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Posts tagged with "drm"

When DRM goes a leap too far...

Saturday, 11. April 2009, 16:54:06

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I'm a great fan of Chronicles of Riddick, Escape from Butcher Bay. A really good game with excellent graphics, sound, story, gameplay and atmosphere. Almost like Thief in the future.

Not long ago they aired the sequel, called Assault on Dark Athena which is happening right after the original. Judging by its excellent predecessor, the game is great. But the protection that arrives with it is not. At all.

Dark Athena features SecuROM DRM protection with ONLY 3 activations WITHOUT any chance of revocation. This means you format your system 3 times and you can start looking for a crack to crack your very own original game that you bought with hard earned money. I was complaining over EA and its activation crap, but Atari went one leap too far. Is that how you reward those who pay for your product?
As a fan and owner of the original, i'm not going to buy the second game. And thats just because of those freakin 3 activations. I mean are they joking or something? I buy games so i can play them for as long as i want and with the least problems possible (because i get support with patches).
It seems they think we all play the game once and then throw it in the trash.

Release the game without protection and it'll be pirated just the same as with these idiotic protections. However those who want to buy the game will have one reason more to buy the game and not skipping it. Because in this case, i'm skipping Dark Athena. Kiss my € Atari.
You'll not going to see any of it from me.

So, if you're planning on buying Dark Athena, think again.

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EA and DRM De-authorization

Monday, 8. December 2008, 08:53:59

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I'm still filling in the details about this feature but from what i can see, EA is actually turning a new page in DRM situation.
They have just released a Red Alert 3 1.05 Patch that includes ability to de-authorize existing activations when user uses them all. This means users can get back used activations anytime without contacting EA support. Because, if this feature works as intended, the DRM may actually become friendly to those who actually buy the games. I was never really concerned about so called rootkits that come along, i was always more concerned about having a legit game that has to be cracked in order to play it.
But no more it appears. In fact this idea of in-game de-authorization is briliant. It holds some pirates at bay, gives you ability to play the game without disc in DVD drive, yet it doesn't cripple or limit the game for actual buyers.

Now i just hope EA will release similar updates for Spore, Crysis: Warhead, Dead Space and NFS:Undercover and start releasing games with this feature already built-in or at least with a reliable patch release sometime later after game launch.
If they do that, i'm all for having DRM in games.
And i'm also seriously planning on buying Red Alert 3 now! Maybe even Premier Edition hehe :smile:

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How to backup your SecuROM activation data!

Sunday, 7. December 2008, 14:22:10

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These activation schemes really piss me off because you can end up with dead game even though you bought it and constantly rely on limited support given by developers/publishers. But i hope this will make an end to this. I found a way to perfectly backup existing SecuROM activation data used by nearly all today's games.

Creating backups
First you have to use SecuROM DRM Backup and export SecuROM registry values.

Then go to this folder (WinVista example, replace USERNAME with your profile name):
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming

and make a backup of SecuROM folder (enable hidden files to see it).
Pack that REG file and SecuROM folder and store both to a safe location.

Only problem here is that all SecuROM games store activation data in the same files. So activating them separately and trying to merge them won't work (it will overwrite older activation data files). Before installing new SecuROM protected game you have to restore your existing backup (even if you don't have those games installed anymore!), install new game and activate it. Now you have to backup the activation files again and discard the old ones. Also don't forget to write down somewhere which games are already included in your backup. For the moment only SecuROM itself can add new activations to its files so make sure your existing ones are there.

Example:
You have Dead Space and Red Alert 3 activations stored in your backup, but you don't have Dead Space installed anymore and you want to install NFS:UC. You have to restore the backup with Dead Space and RA3 activations (if they aren't already present on your system). Now install NFS:UC so it'll add its activation to existing one. Backup the file and you'll have Dead Space, RA3 and NFS:UC stored in your backup. When you'll buy for example Mirror's Edge, repeat the process and you'll have Dead Space, RA3, NFS:UC and Mirror's Edge stored in your backup.
When you restore the backup you restore all activations. However each game will find it's own activation and make proper use of it automatically.

