News The truth behind BioShock copy protection

[CardJoe]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/08...y_protection/1

You asked me to investigate and now I've got the answers. The truth about the copy protection and widescreen issues in BioShock.

[quack]

Why use copy protection at all? As stated time and time again - copy protection only affects people who've paid for the game, and it's a damn nuisance.

I'm sure there will be a NoCD crack produced pretty quickly or some other workaround for those who've bought it and are fed up with digging out the DVD each time.

[plagio]

What I really would like to be assured of is that when you uninstall the game, the SecuROM software gets uninstalled too !
I had bad experience with StarForce in the past, so I am really worried about anti copy crapware.

Also, WHY having such a thing on the demo too ? I doesn't make any sense.

[Jamie]

It's annoying you have to go through the uninstall process if you want to format you pc and reinstall but if it stops some pirates stealing from the developers pockets it seems a fair trade.

As long as a valid customer can easily get securom to clear old installs there shouldn't be a problem.

[will.]

I don't care.

[quack]

Originally Posted by Jamie

if it stops some pirates stealing from the developers pockets

Has it stopped them in the past? Copy protection only disadvantages the buyer.

[Jamie]

Originally Posted by quack

Has it stopped them in the past? Copy protection only disadvantages the buyer.

There are two standpoints you can take on this subject.

If they put up a barrier it will stop at least some of the casual pirates who have the money to pay for it but will pirate if it's easier than going to a store and buying it.

The other side of the coin is that this sort of copy protection does not stop the hardcore pirates cracking the game and making it easily available online.

There is no perfect solution because we don't live in a perfect world. If people weren't so cheap and payed for things they wanted then there wouldn't be a need for copy protection.

[Hamish]

There are also reports on the 2kforums from several people where uninstalling has NOT given them back an install 'credit'

The only way i can see this copy protection system was supposed to work was to stop casual piracy, the 'proper' warez version wont even have the activation system in it therefore an activation limit is not going to affect them at all.
Its clearly to stop people taking the disc round to their friend's house an install the game there too
However, that friend still needs a legit disc (or a crack at which point any copy protection is irrelevant) in the drive to play
So if there were no activation limit you still couldnt install the same copy on your friend's PC and be able to play at the same time

It doesnt even stop casual piracy...

[Tyr]

Buy it on Steam and forget about SecuROM?

*Runs away very quickly, before he is shot by all the Steam haters...*

[Hamish]

Originally Posted by Tyr

Buy it on Steam and forget about SecuROM?

*Runs away very quickly, before he is shot by all the Steam haters...*

steam one still has to be activated via securom in addition to activation through steam
it is also limited to 2 concurrent installs

also apparently the 'backup game files' option in steam doesnt work for bioshock

[specofdust]

There are reports on the 2K forums of people de-activating an installation (by uninstalling it) and still not being able to install it on a new machine.

Also, the activation servers are down.

Originally Posted by Jamie

There is no perfect solution because we don't live in a perfect world. If people weren't so cheap and payed for things they wanted then there wouldn't be a need for copy protection.

If companies treated the customers better than the pirates do there'd be less desire and social acceptance of piracy.

[DrFreeze]

lol, now if i accidently forget to uninstall bioshock on one (yeah yeah, TWO whoop-dee-frackin-doo) of my full system upgrade formats, ill have to end up phoning those assholes at securom and as them *pretty please dear sir, could you stop holding my game hostage and let me play?*

i cast a serious BLAH on all this ****, forcing me to individually uninstall my software before doing a full system whipe

[DrFreeze]

oh and one adtional thing, the subscript of the picture says "FACT: BioShock copy protection does not cause zombification. " yet the new item doesnt go into any of the rootkit accusations

[cyrilthefish]

Originally Posted by quack

Why use copy protection at all? As stated time and time again - copy protection only affects people who've paid for the game, and it's a damn nuisance.

I'm sure there will be a NoCD crack produced pretty quickly or some other workaround for those who've bought it and are fed up with digging out the DVD each time.

Quoted for truth.

This will ONLY affect people who have paid for the game
This WILL NOT stop the game being pirated

Personally, every game i own i have No-CD cracks for, as it's just far too much hassle searching for disks everytime you want to play a game.

