BioShock DRM Madness Continues
Do you buy a new copy of a game you already own if say your little brother wants to play it? No, but that is what 2k would like you to do with BioShock. Here is what user Nemesisdesignz posted in the 2k forums:
Nemesisdesignz wrote: I installed Bioshock on my laptop under one admin user, Everything works fine, but I then tried to switch users on my computer and whenever I launch Bioshock it is asking me to enter my serial again for the game.... IS THIS GONNA CHARGE ME TWO OF MY 5 Activations???? IF SO THAT IS GAY.... I need to know this ASAP before I attempt to play this on my pc under the other user... THis is a bug if the case be....so get yo stuff fixed!
Gay? My oh my how that word is so misused. It gets me a wee bit riled up that gay is still widely used in the gaming world as an alternative for something negative. Though, I have to admit, I've used the word myself on occasion. Anyways, maybe if Nemesisdesignz wasn't such an ass he would've received a more friendly response from this alleged 2k tech:
2k Tech JT writes: The other way to view this, is one USER has purchased the game. Not the whole family. So why should your brother play for free?
Tis' a good question oh wise 2k Tech JT. Personally, I'm for letting my non-existent little brother...or sister (ha!) play the game without having to buy them their own personal copy for their account. However, if you wish to circumvent that altogether and have an Xbox 360, just buy that version instead because it's still a freakin' incredible game. What do you think the answer to the tech's should be?
BioShock DRM Post [2k Forums]
[via The Consumerist]
Super Timsy
Posted to Video Games on 5 September 2007
· Comments (16)
Other stuff like this: 2k, BioShock, DRM, Gay Does Not Mean Bad Noob, PC, WIndows
If I buy a DVD, everyone in my house can watch it on the TV.
If I buy a CD, everyone in my house can listen to it on the stereo.
If I buy a book, a magazine, or a graphic novel, everyone in my house can pick it up and enjoy themselves.
If I buy a song on iTunes, I can choose up to five computers, anywhere in the world, where my music can be played.
That last has been - for me - the most restricting a retailer or manufacturer can be while still retaining my business. A good rule of thumb for DRM stuff. If I buy BioShock for the PC, I should be able to install it on five computers.
If my little brother wants to play BioShock and has to sign on to my Windows login to do so, he would be welcome to - but I'd be annoyed as hell at whomever put that restriction in place. There's a balance between free usage and digital media rights, and I think that balance is best found in what's "friendly" to both sides.
"You bought the game, not your brother" may be true, but it's far from friendly.
kotaku has an update from 2k, guys.
Update: 2K has contacted us to let us know that 2K Tech JT is in fact not an employee of 2K, but rather an outside contractor who is now, it seems, being investigated by the company.
"Please note that the forum moderator has been incorrectly quoted as a 2K employee. The individual, "JT Tech 2K" works for an outside tech support group and is not an employee of 2K. Additionally, 2K is investigating the validity of the post."
http://kotaku.com/gaming/ip/2k-on-bioshock-why-should-your-brother-play-for-free-296622.php
DRM only serves to piss off gamers and make hackers want to break it that much more.
I got the 360 version of Bioshock only because my laptop couldn't handle the PC version, but now it seems I made the right choice anyway.
What a ridiculous e-mail - the response is equally as asshole-ish as the sent e-mail.
if i was that tech guy i would of wrote back
"YOU'RE gay" and then stick my tongue out at him and then go play on the monkey bars
*sigh* monkey bars
I dislike the pejorative use of the word "gay" just as much as the next of you, but the Bioshock DRM scheme(s) are just ridiculous.
Regardless of whether the tech really works for 2k Games or not, that's an absurd answer to a legitimate question.
I was actually considering buying Bioshock, despite my close-to-loathing of the FPS genre, up until I heard about all of this DRM nonsense. Now I won't even buy it for the 360 largely on principle.
I may be missing out on a great game, but there's no other way to get companies to understand that DRM that's this extreme is bad for them.
This has to be the most overblown non-news items ever. The last time I checked, my 360 copy of Bioshock didn't allow me to essentially make 5 working copies of the game. How come the people complaining about the DRM always seem to forget about the "Uninstall" options?
This might be a stupid question, but under what real-world example would someone need to make more than 5 installs of a solely single player game, without crossing over into piracy?
game-boi:
I think you completely missed the point, so I'll put it in terms that would be applicable to the Xbox 360 if the DRM had been transposed over to it. Say you have Bioshock for the 360. You sign in under your profile and you play the game. Now you log out, and your roommate/brother/sister/father/dead uncle wants to play, so he signs in under his profile. Now it asks you to authorize the game AGAIN. This would not be a big deal except that the DRM has limited the number of times you can authorize it. Can you imagine if all your games were so closely tied down to one account?
