So how else are they to prevent hundreds of thousands of people downloading it and installing it without buying it on release day???
How???

Those people are STILL downloading and installing it without buying. The fact the game has SecuROM doesn't mean shit. It's already cracked.

And how to prevent it? I dunno. Make a great game that people will want to play, and stop worrying about the piracy? Oblivion had no copy protection whatsoever, just a simple disc check. It sold... what? Four million + copies?

Stardock has put no copy protection on their Galciv 2 game (nor its expansions). All they asked was that if you install it on multiple PCs, that you please don't play it on those PCs at the same time. There's no check for that. They just asked, and NICELY, I might add.

Galciv2 has sold enough that they've already released several patches that includes tons of new features, they've released a patch that implemented a whole new GRAPHICS ENGINE, and they're working on their second expansion pack.

Much as the publishers would like for you to believe it, it's definitely possible, and FEASIBLE, to release a game without copy protection and still make plenty of money. Bethesda and Stardock have done so, and made out like bandits.

Egosoft, to quote another example, chose to go with Starforce, and found their sales to be very low for X3, partially because of it.
(and partially, I think, because X3 = X2 + better graphics, but okay.)

If I buy a game I expect to be able to install it 75,000 times if I want to, without having to call Pradip in India who doesn't speak english, and having to try to explain to him that if my fucking harddisk dies, it means I have to reinstall shit.

Creston

I just purchased Bioshock off of steam... almost immediately I got a pop-up saying steam was updating itself. I look at what's changed and it says:
"Aug 22 - fix for Bioshock uninstall/reinstall issue"

So hopefully that means that steam will be free of this bullshit.

It prolly won't be long before it is considered to be utterly stupid to buy games on release day if the trend continues, but that's a whole other can o worms.

I dunno... I was pretty happy that Oblivion worked perfectly out-of-the-box and that was a very complicated game by nature. Sure there were patches but they were minor fixes that I didn't need and never bothered with. If a game like that can work well out of the box then I don't think there's much excuse for other developers.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Founder of the "I Hate Smiley Fitz" society

Remember: Riley has autism. He has trouble communicating, and in an overstimulating
environment, he can get frightened and run away, leaving his parents frantic. - Auburn

Seriously, as gamers, we bitched about Starforce for a long, LONG time before companies finally started taking notice.

Actually, I'd like to point to the whole Starforce thing as a giant victory for gamers. Starforce simply got bitched out of the market. That SecuROM readily stepped in with more draconian bullshit is unfortunate, but there's no reason to quit bitching now.

Apoch (from Egosoft) was whining about people boycotting his Starforce infested game on some forum, and got torn THREE new assholes for his trouble. He posted a few days later with a completely different tune.

I pay for games because it's the right thing to do, and because I full well realize that if we don't pay for games, nobody will make new games. However, all this fucking DRM bullshit makes piracy more and more understandable.

Does the crack actually eliminate the whole registration thing? Or does it just get rid of the disc check?

Creston

"I may as well communicate with a wet paper bag. Atleast it wouldn't change the topic to an unrelated plastic bag"

Dude, really, a word of advice: Get someone else to write your wisecracks for you, or at least run them by someone else first. I'm actually starting to feel sorry for you.

I have never see so many news stories for one game on bluesnews in 1 week's time.

Or so many people bitching at one time

All day? I can get XP Pro installed with all current drivers and the apps I deem essential in 11 minutes and 37 seconds, we've timed it.

There are many more ways of installing something than just via disc. I use a network install and even Vista is very quick to reinstall.

You're using a scripted install, then? I've used those in the past for large rollouts, but never found that they installed in 11 minutes and 37 seconds, although obviously processing power and memory have a lot to do with install times.

How long does your Acronis take to restore that bloated image file?

I don't know about Acronis, but Ghost restores my image file in approximately 3 minutes from a SATA drive. I even have the image file on the same drive, it'd go a lot quicker if I moved my backups to my backup drive, presumably.

Creston

so thats your demonstration of "expertise"? the "ground breaking" information that no pirated versions are available on release day means the devs "won" or are "successful"?? i got news for ya, mr. expert - the pirated version of most games are not available till at least one day after release (just like this one) however bioshock WAS available as a pirated 360 release last week... so that just fucks up your little "expert" theory, doesnt it? = unsuccessful

Oh I'm sorry I didn't know you were complaining about Securom and the 2 install limit on the Xbox360. Foolish me, I was talking about the Securom and 2 install limit that this topic is about.

