits. 2k has said they chose not to use SSA and but seem to have added the new product activation features in GFWL 3.0 (which replaces securom I guess

In other words you know as much as the rest of us and have no idea. It's ok, welcome to the party

Edit: the 5 activations thing is the only one we know for certain isn't true, they corrected that awhile ago.

This comment was edited on Jan 21, 2010, 16:15.

I couldn't resist adding more confusion ...but an Ars Technica article posted about an hour ago says 5 activations (looks to be according to a Steam 'game details' section).

edit: forgot the link...
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/01/bioshock-2-drm-securom-activation-limits-and-bears.ars

This comment was edited on Jan 21, 2010, 16:13.

Verno wrote on Jan 21, 2010, 15:25:
Then Microsoft is lying to someone viper - according to this

Relevant portion:

Will there be a limit to the number of installs?

No. You’ll be able to install anywhere and play anywhere. We will be DRM-agnostic. What I mean by that is, it’s up to the publisher if they want to have off-line copy protection. If they do, there may be some separate copy protection. As far as Games for Windows — LIVE is concerned, you can install anywhere you want, as many times as you want.

2.0 had activation limits, supposedly they abolished that practice with 3.0 last August. If you have information to the contrary then feel free to post it. Elizabeth has posted multiple times over the past week and people need to check post timestamps, she has clarified and corrected herself several times. For example the SSA key thing is from 18 hours ago and she's already posted two updates since then which contradict it.

It's just a giant god damn mess.

I am not even sure the marketing guys at microsoft know how thier system works. SSA keys are the best solution in my opinion. A revoke tool for non ssa keys would be nice as well... would also solve all the dawn of war II issues. Activation time resets would also work say an activation has not been used for a month or 2 it gets credited back.

nullability wrote on Jan 21, 2010, 15:54:
They have moved GFWL activations to be account-based rather than key-based... I had a great time؟ trying to play Universe At War after formatting my computer, since you get a single-use GFWL key that, once used to install a game, can not be used again even if you try to log in to the same account. They have changed this behaviour but their crappy client software and awful launch certainly doesn't instill any feelings of trust toward Microsoft.

The activations are only account based if it uses what microsoft calls SSA Keys any game prior to GFWL 3.0 or a game that chooses not to use SSA after 3.0 has GFWL activation limits. 2k has said they chose not to use SSA and but seem to have added the new product activation features in GFWL 3.0 (which replaces securom I guess

Here is the link to the microsft website that says ssa is optional its down at the very bottom of the page

http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-us/aboutGFW/pages/gfw3intro.aspx

This comment was edited on Jan 21, 2010, 16:15.

Yeah that's what I thought too but he kept bringing up activation limits.

They have moved GFWL activations to be account-based rather than key-based... I had a great time؟ trying to play Universe At War after formatting my computer, since you get a single-use GFWL key that, once used to install a game, can not be used again even if you try to log in to the same account. They have changed this behaviour but their crappy client software and awful launch certainly doesn't instill any feelings of trust toward Microsoft.

This comment was edited on Jan 21, 2010, 15:55.

I think watching this whole thing play out is potentially more fun than Bioshock 2 itself.

J wrote on Jan 21, 2010, 15:21:
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure

Now wait a minute. This installation has a certain dollar value attached to it!

Creston

On one hand, just the notion that there's any kind of install limit bugs me. On the other hand though, I can't think of any game in my life I've ever installed even close to 15 times (the closest I can think of might be a game like Diablo II, but even then, I'm not quite sure it's more than 15).