Bioshock demo .exe issues ? Anyone else?

[j.o.s.h.1408]

but why limit the user to any amount of activations? its not going to stop piracy? its just a waste of programming time and money for the developers.

A game like oblivion for example diddnt have no activation or other BS on it yet it sold realy well for the pc...

[noTHINGface]

.. I agree 100% any DRM is dog egg DRM in my book. I'm a little more interested in the widescreen patch though the hack on WSG is pretty nice and works well (on the demo).

[MSIC]

but why limit the user to any amount of activations? its not going to stop piracy?

My view is that with games, as with so many things like copying music, there are 2 basic levels of wrong-doing, a basic person-in-the-street 'oops i didn't know' and the deliberate sort by the well educated.
A perception of copy protection may be enough to disuade the casual sort, perhaps someone who installs copies on a few friends machines plus there own at the same time for fun, and nothing malicious intended. This is a different scenario to the warez scene or blackmarket trader in some dodgy market. Both are still wrong and not what the developers want though.
It's all a bit wierd though - i'm not supposed to listen to my friends CD even though he tells me it's great, the only thing i can do is buy it and make up my own mind.

[b0ned0me]

I suspect a lot of game devs add these starforce/securom things, out of utter desperation.

I would suspect that most devs have chuff-all say over things like this, just like they have chuff-all say over the marketing, pricing, and general support the game is given. They are just the sweated labour in the basement, giving up years of their lives to come up with a half-decent game that publishers then festoon with crapware, toss out in the marketplace with some inept promotion, and promply lose interest in if it fails to sell a milion copies in the first week. That's if their lucky.
If they're unlucky they get all of the above after the publisher has ordered them to cut out key elements of the gameplay and bodge in some half-arsed copy of whatever was popular in last months big hit, and to do all that in the time they had planned to use for final polishing before going gold.

Nick - I know you probably have a relationship to maintain with these people and so on, but if you could give them a swift kick in the nuts on my behalf I'll send you a biscuit....

[dangel]

You're right (b0ned0me) - the game devs probably have nothing to do with the copy protection selection. To say that it's done out of 'utter desperation' is plain wrong - copy protection has existed for games when they were on cassette tape and it's just the 'done thing' in the industry. Sure, the media changes and so does the protection but it's always annoying - be it a decoding wheel (they were fun weren't they?) or online activation. Good titles sell buttloads - as has been demonstrated (and mentioned) by Oblivion. It's tempting to blame piracy when the underlying issue is your game sucks but at the end of the day a good title sells. Lots.
The issue here is the invasive nature of the protection, and the limitations it imposes on the PAYING customer (the pirates will not be affected aside from a small delay). Securom was fine at detering casual copying in it's previous incarnation - basically a DVD check - this shiny new version is a rootkit, requires online activation, a DVD check AND imposes limitations. That's a pretty big shift.

[noTHINGface]

- be it a decoding wheel (they were fun weren't they?) or online activation.

Thats a good point, I often hark back to the 'good old days' when none of this crapware was about but things were just as bleak then as well; jet set willy and the colour card, turbo-loaders and the most annoying was the Spectrum version of Elite where you had to hold that plastic lens over the screen to 'decode' the digits... DRM has a legacy.

[dangel]

Remember the manuals printed on photocopy proof paper that was a bugger to read? Yikes.

[DougMcDonald]

Was it monkey island where you had to mix up a recipe at the start!?

And what game was it where it said 'type word 6 from the 9th paragraph on page 4' - to prove you had the manual! that was genius!

[dangel]

Yup I remember that well! Imagine the uproar if they did that now!

[alsenior]

i remember that sort of protection on a game from microprose on the amiga. one of the reasons i can read so fast now and count so well. it was like a mini adventure before the game.

[MSIC]

And what game was it where it said 'type word 6 from the 9th paragraph on page 4' - to prove you had the manual! that was genius!

Absolutely! Back when i was around 12 or 13, (20 years ago!) i remember my friend had a game with exactly this, but the request changed every time you loaded the game.
You basically had to have the manual, or a photocopy of .... and there was 150 pages
I do remember (feel guilty now) beginning to manually photocopy, page by page, until i got to about page 60 then decided to go and buy it LOL (PS games were only £10 then)

[pauldarkside]

source -> http://www.2kgames.com/cultofrapture/home.html

Thanks for the link. I guess all of the ruckus finally paid off and lessons have been learned. I'm happy to put my order in now

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Yup I remember that well! Imagine the uproar if they did that now!

LOL they do that on the UK citizenship online test

[pauldarkside]

Yeah, I remember Team 17's Worms and KingPin (10 pin bowling) games coming out on the Amiga with gloss black text on mat black paper so you'd have a hard time photocopying it.

[Steven W]

OFFICIAL STATEMENT FROM 2K GAMES

We have been reading and listening to your frustrations over SecuROM, PC activation problems, and technical support issues since BioShock launched on Tuesday, and we've devised a plan to help.

Starting immediately, we will be upping the activation count to a 5 by 5 plan. We will be raising the maximum amount of computers a user can have BioShock installed on simultaneously from 2 to 5, and allowing a user to reinstall BioShock on each of those computers from 3 times to 5 times. Also, we have in the works a revoke tool which you will be able to run on your machine if you want to free up that key and move it to to another computer (this works very much like Steam or iTunes system). We are also working with SecuROM and 2K customer service, so that when you do need to call in support problems, you get answers to your questions faster, without much waiting or being bounced around. SecuROM has been given much more autonomy to help fix your problems quickly and effectively. I am personally sorry for anyone who got bounced around in the past couple days (I even think I contributed to this problem) and we're going to make sure that does not happen in the future.

As for other technical issues, we are bringing on a team of tech support that will be on the 2K forums 24/7 to help people resolve their technical issues. Our QA guys are in the offices and on the forums, too, reproducing issues and looking for workarounds and compiling information that they can put towards making you a patch and updating the knowledge base.

Also, we are aware that our activation server went down last night, stopping some of you from finishing your installs. The server is up and running now and we have corrected the problem that caused that crash.

Finally, we have released a FAQ, which you can view in full below (and will also be posted on the 2K Forums in the Technical Support area) that will help clear up a lot of questions and misinformation that has been floating around about SecuROM and PC activation.

And as for widescreen, we also want to say we completely understand a user's desire to augment their FOV. BioShock is a harrowing experience, but we don't want anyone to feel limited (or motion sick!). So we are in the process of working on an official PC patch to give widescreen PC users a choice to expand their horizontal FOV, and are investigating creating a similar update for the 360.

And finally, I want to personally congratulate Racer_S from the Widescreen Gaming Forums, and his awesome user patch to expand the widescreen FOV in BioShock. I'm currently tracking him down via email, but hopefully, he'll accept my gratitude, and maybe an Nvidia 8800 to boot.

VISIT: http://www.2kgames.com/cultofrapture/home.html for more details.

[dangel]

You boyos seen the announcement made last night by careful Ken of the 2K bredbin? Upping activations to 5, allowing securROM to re-activate you themselves and plans for a PC patch for fixing widescreen.

source -> http://www.2kgames.com/cultofrapture/home.html