We are talking PC and the security meassures they employed on it which worked. Try and stay on subject when you are making your points. Switching to discussing the 360, which doesn't employ the security measures that are being discussed here in this discussion, continues to show that logic has far less meaning to you than wanting to be right.

Your opinion has some value to it when at least makes some logical sense. I may as well communicate with a wet paper bag. Atleast it wouldn't change the topic to an unrelated plastic bag.

Edit: Oh and BTW, I didn't know I should have been demonstrating any expertise to you. I only mentioned I am far from naive since you called me naive on the subject I happen to make a living on. But if you want a demonstration, then I will oblige, but first please demonstrate you are not as ignorant as your posts continually make you appear.
This comment was edited on Aug 22, 19:02.

I never reinstall. I just pop in my Acronis-cloned drive & the operating system is exactly as I reinstalled it. Then I copy any files over that are new. Then I clone the other drive.

I use Ghost, but it amounts to basically the same thing. So if you use Ghost to restore an image, would the game freak out?

It used to be that SecuROM was a pretty uninvasive little bugger, just put a registry key in there with some keys. Now they're starting to get fucking annoying. I guess someone had to take Starforce's place...

God bless Stardock.

Creston

Naive? I'm sure I have forgotten more about networking and application security than you will ever know, considering it is my area of expertise. But you seem to be another person that doesn't understand what "release day" means. They succeeded in releasing the game without any pirated versions available anywhere. So if people wanted to play it the last couple days, they had to buy it = Success. I think their is only fake cracks currently, nothing real yet.

To say that it will be pirated eventually, as if you are providing some ground breaking information, well, let's just say that's a naive statement - like duh. LOL
Maybe they should just spend 20 million dollars on development, not try and dissuade people from downloading it for free, just give it away for free then promptly send the team to the unemployment line and close the doors. Is that your solution?

so thats your demonstration of "expertise"? the "ground breaking" information that no pirated versions are available on release day means the devs "won" or are "successful"?? i got news for ya, mr. expert - the pirated version of most games are not available till at least one day after release (just like this one) however bioshock WAS available as a pirated 360 release last week... so that just fucks up your little "expert" theory, doesnt it? = unsuccessful

btw, we all have tons of accumulated data.. im sure ive personally forgotten more about history, psychology, philosophy, religion, sound engineering, applied acoustics, etc. than you will ever know

unfortunately accumulated data has nothing to do with being naive, which proves my original point

so thanks for that, mr. expert

________________________
music from space captain:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/6/errantways_music.htm
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/4/invisibleacropolis_music.htm

Damned ugly too. I asked my wife why she married me and she said "Pity".

At least she followed through.

couldn't agree more, and its especially unforgivable on a game like bioshock, where pretending not to have the money for the game is laughable, as you need a $2000 PC to get the best out of DX10 game.
I've ordered a legit copy (not got it yet, in the UK), that way the devs get paid, they have a financial incentive to make more games like this, I know my copy will run ok, any patches will work fine, I get a manual and a disc, and I know exactly what I'm installing on my PC. It amazes me how people happily install some .exe from a warez site full of porn popups and other shady stuff.

At best this program makes reselling the game more difficult, and makes running the game in an internet cafe more difficult. For people who want to give it to 10 of their friends I have no doubt that they will wait for a crack and it will be here very shortly.

@Tumbler - good point. Maybe the 2 install aspect is a bit short sighted and over eager in that current implementation. But I don't know a better solution that wouldn't be more intrusive. Maybe they should have allowed mass repeated installs or maybe more like 3-5 to avoid potential issues down the road (especially since cafe's aren't going to be a serious problem without MP). The inconvenience could be a real one for some people or just wipe a drive, which would include me. So modifying the limit of 2 installs will likely change in future Securom iterations.

I actually would not be surprised if 2K will remove Securom eventually in a patch (including the online component 2 install check down the road), like many companies do, after they hit the sales decline in a couple/few months.

"LOL, good one...see? I'm NOT a lonely asshole, I've got a friend!....blah blah blah..."

Hmm. Them are some mighty fancy words. That they make no sense is irellevant -I'm impressed! Maybe if he offers an explanation of any kind, I'll see if my "cohesive system of logic" is up to the task.