Restoring activation
Now when you want to re-install game on same machine you just have to unplug the net connection, install the game, throw SecuROM folder back and import REG file.
Run the game and verify if it works. If the game starts without problems, then it's working.
You can now plug back your network cable to restore internet capability.

BioShock works by just exporting registry values, Dead Space and Need for Speed: Undercover require backup of SecuROM folder too.

This proceedure DOES NOT bypass protection schemes and ONLY works on same machine as the first time. If required, you have to supply authentic serial key during installation.
Game has to be activated at least once before backing up the data!
This will help you save precious activations. So technically you'll only use them when you'll drastically upgrade your system. Thats much better than each time you re-install the game.

If there are any problems understanding the above noodle, please tell me and i'll try to improve it :smile:

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DRM - The final solution?

Sunday, 2. November 2008, 00:36:19

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I'm asking myself, where is this heading? Almost every game released today includes this so hated DRM thing from SecuROM.
Developers and publishers try to show DRM as something wonderful that actually protects their intelectual property and somehow makes users happy as a puppy. But does it? Well, at this exact point i kinda lost the track.
This incredible DRM is suppose to stop pirates. But how come all these DRM infested (yeah infested) games show up on torrent sites 1 day after release or even worse, few days before release in my region.
That happened to BioShock, that happened Warhead, that happened to Spore and even brand new Red Alert 3.
"Nice" track record of protection efficiency i must say...
Thats like hoping a kevlar vest will protect your from a nuclear bomb blast at 10m distance lol...

They also advertise that this wonderful DRM allows users to play games without DVD in the optical drive.
Oh, great. After 15 years of using discs in my optical drive, this is really a god send feature. Khm...
Sure it's an ok feature but is it worth the other negative things? I think it's not.

First thing was the obvious one.
It clearly doesn't protect anything as pirated versions show up the very same moment the games are released.
How does this actually help me as a legal customer? It doesn't. At all. I'm limited to a very lame measured activations (yey, some offer revoke feature but thats just not it), i cannot transfer to another PC and usually only i am allowed to play it. Do we also buy 4 cars if there are 4 members in the family? No, we don't. But they expect us to buy 4 games in same case? I sure hope they don't expect that, because not a single sane person would do that. If i play it my brother/sister can't play it. But when they do, i can't. So where exactly is the problem?
This part used to work just fine with a simple CD/DVD check that doesn't require stupid activation and CD/DVD key prevented from same game to be played simultaneously on the internet.

Now lets look from the other point of view. We head to a torrent site and download the game.
DRM was clearly ineffective as we just downloaded the "protected" game. Do we have to worry about activation limit? No. We don't have to use DVD in the drive anyway. We don't have to worry about possible complications with activations. We don't have to worry if activation servers will still be up and running 5 or 10 years later (yeah some ppl actually play these games after so long, and yes that also includes me). I also don't have to worry if publisher will be willing to provide a patch to remove this protection.
We don't have to worry if activation (or shall i say it's protection low level drivers) is going to work on some new OS that will be released every 3 years (Windows).

We don't have to worry about any of these problems and some more, not mentioned here.
So, you buy the game and the result is a disc thats not even allowed to be used as pizza cutter. Or you simply download it from a torrent site and don't have to worry about anything except how you're going to beat that game level...

Are developers and publishers really that blind, they can't see the obvious?
How is some crippled software going to encourage users to buy originals instead warez versions?
This question keeps on rolling through my head. And the answer is always missing there...

Why don't they just save the money they spend on these inefficient protections and spend it on, i don't know, gameplay innovations and research, advertisement, special promotions to increase sales. There are loads of more important things than this useless DRM. I mean this one is painfully obvious.
Hell, pay that extra that would otherwise go for crappy DRM to your programmers and artists so they'll work even better!

