{"id":1284,"date":"2007-08-23T16:49:14","date_gmt":"2007-08-23T21:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=1284"},"modified":"2008-09-17T09:28:06","modified_gmt":"2008-09-17T14:28:06","slug":"bioshock-drmshock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=1284","title":{"rendered":"Bioshock: DRMShock"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks to Taffer for the link to this news item<\/a>. It’s swiped from the PC Gamer Blog, but I’m linking to Taffer and not the original source because the PC Gamer<\/a> blog doesn’t have permalinks. (Come on guys! I KNOW you can do better than that. Blogs are not mysterious devices. The functionality is well established and easy to comprehend.)<\/p>\n

The upshot of the article is that:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You must activate the game on-line to play it.\n<\/li>\n
  2. It can only be activated on one machine at a time. I hope you weren’t planning on playing on your home computer AND laptop, or your home AND work computers.\n<\/li>\n
  3. You can only activate the game twice.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In order for the following to have the proper impact, I should establish my love for this series. The original “Shock” game – System Shock – affected me so strongly that I wrote an entire novel based on the game<\/a>. The sequel is one of my all-time favorites. I’ve been waiting for this one for the better part of a decade. I’ve been following the story since the first hints of it dropped way back in February of 2006<\/a>. I’m not just a fan of this series, I’m an avid, nearly rabid fan of this series. <\/p>\n

    Dear 2kGames. I’ve got sixty bucks right here. And you guys will never see it. Never. I don’t care if I see the game in the bargain bin two years from now for $5. I don’t want it. I also don’t want to hear your crying about pirates ripping you off. You started it. Your box claims “This game requires Online Activation to play”, but if you were honest about what that really means – if you let people know what you were really<\/em> selling – it would demolish sales. And you know it. I don’t use pirated software, but my fond hope is that the pirates give you the quick humiliation you deserve. <\/p>\n

    Activating the game twice? I picked up Doom 3 a couple of years ago, and I’ve reinstalled it four times<\/em> since then as I’ve shuffled games around or upgraded my computer. There is no excuse for thinking like this. <\/p>\n

    And this just backs up my earlier post on the uselessness of game reviews. This should be the first thing mentioned in every review. PC Gamer talked about it on their blog, but I’ll bet this never makes it into print. It is my hope that gamers pass this along, so that nobody buys this game without knowing what they’re getting into. <\/p>\n

    EDIT:<\/strong> More here<\/a>. Looks like you get an activation “back” when you uninstall? How magnanimous of them.<\/p>\n

    EDIT:<\/strong> More here on the 2k forums<\/a>. They have flatly claimed that secuROM isn’t a rootkit. That announcement is followed by about four pages of angry responses from users talking about how it is exactly that. I can’t say one way or the other, but if they have added lies to the mix then I think it ought to act as a Tony-Hawk style multiplier<\/em> on the negative feedback and publicity they might be experiencing. <\/p>\n

    In the comments below someone points out that the number of installs has been upped from 2 to 5. I will admit that 5 is indeed larger than 2, although it is less than inifinity, which is the number of installs most games permit.<\/p>\n

    EDIT:<\/strong> More on this at other sites:<\/p>\n

    The Daily Jump<\/a>
    \n    consumerist<\/a>
    \n    Completely Random Thoughts<\/a>
    \n    hylomorph<\/a><\/p>\n

    Kotaku has a response from Ken Levine<\/a><\/p>\n

    And even the demo installs the rootkit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    EDIT: Looks like The Rampant Coyote<\/a> is giving the game a pass as well. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Thanks to Taffer for the link to this news item. It’s swiped from the PC Gamer Blog, but I’m linking to Taffer and not the original source because the PC Gamer blog doesn’t have permalinks. (Come on guys! I KNOW you can do better than that. Blogs are not mysterious devices. The functionality is well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[29,30],"class_list":["post-1284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-videogames","tag-bioshock","tag-drm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}