It's bad enough that you have to authorize different machines, but the SAME INSTALL on the SAME COMPUTER, but just using different user names? This isn't even another install - it's using the EXACT SAME FILES! If that's not ridiculous I don't know what is.
Are you saying that one person should uninstall the game and then reinstall it another account so they can play it? How many games do you know on the PC that even DO that? Not even Steam is that restrictive!
Given your example Lido, you would have the ability to authorize 5 accounts (and remove authorization as you please). Until the dog and cat start playing this isn't an issue.
"Are you saying that one person should uninstall the game and then reinstall it another account so they can play it? How many games do you know on the PC that even DO that? Not even Steam is that restrictive!"
"Installing" isn't the issue, "authorizing" is. You're allowed to install it as many times as you want. You're only allowed to have five active authorizations up concurrently. Again, this is more than what most current console releases allow you do to. I'm not seeing the big deal. The PS3 is a good example of consoles doing something similar with "Game sharing."
I'm still not seeing the "OMGWTFBBQ!" here. {shrug) Five people get to play from one copy of Bioshock. That doesn't seem like a bad deal to me. 0_o
The reason it's a big deal, game-boi, is because it's the first time a major game has been released that is not merely tied to one computer, but to one user on that computer. Industrial applications costing thousands of dollars do this, but until now, no one's heard of games doing it.
Novelty aside, it's also another example of how DRM is a traffic cone being shoved in deeper and deeper, and stretching the consumer wider and wider. After this becomes widely accepted, perhaps another company will decide you should have to reactivate each time you plug in a new controller, or every time your IP address changes. And some gamers won't mind, because they've gotten used to being stretched as wide as goatse guy if they want to play Windows games.
A good rule of thumb for DRM stuff. If I buy BioShock for the PC, I should be able to install it on five computers.
I can understand (almost -- there needs to be some system allowing a user to buy a new machine without buying the software all over again) limiting the installation of software to one machine but limiting the number accounts on the same machine that can use it is ludicrous. So, what, a sensible user has to buy at least two authorizations so that they can install it as an admin and play it while logged in as a user?
I'm a bit unclear on 2K's statement, as well... so the person who responded doesn't represent the company but they don't say if his assessment of the situation is correct or not? In this case, I don't care if the company's position is put rudely or not, its a stupid position no matter how nicely you explain it.
This is pure greed.
I completely agree with CJG when he wrote earlier:
"I was actually considering buying Bioshock... Now I won't even buy it for the 360 largely on principle. I may be missing out on a great game, but there's no other way to get companies to understand that DRM that's this extreme is bad for them."
I am doing exactly that myself. I am not desperate to get this game and support this DRM nonsense.
If nothing else, it points out aptly how the pirate experience can often be more convenient and less irritating than the legitimate way. The people who downloaded the cracked version of Bioshock are probably not subject to this nonsense, only those who tried to do the right thing.
Perhaps another argument against the DRM is as follows: I almost never go more than a few months without reformatting my machine. Since I spend a large amount of my time beta testing OSes (and this includes finding pain points of playing the latest games on them so that other consumers don't experience these issues), it's very difficult for somebody like me to deal with DRM activation schemes. Hell, I've already used all five of my iTunes authorizations just from forgetting to deactivate my desktop before I wipe it.
This makes it extremely irritating and difficult to do testing of DRMed consumer software. In the end I ended up getting BioShock on the 360, and I enjoyed it very much. Unfortunately PC gamers will not be able to realize maximum benefit from the work of us beta testers due to overly restrictive DRM schemes - it's yet another indirect manner through which DRM harms us.
I have to agree Raindog. Has all this DRM crap really done a single damn thing to stop piracy at all? I just did a quick search on a random Torrent site for "Bioshock" and got 200+ results. Seems it's just as easy to nab this game illegally as any other game. But if I buy it in the store, I can expect having to re-register every time I want to re-install, some possible computability issues if it suspects a program on my computer could be used for nefarious purposes, and I'm sure performance takes a hit from having to run that shit in the background.
So the legit users get to be crippled, all for what? probably little change in the sales of the game if they hadn't gone this rout.
And on top of that, 15 years down the line when I get nostalgic, and want to fire up Bioshock again for old time's sake, Will I be able to use my old DVD? Will it still work with 2k's registration servers? or will I have to repurchase it in some capacity from 2K's future self (or the terror that forms when they, EA, and Microsoft merge)? My money's on the later.
I'm guessing if anyone wants to play it in 15 years, they'll download it off of an abandonware site (or the 2022 equivalent) just like they download 15-year-old games now.