But then again, people WILL pay for software if they think it's good. And they do. Many of them. Lots of them. Even i do! But not beacuse DRM is preventing me from getting pirated version.
No, it's because i think developers deserve to be payed for a good job they've done.
And some have done a really great job. If you can find your product on picture below you did an excellent job there... even though some include this DRM. I'd really prefer those games without it... but hell i had no choice. I still rethink buying of DRM games thoroughly. And i dropped many off them from my "to buy" list just because of DRM. Red Alert 3 for example is one of them. And as you can see i like C&C series quite a lot...


Happy bunch of games i'd pay for anytime. Excluding Spore which got there by mistake lol...

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Spore SecuROM DRM fiasco

Tuesday, 9. September 2008, 17:42:53

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It somehow started with BioShock. But i said ok, let it be, since i'm a hardcore fan of System Shock 2 and Deus Ex franchise and to be honest i wanted to encourage developers to develop FPS games into that direction (there really isn't many FPS games that are more advanced than "shoot them all" style).
I've also found out a way how to backup BioShock activation data so i could reinstall it bilion times on the same PC without activating it again. A point where i basically forgot that i'm limited by activation. You can find this tool under my DOWNLOADS section (SecuROM DRM Backup tool).
It works 100% with BioShock, but since Spore is using exactly the same protection it should work just the same with it.

It appears that EA is trying to punish those who actually pay for their games. Anyone remember good old days of Need for Speed series where simple CD check was enough? Or simple CD check and serial key verification for Tiberian Sun or Red Alert 2. It's not annoying and keeps those home pirates from copying the game too easily.
But here is a catch. They (EA) feel like they are going to prevent piracy with such protection schemes.
They know so much about piracy effect on their income and how their sales suffer because of piracy, but they obviously have no freakin clue how this affects honest customers. First of all, by buying such game i feel i'm treated like a criminal by default. And whatever you say, they'll always blame it on piracy itself. Wake up for crying out loud. Warez copies of Spore hit the torrent sites even before i got my original copy of Spore from online shop. Doesn't this tell anything to them? It does to me. Copy protection mechanisms are TOTALLY USELESS! And in the end, only honest customers get punished by them. Do you see a single warez user worrying about how many times he/she could activate the game? Of course not, because they don't have to. They don't have to pay anything and they don't even have to worry about protection. On the other hand, i do worry if i'm gonna use up all 3 activations before i even finish my game. Or what will happen 5 years later.
Do you think Spore will work after 5 years? Will EA actually care about us and provide a patch that will remove this stupid protection before they shut down activation servers? Will this game work on future Windows versions (we all know what happened with SafeDisc/SecuROM CD checks when we moved from Win98 to WinXP)?
If not, will EA provide patches for that? Why the hell do we have to worry about all this?
We are the ones who bought the game for christ sake! Shouldn't pirates be the ones asking themself such questions?!!?!?!

Bottom line, pirates get their stuff before games hit the retail, proving protection schemes are useless and only annoy honest users. They should really fall back to simple CD/DVD checks and invest the money that usually goes for protection licensing to something useful. Like developing games with new, innovative content and stop producing same crap over and over again.
If games are actually good, people will easily give away their hard earned money. And thats a fact.
Thats how i do it, thats how my fiends do it and it worked pretty well so far. Sounds like that one liner from Iron Man (great movie btw :wink: ).

When i heard that Red Alert 3 will be using exactly the same protection scheme, i decided not to buy it just because of that. And i'm not going to download warez version either.
And i think ALL gamers should do the same.
A global mass boycott. If we can "resist" from buying just one such game, we can make a huge difference.
Project like C&C RA3 without any profit returned from the sales will force them to think a bit.
But then again, they will just blame piracy for it, like countless times before.

BOYCOTT SUCH PROTECTION SHEMES FOR BRIGHTER PC GAMING FUTURE!

PS: That image above is the actual photo of my original 49 euro Spore game in case anyone tries to question my honesty...

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