{"id":963,"date":"2008-05-17T08:00:14","date_gmt":"2008-05-17T14:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamingwithchildren.com\/?p=963"},"modified":"2008-05-17T08:00:14","modified_gmt":"2008-05-17T14:00:14","slug":"mass-hysteria-over-mass-effect-pc-drm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/17\/mass-hysteria-over-mass-effect-pc-drm\/","title":{"rendered":"Mass Hysteria over Mass Effect PC DRM"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/masseffect_pc_box.jpg\" alt=\"Box\" \/>If you are a PC gamer and a RPG fan you are likely very excited about the upcoming release of Bioware&#8217;s Mass Effect.\u00a0 I was thrilled that it was being released a mere 6 months after coming out as an XBOX360 &#8216;exclusive&#8217;, and have had it on my &#8216;buy on day of release&#8217; list ever since.\u00a0 However, if you take a look on Bioware&#8217;s forums or Amazon&#8217;s product page or pretty well anywhere PC games are discussed, you will find massive threads calling for a boycott of the game and a general tar-and-feathering of everyone at EA and Bioware.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 What is the cause for all this hysteria about the game?\u00a0 DRM, or Digital Rights Management.<\/p>\n<p>There have been billions of words written about the impact of piracy on PC gaming.\u00a0 There have also been countless words written against DRM in pretty much every media from music to movies to video games.\u00a0 They all seem to boil down to two things: the rights and needs of companies to protect against theft, and the principle that a customer should be able to enjoy a product they purchase without unnecessary encumbrance and without being treated like an assumed criminal.<\/p>\n<p>So what is the DRM that comes along with Mass Effect that is getting everyone so upset?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>SecuROM: this system installs files and hidden registry keys that actively monitor how you use your computer.\u00a0 The goal is to be sure you aren&#8217;t trying to use a DVD-copy of the game disk.<\/li>\n<li>Online Activation: you need to be online and some form of information &#8216;hash code&#8217; regarding your license and system configuration is stored somewhere.<\/li>\n<li>Limited installs \/ activations: you can only activate three times, and it is possible to alter your system in a way that requires a new activation.\u00a0 So you might try to play the game, learn you need a new video card, then use up a second activation to get it running.<\/li>\n<li>No DVD required in the drive to play.<\/li>\n<li>Initially they were going to require &#8216;periodic activation checks&#8217;.\u00a0 This would have happened every 10 days, and if you weren&#8217;t online at that point you couldn&#8217;t play, plain and simple.\u00a0 Based on the initial uproar, Bioware backed off and removed the &#8216;phone home&#8217; requirement.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Does anyone at EA or Bioware recall all of the furor over Bioshock&#8217;s DRM?\u00a0 I mean, it was only nine months ago &#8211; is their short-term memory that bad? Or do they just look at the sales of that game and figure that the end justifies the means?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There are still some things I&#8217;m not clear of in the wake of that mess, such as whether they ever resolved how activations would be handled during uninstalling a game &#8211; does it phone home again to update the count?\u00a0 It was supposed to do that, but numerous reports of issues complained it didn&#8217;t work.<\/p>\n<p>I am a huge anti-piracy person, and have been very vocal in pretty much every community about my basic contention that piracy is theft.\u00a0 I am using only Sony firmware on my PSP despite the fact that &#8216;custom firmware&#8217; would open up loads of cool software to me &#8211; such as the ability to grab screens in games &#8211; because I fundamentally believe that &#8216;custom firmware&#8217; is used more than 99% of the time to pirate PSP games and is the reason that the system has atrocious sales and has had a hard time attracting developers.<\/p>\n<p>But I also bristle when I put in a DVD and have to watch a video lecture chastise me about pirating movies.\u00a0 There is a line somewhere between asking for you to show identification and cuffing you and taking you downtown until you and your family can come up with seven forms of positive ID.<\/p>\n<p>And I feel that with Bioshock and Mass Effect (and Spore pretty soon), video games have crossed that line.\u00a0 Why do I say that?\u00a0 Not for some esoteric reason of treating customers like criminals, though that is true. Here are three thoughts that went through my mind this week as I contemplated my pre-order for the game:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I listened to a 33-year old record album of music that has been out of print for 30 years.\u00a0 I know I do not own &#8216;the music&#8217; but rather the physical copy as pressed on disc.\u00a0 Yet despite the obsolete technology and long defunct companies involved, I could listen to the music just fine.<\/li>\n<li>I played not one, not two, not three, not four, but *five* games that were made by companies that no longer exist.\u00a0 One of the games is over twenty years old, and one is only three and a half years old!\u00a0 There were some CD-keys involved, but nothing more.\u00a0 Had any of those games required an internet connection, I would have been out of luck.<\/li>\n<li>Microsoft declared that they would no longer issue keys for music bought on the &#8216;Play for Sure&#8217; DRM-based MSN Music store.