When will these companies learn that pissing-off your paying customers while pirates get a better deal is not good business sense...

[Firehed]

Originally Posted by Jamie

There are two standpoints you can take on this subject.

If they put up a barrier it will stop at least some of the casual pirates who have the money to pay for it but will pirate if it's easier than going to a store and buying it.

The other side of the coin is that this sort of copy protection does not stop the hardcore pirates cracking the game and making it easily available online.

There is no perfect solution because we don't live in a perfect world. If people weren't so cheap and payed for things they wanted then there wouldn't be a need for copy protection.

That's not the case at all. I have the money to buy games, and I do. But when they pull stunts like this, I just download them. It's just less hassle to run a cracked copy because I don't have to put up with this nonsense. I have quite a few installations of various pieces of software where I've paid for it but have a cracked copy installed, because the last thing I need is for it to randomly decide my serial key is invalid or something equally stupid.

The concept of activation is the worst thing to have ever happened to software. With very few exceptions, I have a paid copy of all the software I use, and those exceptions are professional tools that I use to experiment with (I won't even think about doing profitable work with them until I've paid for it, as I find it morally reprehensible to profit from somebody else's work unless you've paid for your right to do so). I own Windows, but I run a cracked corporate version on my system so that I don't have to deal with activation every few months. Likewise for Office, etc. It's twice as bad with activation systems, since they're so flawed by design. Any system where my ability to use something I've paid for is dependent on somebody else's systems to be correct, up-to-date, or some other thing that can go wrong (and will at the worst possible time) are unacceptable for me.

If they're going to punish their paying customers with this kind of thing, fine. But don't expect me to pay. If they're going to do it like Bethesda did with Oblivion and just give you a straight install disc with not so much as a serial key to muck about with, then I'll happily fork over if it's something I want/need. Partly because I want to show developers that I support that method and money is about the only way for me to do so, partly because I know it won't screw me over later on if something goes wrong their end, but mostly because they're treating me like a paying customer and not a criminal.

You know what they say - make guns illegal and then only the criminals will have guns. Well it's along the same lines here - make it so only cracked versions of your software run then only the crackers will run your software.

[Blademrk]

So you've had a major system crash (your unable to get your system to boot let alone uninstall any software), you've got to phone Microsoft to let them allow you to re-install Windows and then securerom to allow you to reinstall Bioshock...
Just think, if a number of games went through this process it would cost you a small fortune in telephone bills just to get your system back on it's feet (assuming they're noy using freephone numbers).

How many people actually uninstall programs (or even think of uninstalling programs) before wiping their systems?
I know I don't (let's face it, usually if you're wiping your system there's more pressing things on your mind than "did I uninstall that game???").

All the same I think I'll stick to the 360 version,

[DougEdey]

Originally Posted by Blademrk

All the same I think I'll stick to the 360 version,

The very definition of "Plug and Play"

[naokaji]

Originally Posted by Blademrk

So you've had a major system crash (your unable to get your system to boot let alone uninstall any software), you've got to phone Microsoft to let them allow you to re-install Windows and then securerom to allow you to reinstall Bioshock...
Just think, if a number of games went through this process it would cost you a small fortune in telephone bills just to get your system back on it's feet (assuming they're noy using freephone numbers).

How many people actually uninstall programs (or even think of uninstalling programs) before wiping their systems?
I know I don't (let's face it, usually if you're wiping your system there's more pressing things on your mind than "did I uninstall that game???").

All the same I think I'll stick to the 360 version,

QFT

and, there are also people who dont even bother trying to fix screwed up windows installs like me, personal data on separate partition and slimmed down / unattended install of windows (nlite / vlite forever) cheesecake....

[S1mon]

What happen if you install / activate, then image your hard drive, uninstall / deactivate and then reapply the image?

[Veles]

Originally Posted by Jamie

There is no perfect solution because we don't live in a perfect world. If people weren't so cheap and payed for things they wanted then there wouldn't be a need for copy protection.

Games like Galactic Civilizations II and Company of Heroes show that there is not really any advantage to copy protection, even though they have none at all, they don't even require a no-CD crack, they still sold well. Yes they were pirated, but no more than other games.