Mass Effect Requires Online Validation Every Ten Days to Function

uvmain said:
I paid ~£40 for Bioshock through Steam. I didn't feel like I was treated like a criminal.
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I have to ask how you managed not to feel like you were a suspected criminal.

They basically demanded that you go online and prove to them that you did not steal the game, so that you have their permission to play it. I've never had to basically give proof of purchase just to use something before, I don't know why I should have to do it just to play games.

uvmain said:
I find cd-checks annoying, as I cba putting CD's in the drive, but apart from that, I'm all for whatever protection the developers feel is necessary.
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But the protection they put in is completely and utterly impotent, and sometimes it can even cause problems with your computer (see: Starfarce). Not only that but it costs developers/publishers money to license things like that, and something tells me it's not cheap.

It's a colossal waste of money and effort, and the only person it affects is the loyal customer.
 
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Ulfhedjinn said:
Yep, they honestly believe piracy isn't just as rampant on consoles, absolute madness and scapegoating. This is not a sarcastic post, all of you who can should go to your favourite torrent/usenet and look in consoles.


Food for thought from my favourite usenet source: -

Title: Grand Theft Auto IV (2008)
Platform: Xbox 360
Reported: 23rd April 2008 :eek:
Views: 13,241 :eek: :eek:

Also, one of the comments just to really hit it home: -
"Tested: Worked on banned box, PAL, 100% real. hell yeah! :)"


Anyone who tells you piracy is not rampant on consoles, company or not, is lying to you. :(
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It might be rife on consoles as well but on a far smaller scale. Those who mod their 360s do so at cost, plus they cant use Live (which is a fairly big detraction), lots of people have a second console for playing pirated games - the point being that it requires a degree of technical knowhow and extra cash spending.

People that chip their consoles do so with the express purpose of pirating games, hence they will never pay for a game. I suspect it is a smaller amount of people who pirate console games but they do so on a bigger scale than the average pc downloader. I reckon the proportion of console games sold to those pirated is far, far higher than on PC.

Compared to a console game, PC games are so easy to pirate its ridiculous - find torrent, download, copy cracked .exe into game folder, play. I know people who have no clue as to do anything on PCs - they struggle to do basic things like changing desktop resolution yet have figured out how to download and crack games from torrents. Its just too easy.
 
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Flammy: Are you aware that you can flash the 360 through software instead of chipping it, and are you aware that you can simply reverse that flash if you want it to work like a legit console again? It's really not such a huge technical feat as you're making out and certainly doesn't have all those drawbacks.

Someone in the consoles forum (or was it the GD piracy thread?) even mentioned recently that you can avoid breaking the warranty seal when you do this, which means they can still send the console back for repair/replacement if it breaks etc.

I never did claim that piracy was as big on consoles as it is on PC, just that anyone who tells you that consoles are not completely rife with it is lying to you. Mainly PC developers (ie Crytek), shock horror.
 
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Ulfhedjinn said:
Yep, they honestly believe piracy isn't just as rampant on consoles, absolute madness and scapegoating. This is not a sarcastic post, all of you who can should go to your favourite torrent/usenet and look in consoles.


Food for thought from my favourite usenet source: -

Title: Grand Theft Auto IV (2008)
Platform: Xbox 360
Reported: 23rd April 2008 :eek:
Views: 13,241 :eek: :eek:

Also, one of the comments just to really hit it home: -
"Tested: Worked on banned box, PAL, 100% real. hell yeah! :)"


Anyone who tells you piracy is not rampant on consoles, company or not, is lying to you. :(
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Isn't it more about sales though? How many copies has GTAIV sold regardless of this?

PC games generally don't get anywhere near these figures. If they did I'm sure the devs working on PC games wouldn't be as concerned either.
 
I wasn't aware of that no. So it doesnt require a costly hardware mod, but I'd still bet that doing that sort of thing is something the average console gamer has no idea about. Don't forget that the consoles have a vast market of 'casual' gamers who aren't interested in messing about with their consoles - far more than on PC I'd bet.
 
B1gbeard said:
Isn't it more about sales though? How many copies has GTAIV sold regardless of this?
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That just proves my previous point.

If developers want to offset the cost of piracy they must make good games.

