god damn DRM!

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uv

Soldato
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Ugh. Reinstalled Windows on my laptop, installed Burnout Paradise, clicked play - and my activation limit has been reached.

I know it's simply a case of raising a ticket with EA, but I've had to do this so many times with different games - usually EA ones - and it annoys me that I'm only affected because I'm a legit customer - pirates wouldn't have this issue.

AAAAAAAAAAAARGHHH!

It makes me realise how lucky we are to have publishers like Stardock, who don't employ any means of activation or limitation based DRM. Now I have to wait a day or two for EA to sort it out before I can play a game I bloody paid for :mad:

/rant
 
When FarCry 2 came out, I had it on release day. The problem was, Ubisoft didn't upload the correct CD keys to their activation servers in the UK and so the game wouldn't unlock.

In the end I had to use a NO CD crack to play the game, the same crack the pirates were using to play the game for free.

DRM simply doesn't work.

It never has done, you can go all the way back to Spectrum games. I remember one game that came with a colour coded booklet that you had to use to enter an unlock code everytime you played the game.

It didn't stop games from being pirated then and the hoops we have to jump through with some games these days (I'm looking at you GTA IV) doesn't work now.
 
I get very bored of this DRM crap, publishers know that there is almost NO protection they can put on a game CD that will not be cracked. All it ever seems to do is annoy those who actually buy the game.

Games should have rudimentary protection only.

I can only come to the conclusion that the annoyance caused to people who actually buy the game is actually designed to turn people against the pirates that cause this protection exist.
 
Far Cry 2 got me, installed it, played fine for a week or so, upgraded to vista at the time and completely forgot to use the revoke tool, i mean why should i go out my way to run it?

Anyway, went to install Far Cry 2 again, and bam! this cd key is already in use, ubisoft support was rubbish, i still never got it reset :mad:

Piracy will always be around, all this SecuRom and DRM crap is only making life for genuine users a nightmare, its a no brainer really, why the need to limit installs and require internet activation is beyond me, not everyone has t'internet anyway :rolleyes:
 
I hate DRM and theres no point to it, as said before its always cracked in a short period of time anyway so all it does is annoy the people who pay for it, piracy has been with us since the beginning of gaming and im sure it will be with us always.
 
Agreed, it just seems to pee off the genuine users more than the pirates. I can understand that companies want to protect themselves but surely they know that whatever they do will be cracked anyway, why not just save themselves money and hassle by not bothering and just accept that they will get some losses. Make the title good enough and people will buy it anyway.
Stardock are a good example of this in that afaik they do not use copy protection but their titles are usually of a high standard and sell very well.
 
uv said:
Now I have to wait a day or two for EA to sort it out before I can play a game I bloody paid for :mad:
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Respect, you have a lot of patience.

If I have bought a game and I had to wait 2 days before I could play it I would instantly make a visit to the pirates site
 
I can remember something (possibly Turtles lol) on my 6128 back in the day.

Used to have to decipher some sort of on screen code with a 4 page chart in the instruction book EVERY time you wanted to play.
 
Yeah that Turtles purple book that you cant easily copy, i still have my copy of that game and the little book with pages of codes to choose from, I remember Monkey Islands 2 mix and mojo wheel thingy which was kinda fun by itself.
 
Dutch Guy said:
Respect, you have a lot of patience.

If I have bought a game and I had to wait 2 days before I could play it I would instantly make a visit to the pirates site
Click to expand...

well they still haven't replied - looks like I'll be downloading a no-CD crack for a game I've paid for.

Wonderfull!
 
Steam DRM is perfect, developers just need to learn to charge a reasonable price one it (eg. the same as in the shops and not £15 more).
 
I've never pirated a game. I got a copy of Mirror's Edge from USENET as the official download servers were chugging along at between 2k/sec and 3k/sec. Amazing in this modern age. So I got it from USENET at 2,404k/sec and used my paid for activation code from the email confirmation to play the game.

Guess it's up to you wether you think that's piracy. Personally I dont see it as any diffeent from "Dude, my CD is scratched, can i borrow yours quickly?".

DRM is a royal pain in the arse, though. I make a point of pretty much only buying games from distrubution platforms such as Steam and Impulse to avoid the hoop jumping DRM bullcrap I would otherwise be subjected to.
 
DampCat said:
DRM is a royal pain in the arse, though. I make a point of pretty much only buying games from distrubution platforms such as Steam and Impulse to avoid the hoop jumping DRM bullcrap I would otherwise be subjected to.
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Be careful when buying non-valve games off steam. Some of them still have the DRM activation limit anyway, such as Bioshock and Far Cry 2, or so I've heard. But steam itself has it spot on, near enough...
 
never used usenet but if it's like torrents in that you're uploading and downloading at the same time then yes it would be a bit dodgy as you're helping to spread the dodgy version.

Think the Steam version of Anno has an install limit as well which is a bit odd to me as that's the whole point of Steam surely in that you can play a game on any computer as playing it is controlled by your login??
 
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