PC Epic Edition, UK version, DRM woe.

[Angilion]

I was browsing last week and picked up Two Worlds: Epic Edition in my lunch break because it looked good and it was selling for £20.

Back at work, I started to read the manual...and found that the game came with extreme DRM.

I think that's blighting the PC gaming market and I will not, as a matter of principle, pay the companies responsible for it.

There is no warning at all on the UK 2W:EE retail box, not even the ambiguous "This product contains copyright protection" in tiny print. Nothing at all. No way for customers to make an informed choice.

I took it back the next day and requested a refund because of the DRM. It's a good shop and I'm a good customer (there are 48 games on my shelf at the moment, nearly all from that shop), so they did the refund as a courtesy.

I bought a game from a different company instead and I won't be buying another Southpeak game unless someone tells me Southpeak aren't responsible for the DRM, and which company is.

It's a pity, because the game does look promising.

[Syphedias]

Well this is the copy protection. You can activate up to 3 times with different hardware. On the same hardware you can activate as long as you wish.

If your activations are depleted you can contact me via pm providing me your serial and your email, then I will reset the activations.

But unless you brought the game back.

Well this is nothing like SecuRom that is keeping many players from buying games.

[Angilion]

Originally Posted by Syphedias

Well this is the copy protection. You can activate up to 3 times with different hardware. On the same hardware you can activate as long as you wish.

If your activations are depleted you can contact me via pm providing me your serial and your email, then I will reset the activations.

But unless you brought the game back.

Well this is nothing like SecuRom that is keeping many players from buying games.

It's worse in some ways, although it's an obvious move as things move towards buying games for download rather than on a physical media. I think the PC gaming industry will fade away unless the same imposed disadvantages apply to consoles in the future. Which is a shame. I'd rather have physical protection, even a new disc format that required a new drive, and retain the second-hand market, the ending of which appears to be the main purpose of "copy protection" (software companies must know that it's routinely broken for piracy, usually within days, and thus isn't much good for ending piracy).

A bit of nostalgia...I was going through some old stuff in storage in my home and came across the Lenslok for the Spectrum version of Elite, which I bought about 25 years ago. Physical copy protection - distorted letters were displayed on the screen and had to be viewed through the Lenslok to determine what characters they were. You then entered those letters in order to play the game. An example of how long this issue has been going on for.

[Syphedias]

Well of course we could start another discussion about the positive and negative aspects of such a copy protection. I personally like this kind of copy protection. No Disk required in drive, no SecuRom that installs itself somewhere to my windows root, activations are reset without big begging.

You can activate up to 3 times via internet. If you don't change your hardware you are able to use 1 activtion as long as you like. Deinstallation or drive formatting won't use up your activation. Only switching OS (xp to vista or other way) or changing hardware componentes will use up one activation.

I too know the copy protection you mentioned. I also had many of those games where I had to check "page 5, line 5, word 3" or something like that!

[uk_john]

Originally Posted by Syphedias

Well of course we could start another discussion about the positive and negative aspects of such a copy protection. I personally like this kind of copy protection. No Disk required in drive, no SecuRom that installs itself somewhere to my windows root, activations are reset without big begging.

You can activate up to 3 times via internet. If you don't change your hardware you are able to use 1 activtion as long as you like. Deinstallation or drive formatting won't use up your activation. Only switching OS (xp to vista or other way) or changing hardware componentes will use up one activation.

I too know the copy protection you mentioned. I also had many of those games where I had to check "page 5, line 5, word 3" or something like that!

I also remember when Pc games came in big boxes and no one asked me if I wanted small DVD cases so you can't see anything that you need to see on the back of the box... I remember when the saves folder was in the games folder so if you had an OS problem you didn't lose your saves. No one asked me to have all games put their saves and configurations in My Documents on the OS drive, it just happened. I have never pirated a game in my life, but I never asked for Digital Restrictions Management. So I would be happy to get rid of all this even if it meant going back to "what is word 5 on page 5" !!!

[Syphedias]

Please look at the last post made in this thread.

Originally Posted by Forum Rules

§1.2 - Posting in threads that are older than 6 months is not allowed.

[uk_john]

Originally Posted by Syphedias

Please look at the last post made in this thread.

Thought the thread would be closed in those circumstances, always assumed thread open were okay. Many sites even allow 'bumping'. So sorry.