B1gbeard said:
PC games generally don't get anywhere near these figures. If they did I'm sure the devs working on PC games wouldn't be as concerned either.
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PC gaming isn't as popular, that's why. :p Severe lack of good exclusives doesn't help. :(

Flammy said:
I wasn't aware of that no. So it doesnt require a costly hardware mod, but I'd still bet that doing that sort of thing is something the average console gamer has no idea about. Don't forget that the consoles have a vast market of 'casual' gamers who aren't interested in messing about with their consoles - far more than on PC I'd bet.
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I don't know, to be honest. I think anyone who can get their head around downloading, extracting, repairing, and then mounting images etc. could easily get their heads around the 360 flashing technique I have been hearing about. That said, I have a 360 and despite it's ease this does not interest me.
 
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Ulfhedjinn said:
But the protection they put in is completely and utterly impotent..
It's a colossal waste of money and effort, and the only person it affects is the loyal customer.
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This I can concur with.. it'd be interesting to find out how much is spent on each game on protection..

In the past I haven't found a single game that hasn't been cracked, so I understand that the devs are trying in vain, and actually may as well give up.

It's quite possible that if the amount saved by not implementing protection is substantial, then said saving can be passed on to the consumer - a cheaper product might well sell more copies.

It's all rather catch-22 :(
 
Ulfhedjinn said:
That just proves my previous point.

If developers want to offset the cost of piracy they must make good games.

PC gaming isn't as popular, that's why. :p Severe lack of good exclusives doesn't help. :(
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What have the sales figures been like for recent good PC games? Not sure tbh.

As said above the large majority of console owners have no clue about getting a pirated game on their machine.
 
B1gbeard said:
What have the sales figures been like for recent good PC games? Not sure tbh.
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Crysis hit 1mil copies very soon after launch, now Crytek are whinging about piracy.

Never mind the game's system requirements, generally lower fan-base for PC gaming, launching it practically at the same time as Call Of Duty 4, unpopular online play, and the general "cool to hate Crysis" attitude now. Crytek need their scapegoat. :o

That's about the only example I can think of, I don't really read up on sales much.
 
I did'nt buy Bioshock because of the draconian DRM crap on it and i won't be buying this either. I read also that Spore will have this on it too. Why should people who buy legal copies be made to jump through hoops with this rubbish?
 
BioShock also puts a rootkit on your PC I believe, load of **** to be honest.

Also the Xbox 360 version had no activation, had no install limit and didn't have a rootkit feature, what a load of crap that is!
 
Personally i thought it was quite an achievement, for a PC game that had such high requirements. Then again i wonder how many of those buyers would have chose a 360 version if one was available ;).
 
Shamikebab said:
Well no, but I just find it a little strange that Crytek seems to suggest in their interviews that it didn't sell well, they seem like pretty good figures for a PC game to me. :confused:
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Aye by all rights it's selling fantastically for a PC exclusive considering PC games make up something like 14% of total game sales, but I think what we're seeing is simply an example of greed and never being satisfied with "just" making countless millions.

It's like I said before; If Crytek wanted more Crysis sales they should've a.) opened it up to a wider audience by lowering the requirements (and I say this even though I have no problem with the requirements and love the eyecandy, but let's face it most PC gamers don't have a machine like typical OcUK ones), b.) they should've thought twice about releasing it at the same time as Call Of Duty 4 and The Orange box and c.) they should know better than anyone console games sell way more.

But yeah, why should they admit any of this when they can just blame piracy? :p

Ogs said:
Personally i thought it was quite an achievement, for a PC game that had such high requirements. Then again i wonder how many of those buyers would have chose a 360 version if one was available ;).
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Probably lots more, but not me. I simply won't do pure FPS on a console, only freaks do that. :p :p
 
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uvmain said:
I could never see what all the fuss was about really..

If you uninstalled it, then reinstalled it, it didn't count as one of your five go's.
If you had a major OS problem and had to reformat, and via this lost your Bioshock install *five* times, then you could contact them and they'd reset the count. If you muck up your install and have to reformat your drive containing Bioshock five times, then you're a n00b.

I bought the game legitimately, and whenever I wanted to reinstall Windows, I uninstalled the game first. Never had any issues, and it never particularly bothered me. I guess it might bother someone who hasn't got a decent crack for their pirated version, but whatever.
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The fuss is that it was a PITA for paying customers. The launch was a farce and the server had lots of issues. Oh then what happened, it got cracked.
 
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