Agreed. There is plenty of clear un-arguable bottom-line evidence that combating piracy boosts sales and thus revenue for the developers. I know one vgame publisher who fixed a hole in their DRM and saw a 40% increase in sales the next month.
People love to whine about any form of DRM, even though 99.99% of those whining will never experience any problems at all. Everyone knows someone whose friends brothers cousins mate once had a game not start because of starforce, but the vast majority of people who whine about DRM are people who pirate games anyway, and to be honest, they can just fuck off, because not contributing at all to the market for games means nobody in the industry gives a fuck what they think.
the minute you pirate a game you forfeit any right whatsoever to bitch to the people who make, sell or distribute the games about any topic whatsoever.

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that those games were primarily played online and have much greater longevity (and thus, shelf-life) than single-player games?

I don't think so. It was too obvious that games that required CD keys had a much more consistent sales performance.
And regarding the kids, well, when they had a school break or skipped class they often came in groups of 3, 4, 5 people. Then they were often standing in front of the shelf and debating how many copies to buy. Needless to say that if one of them with a clue knew there was a crack it ended up being one copy. Consistently. Always.
Sometimes they were even bold enough to ask if I knew if there was a way to play without the original CD.

Besides, I was only mentioning kids since it's the usual stereotype. Similar discussions about who buys a copy and who copies it for everyone else are surely going on between college students, work colleagues, people of all ages, everyone.

Devs and publishers are definitely losing out big time on piracy. Exactly how big is the big question but I have no doubt that it is mucho dinero that we are talking about here. Just check a random torrent site when Bioshock gets cracked and look at the sheer number of LEs. Oh right. Those are all people who are just downloading a legit backup copy for personal use, of course. Hohummm. And Mother Mary is a virgin.



----------------------------
*** Born to troll ***

Yeah...don't explain

I'd be delighted to explain.

Nine out of ten days I don't care what some tragically uninformed individual -- such as yourself -- thinks, about anything.

But on that tenth day... I don't know. Maybe I dreamt of something that pissed me off the night before. Maybe the caffeine was a little light in the coffee this morning. Maybe I'm hypersensitive to planetary alignment. I don't know. But on that tenth day, for whatever reason, when I see someone like you saying things that range from wildly inaccurate to way fucking wrong, I choose to call you on it.

Not only are you wrong, you're also not bright enough to just shut the fuck up when someone points out your error. You can't help yourself. You are compelled beyond your will to prove to me just how big an idiot you really are. You'll most likely do it again, after this.

And that, my friend, is why I don't bother listening to you nine days out of ten.

By the way, I don't care about the copy protection in this game. My only interest here is that you'll spend the rest of the day knowing you were wrong.

LOL, good one.
It's funny how people ask for explanations, but yet lack the ability or desire for a cohesive system of logic to understand the explanation that they ask for. Good post.

Ok,you assume you won something by stealing a few games. A month or two later your comp blows a gasket and your out 300 bucks to fix it. You steal someones purse, two years later, you are hit by a bus and maimed. You pimp for the hoes, and get aids.You lie about your age to get into a bar and later on in life you become a drunk.You steal your way to top of a fortune 500 company, but you are lonely because you have no true friends. You talk tuff because you believe people will respect you, but they only fear you and do not want to be around you. Friends, do not seek the next free game, but think about the precious time and sweat that goes into creating a good game. The next time you will consider that there are not that many good games. Think about the game devs that tried to make their own company, but failed because they couldn't raise the essential monies to keep things going:(Warez people, I have been you,not worth it man. Not worth it! You will reap what you sow!Nothing that anyone can say will change that. That is a fact,Jack!





Jesus is Lord! If Jesus has no power,why get upset?

I have never see so many news stories for one game on bluesnews in 1 week's time.

You choose to call me on it...but naturally make your point with a gay attempt at a clever retort rather than any kind of factual explanation. Pretty much what I expected. Idiot.

And I won't spend the rest of the day thinking I'm wrong as you've said absolutely nothing to prove (or even suggest) that I'm wrong. No, I'll just spend the rest of the day thinking you're a big ol bag of warm wind.


BTW: Are you Derek Smart? I don't know why, but you just sound like Derek Smart.
This comment was edited on Aug 22, 18:24.