Mass Effect PC Mandatory Activation: Waste Of Time Or Good Effort?
PC game registration has its advantages and its drawbacks, but what happens when game publishers go the route of Microsoft and demand that you activate their product in order to play (or continue playing, or install an add-on, etc)?
It sounds a mite better than spyware, but methinks it's kind of like airport security: more for show than for effect. Considering that BioWare is having those who legitimately bought the game activate the product every ten days and that those who pirate the game will figure out a crack in time, the process essentially forces legit players to bear a security burden that won't even deter the actual criminals.
To clarify:If you buy MEPC, install and run the game the game will register automatically and you are good to play.
After 5 days the next time you start the game the system will automatically try to register. If you are connected to the internet, it will occur without you even knowing it and reset the 10 days.
If you are not connected to the internet, you can keep playing for the next 5 days. As you start each day, the system will keep trying to validate. If it connects and validates, the "clock" is reset.
If the system cannot connect to the internet after the 10 days, you will not be able to play MEPC until you are connected to the internet. Once you reconnect to the internet and try to play, it will re-validate and you can play as normal for another period of 10 days as before.
So it is not "at 10 days and if the servers aren't working you're screwed". There is a large window (5days) where the system automatically tries to re-validate to prevent last minute problems.
Now, I'm not saying that this is no good, but it does seem more likely to cause problems for legit customers than pirates. A one-time activation would be less worrisome, but an ongoing ten-day-lease period that requires continual activation appears... clumsy, and bound to cause more problems than it solves: doesn't this activation business make it more appealing for legit gamers to go out and find an anti-activation crack? Or make PC gaming less appealing when you can play the same game hassle-free on a console? Talk to me, gaymers.
PC Mass Effect Will Require Online Activation [VE3D]
tiny dancer
Posted to Miscellany, Video Games on 6 May 2008
· Comments (15)
Other stuff like this: activation, bioware, mass effect, pc, piracy
I just put down my $5 for a pre-order two days ago so I'd argue I'm firmly in the "legit customer" category...and I can guarantee you that I'll be acquiring a crack as soon as possible. Not for -immediate- use, but to store as part of my backup system. I may be unusual in this respect but I actually *gasp* -replay- my PC games, and in order to be able to play through old titles when I may not HAVE the original jewel case or manual or sometimes even the discs (let alone an internet connection) I will probably need the cracks for these newer titles.
This kind of crap is why I started pirating games + music in the first place, Its actually becoming LESS hassle to download or crack games.
Getting it soon for a birthday, and will get a crack to disable that BS asap.
Everyone just needs to follow StarDock's example. GalCiv and Sins of a Solar Empire have NO copy protection. Yet, they sold very well.
You know, if there was no other working option out there, I'd say we have no choice.
But, when Stardock has released two majorly huge hits (Sins of a Solar Empire, Gal Civ II), with a third on the way (Demigod), and they constantly proclaim to anyone who will listen that their software carries absolutely no copy protection - it's all the more upsetting when you come across articles like this. I was considering getting Mass Effect for the PC, but now I'm not interested. I'll just play my roommate's copy on our 360 - he bought it and we can both play it, they should crack down on that kind of theft too!!! Maybe they can start tying disc purchases to specific gamertags!
Bitches.
-m.
"Maybe they can start tying disc purchases to specific gamertags!"
Shhhh! Don't give them any ideas!
I wonder what happens later on when the registration servers aren't working anymore. Or when your scheduled 10-day renewal is right before a downtime and that "5 day window" becomes meaningless.
Okay, granted, the PC versions of games are better than the console versions 99% of the time, but seriously, guys...you're making it VERY hard for me to justify the expense of building a new gaming PC.
I was very, very excited for SPORE. But with rumors that EA is integrating microtransactions and the risk of intentionally cutting gameplay mechanics for expansions (al la Sims 2) and now this... I will probably wait until SPORE is patched to not have copy protection (like Supreme Commander.)
What this amounts to is that you are paying 50 to 60 bucks to rent a game for an unspecified amount of time that is not under your control.
Imagine ten years from now - you want, for nostalgia's sake, to run Mass Effect, to play it again. You can't, because the verification servers are gone, or no longer support such an old game. You are indeed screwed, because you never actually truly owned your game, you only paid money for permission to play it for as long as someone else decided you could.
This copy-protection changes purchase and ownership into rental.
And if you do not have the internet - and some folks do not - you cannot play at all. You are considered to be worthless.
Do not buy this game, unless you want to send the message that you are happy to rent games for 60 bucks, and that you are fine with the idea of someone unknown being able to turn off your game at any time, on a whim, when they no longer think it is worthwhile to run that particular verification server.
Do you want that future? No?
Then boycott this game like sending them a message meant something.
Otherwise, they get the message that this is just peachy-fine to do.
croxis:EA has stated that micro transactions will not be creature parts. Let that comfort you however it may.
In regards to the topic...this will be just like any other copy protection and act as a stall at best. Look at the absolute flak 2k caught for it's limited installs, does anyone honestly think people won't be pissed by leasing a game for 10 days at a time?
I assure you, this won't fly, and quite a few customers not on their moral high horse will at least download the eventual crack, even if they bought the game and funded terrible DRM.
Now they've gone and ruined it again...just play it on the 360 and be happy with that...these stupid companies need to realize how much they are messing with legitimate clients....
If you have a computer good enough to play Mass Effect I'm completely sure that computer has internet access at least once every 10 days. From what I read it doesn't even sound like you'll notice the game "re-registering" itself...it'll just happen automatically. It'll probably be really quick as well; if a computer can render your game at 30+ frames per second all while computing physics and such in real time it shouldn't be too hard to run a simple registration script in the background!
The only problem I could see with this system is a server problem happening on Bioware's side, but if their website says up then I'm sure registration should stay working. I just hope they don't stop supporting this 10 years down the road!
If this type of protection can actually make a dent in the PC game pirating problem then I'm all for it! :)
This is like.. I have tons of dvd movies. They are all genuine and many of them have this intro movie which tells you that piracy is bad. You cant skip it. You cant fastforward it. You have to watch it to the end everytime. I used to buy pirate dvds when i was lets say younger. As you can guess where this short rant is going.. The pirated movies don't have that video. Only the people who paid for it suffer for something they are not guilty of and waste few minutes of their lives everytime they are eager to see a movie again and again.
Seriously even if I'm not gonna notice it when it happens I don't want that kind of thing.
We are talking about a game. Imagine i had to re-install my windows xp two days in a row once and the second time I couldn't activate it over the internet because i did it too "often" and had to call them by phone. I'm sure they would still remember the scolding they got that day.
You see if I'm gonna pay for this game its mine. I'm not borrowing it! No one can check me every five day.
I can see copy protection removal to become a business of its own. There already is a way of placing bounties on bugs or missing features in software which the manufacturer can't or won't fix. You pledge a tenner, ten people chip in, so there's a hundred quid in it for whoever puts in the feature you want.
Or removes it, whichever you fancy. So the next time I buy a PC game (which rarely happens these days, what with little time and a 360...) that is laden with copy protection (god how I hate to have a noisy disc spin up constantly because it is used as a dongle...), product activation and possibly in-game ads, I will wait for its price to drop from the 60 or 70 bucks they cost these days to around 40 and invest the rest in a bounty for someone to crack the protection. I'm not paying for this DRM crap, and neither should you.
Mass Effect just went from a Buy to a Download after talking about it with mah boi. I'm sure torrents will have the game bundled with the crack in less then a week after launch.
As I posted before, Sins of a Solar Empire has ZERO copy protection.... So I BOUGHT it. Paid money that is.
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