The following article was not written by me. It does however, give EXACTLY what my opinion of the matter is.

DRM promotes piracy due to the desire people have not to be restricted on something THEY HAVE PAID FOR. I think a better option would be to supply the consumer with an incentive to buy the game that piracy does not provide. I honestly don't know what that would be... but they have put enough effort in to "locking" their intellectual property that I think they could provide us with a reason to pay for it.

I wanted to share it with everyone here however, as I know there are more than a few PC gamers out there who will be playing this awesome game to the fullest visual potential on the PC when it is released. There is however, one hiccup.

F$*#in DRM!!!

Here we go:

According to a post in the Bioware's forums, upcoming PC game Mass Effect's producer Derek French has confirmed that the game will have rolling DRM, meaning every 10 days you will need to activate the game again over the internet.

"Mass Effect uses SecuROM and requires an online activation for the first time that you play it," French says. "After the first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez'd and gets banned). Just so that the 10 day thing doesn't become abrupt, SecuROM tries its first re-check with 5 days remaining in the 10 day window. If it can't contact the server before the 10 days are up, nothing bad happens and the game still runs. After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run."

In case that didn't sink in, to play Mass Effect you will need to re-activate your copy every 10 days, until the end of time. This of course, will lead to problems, there is no doubt about that. Firstly, if you don't have internet you cannot play this game, plain and simple. That is probably not so big of a problem now that broadband prices are so cheap, but imagine moving into a new house and not having time to set up Internet for the first ten days. Say goodbye to your brand new $50 copy of Mass Effect.

The DRM gets even worse. You are only allowed to install the game on three machines before it locks up. If the activation servers go down, good luck trying to play your game at all. (Anyone remember Bioshock?) That's not even mentioning if Bioware ever goes out of business, there will be no server to reactivate with every 10 days, effectively killing your game off.

The source article had a funny way of putting the situation saying that if you are really interested in the game you should "simply find a version of the game that is hacked to bypass activation" thus making it easier to play. Yes the pirated version will be easier to play then the legit copy.

Tags : BioWare : DRM : electronic arts : Mass Effect : pc : Piracy

Comments

By: Shad On: 03:11 May 7th, 2008 Offline	Good stuff, EA, good stuff. The publisher pushes copy protection, not so much the development studio, however this procedure of treating honest customers like criminals to catch a few criminals instigates the very behaviour they are trying to curb. Ahoy, maties, Dee Argh Em spotted! Man the harpoons! How to do it right: www.sinsofasolarempire.com NO copy protection, but digital distribution down and registration and validation required to update the game and play multiplayer. It's rate of piracy is very low. 200,000 copies sold in the first month of it's release.

By: Tiamat On: 04:25 May 7th, 2008 Offline	... That blows the big one. And it won't work, infact I know for a fact it'll make things worse.

By: SwitchxA On: 04:03 May 8th, 2008 Offline	I just don't get it. Why don't PC game makers actually wake up and look around. Is Adobe fretting about piracy when they have some of the most pirated software online? No, because they have keys, one time activation and if you want to try so bad....go ahead. The people who want to buy their software buy it and the others don't. I heard that example along with others from the president of Stardock, makers of Sins of the Solar System and Windows Blinds. He said something interesting as well. He said the main barrier to PC gaming is knowing if a game is going to work when I install it. A standardized system needs to be put in place. GFW was a swing and a miss, but a similar system could very well work. A standardized system and a pull back on DRM could do wonders for PC gaming and having it open up to an even larger audience. I hate to sing woes of the PC gaming industry when it is doing so well. Maybe not in total diversity and quality but I can say that Mass Effect is moving in the wrong direction DRM wise.