I’ve got a pretty elaborate scheme for keeping my PC clean: I’ve got a disk image of my C: partition with a clean Windows XP install including recent drivers, firefox, winamp, VLC and so on. Whenever I’ve got the feeling that my PC is clogged up (usually right after taking part in a LAN party), I just restore my disk image (a work of 5 minutes) and everything is fine again.
This week, I almost went and logged into my old Steam account again to order BioShock. Luckily, while looking for reviews, I stumbled upon some fine lads reporting about the copy protection system in BioShock.
Apparently, when you install the game, it phones home (to SecuROM). Somewhere on the SecuROM servers, a counter is incremented. This counter is used to restrict you to only install the game 2 (in words: two) times. Then it’s game over and you can buy another copy of the game.
Other sources suggest that if you uninstall the game, that counter will be decremented again (so upon uninstalling the game, it will phone home as well). Also word is out that this counter has been extended to allow for 5 installs.
Bugger. I was really waiting to play this game, but with that, I’ll just leave it be.
For some time in the past, SecuROM was the sane alternative to StarForce. But apparently, that wasn’t because they were less crazed out than the StarForce maniacs, but because they just weren’t technically capable of what StarForce did. Now the beast shows its ugly face.
I’ve always been a fan of the “buy it and its your’s” mindset. When I paid for the game, I should be allowed to do whatever I please with it. Just attempting to run it in a Linux/WINE environment would be futile because of the copy protection. Forgetting to uninstall the game before I restore my disk image means one install is gone - forever. If I wanted to install the game on both my Vista and my XP partition, I’m already nigh on using up my allowed install count.
Being a software developer myself, I tried not to use illegally copied software. But at this rate, I’m actively considering to look for a pirated version just for the sake of it. You can almost feel the mistrust in the air. Think of entering a store and immediately, two guys with “Security - Anti-Theft Department” on their shirts start walking behind you until you exit the store again. SecuROM my ass, you’re soo close to making me become a software pirate on purpose.
August 25th, 2007 at 6:58 am
I read with great interest above blog. The blog and various articles regarding BioShock mentions that the users are not happy with the fact that one cannot install the software on multiple machines. There is a new software copy-protection and anti-piracy solution from Byteshield [url removed] that allow any number of installations, but limit how many activations are on at the same time.
August 25th, 2007 at 11:59 am
What’s this? Guerilla marketing?
I read the description on ByteShield’s site, you’re advertising the exact same system SecuROM uses. Just that this one is from an immature company that is likely to give us even more headaches with half-baked solutions.
What trust should I put in a company that lies in my face (you clearly didn’t read my blog at all), misuses my blog as an advertising platform and tries to get in the market with the same kind of customer abuse that is pissing me off?