\u00a0 This means that the music you paid to listen to will no longer work if you want to get a new PC &#8211; or even upgrade to Vista!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That last one is the thing that gets me &#8211; everyone makes the &#8216;Troika Point&#8217;, that companies can go out of business and then you would be left with no means of activation.\u00a0 But what about when the company simply changes its&#8217; mind about supporting the product they sell?\u00a0 I mean, this is Microsoft, one of the most massive companies in the world with tremendous resources &#8211; and they simply say &#8220;too effing bad&#8221;. EA and Bioware have stated in their &#8216;official responses&#8217; that we should &#8216;trust them&#8217; to do the right thing.\u00a0 Sorry guys &#8211; EA has repeatedly earned their image as the &#8216;Darth Vader of the game industry&#8217;, and while I hold Bioware in high regard I am not willing to just &#8216;trust them&#8217; to make sure that I could have the same experience in 2028 with Mass Effect as I did with that old record this week.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some thoughts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I remember entering code keys and information from specific pages to play old games.\u00a0 That was a hassle, and put the onus on the owner to prove his ownership.\u00a0 I think that is unfair, yet it works &#8211; when I went to play PGA Tour Golf on an ancient Mac I took out the manual, found the yardage for the 8th hole at Sawgrass, and moved along.<\/li>\n<li>The CD requirement is a double-edged sword.\u00a0 On the one hand I have no problem doing that, but on the other hand I have gotten damaged CD&#8217;s due to drive malfunctions through the years.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve not lost a game disk yet, but with more and more slot-loading systems it is only a matter of time.<\/li>\n<li>I am fine entering a CD-key to register a game, and even the combination of a CD key and having a disk in place.\u00a0 Is it a hassle?\u00a0 Sure, but again, I can always reinstall the game whenever I want.<\/li>\n<li>Requiring you to *ever* be online for a single-player only game is just wrong.\u00a0 It is one thing if you are downloading it on Steam or Direct2Drive, as you are then inherently connected.\u00a0 But when I buy a DVD game that will never see the Internet as part of the game, I should never have to be concerned with making a connection.\u00a0 I use laptops exclusively and have a wireless network &#8211; there were poor coverage spots in our old &lt;2000 square foot house, and I haven&#8217;t begun to test what it is like in our new house that is more than twice as large.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But that is all from one side of the coin &#8211; the one where the customer is getting treated like a criminal and likely getting a short-lived ability to play a game.\u00a0 All of this is happening because of the other side of the coin &#8211; that the company who produces the product and owns the intellectual property (IP) has the right to protect that IP and to stave off illegal use of their product.<\/p>\n<p>I am not disputing that EA \/ Bioware deserves money paid for every person who installs the game on their PC.\u00a0 I fully support them in that regard and that is why I won&#8217;t join any boycott.\u00a0 However, what do they think is more likely: that having a draconian RPM scheme will cause everyone to cower and say &#8216;oh, please, take my money&#8217; &#8230; or that when the DRM is broken and the game is cracked and up on P2P \/ torrent sites within a week of release that people who would otherwise have bought the game will be saying &#8216;F U EA\/Bioware&#8217; and downloading and playing the game with no concern over online activation?<\/p>\n<p>Yeah, me too.\u00a0 Yet there I will be, with my DVD install, hoping that nothing crashes so that I go beyond my three installs and find myself without the ability to play until I prove myself worthy to EA\/Bioware once again &#8230; which could be difficult since I tend to recycle receipts and boxes quickly.<\/p>\n<p>I do not agree with those who regularly pirate games and claim that either (a) I only use it for demos and buy what I like or (b) I only download games I wouldn&#8217;t have bought anyway so there is no harm.\u00a0 I believe that they are simply rationalizing their behavior and should just accept that they are petty thieves and get on with their lives.\u00a0 Of course, I don&#8217;t agree with the industry types who would have you believe that these folks are major felons who belong alongside rapists and murderers either!<\/p>\n<p>Yet despite my anti-piracy stance, despite my dislike for the rationalizing so many pirates do, when it comes to things like Sony&#8217;s CD rootkit fiasco and when it comes to things like Bioshock and now Mass Effect, I have a hard time chastising those who choose to take a stand and not pay for this abuse in one way or another.\u00a0 While I don&#8217;t think anyone has a &#8216;right&#8217; to something like a game, I don&#8217;t dispute their claims that EA \/ Bioware don&#8217;t deserve to be rewarded for treating their customers so poorly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you are a PC gamer and a RPG fan you are likely very excited about the upcoming release of Bioware&#8217;s Mass Effect.\u00a0 I was thrilled that it was being released a mere 6 months after coming out as an XBOX360 &#8216;exclusive&#8217;, and have had it on my &#8216;buy on day of release&#8217; list ever [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}