Get rid of limited installation from our games!

These days , game company like EA begin to use limited installation and online authentication to protect their profit.This lead to many issues such as people who don't have internet can't active their game to play or it will count as installing on another computer when you format your computer and lose one activation.This make you look like rent your games more than buy your games.They want to protect their profit but they are treating us like crimical.I won't buy any games which have limited installation or online authentication even that mean I won't play game anymore.I want they are got rid from PC gaming world.I want to know if you want to get rid of them or can live along with them.Game companies should believe in us and treat us nicely if they want to protect their profit.

I didn't vote because there is no option applicable to me. I hate--and I mean utterly DESPISE "limited installation" but am generally OK with online authentication. Don't misundestand; I totally despise the whole idea of online authentication as well, but I accept it because it helps reduce piracy, and piracy hurts us all (well, those of us who don't pirate).

I agree with the other user, though. I'd be happy if Steam was all I ever needed.

All the arguments I have heard them use to justify this has been flawed, at the end of the day it is ignorant publishers enforcing copyright law by the letter and expecting consumers to go along with it. This is the same mentality that would have us pay for the same song for every device we run in on, that considers loaning a game to a friend in itself a form of piracy.

At the end of the day it is their attempt to increase profits by destroying the second hand games market, what publishers need to remember is they are selling a product and if that product has something wrong with it people will go to the competition; or worse yet turn to piracy.

I honestly think this idiocy cannot go on forever but I thought that about StarForce as well, Securom is just the next step after that. What could possibly be worse than limiting the lifespan of games? What's the next artificial limitation people will associate with PC gaming as a whole?

I hate that bloody limited installation most.If they want my money , I will send it to ..... another ones whenever they still use that limited installation.Well , online authentication is not bad at all but I am always worried about when the companies go down we can't active our game.Steam is good DRM.

Yes, developers should get rid of limited installs and DRM, and use Steam instead.Doom_HellKnight

I didn't vote because there is no option applicable to me. I hate--and I mean utterly DESPISE "limited installation" but am generally OK with online authentication. Don't misundestand; I totally despise the whole idea of online authentication as well, but I accept it because it helps reduce piracy, and piracy hurts us all (well, those of us who don't pirate).

I agree with the other user, though. I'd be happy if Steam was all I ever needed.

sotired

Unfotunately, online authentication doesn't even slow piracy down one jot. Even Steam games are available in working, pirated form, so online activations just add to the annoyance factor to me. It's one more thing that can go wrong. Servers can be down, the company can go out of business, the company can just shut the servers down (no legal way to force them to stay up, after all), or it can be bugged and just flat out not work. It's not a good risk, it's like buying a car that will only work as long as Ford lets you use it, and only for as long as Ford is in business.

Steam, while less annoying than a lot of the DRM, is still more of the same. Valve goes under, your Steam games are going to be unusable. Yes, I know they stated they will release an activation patch to allow Steam games to work without Steam should they shut down, but let's face reality! A comany that is going bankrupt is going to have other problems, and may not even have the ability to keep such a promise. In this economy, any company, anywhere, can end up gone at any moment. This kind of activation is NOT to be trusted. Steam is exactly like the other kinds, it just has a better PR department.

Never had an issue with limited installs. If people are changing their hardware or formatting their drives enough that having to make a phone call to up the number matters; they shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a computer in the first place. weirjf

to each his own

its an annoyance and it doesnt solve anything

Never had an issue with limited installs. If people are changing their hardware or formatting their drives enough that having to make a phone call to up the number matters; they shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a computer in the first place. weirjf

What? Why is it a bad thing to tinker with a computer?

[QUOTE="sotired"]

I didn't vote because there is no option applicable to me. I hate--and I mean utterly DESPISE "limited installation" but am generally OK with online authentication. Don't misundestand; I totally despise the whole idea of online authentication as well, but I accept it because it helps reduce piracy, and piracy hurts us all (well, those of us who don't pirate).

I agree with the other user, though. I'd be happy if Steam was all I ever needed.

Royas

Unfotunately, online authentication doesn't even slow piracy down one jot. Even Steam games are available in working, pirated form, so online activations just add to the annoyance factor to me. It's one more thing that can go wrong. Servers can be down, the company can go out of business, the company can just shut the servers down (no legal way to force them to stay up, after all), or it can be bugged and just flat out not work. It's not a good risk, it's like buying a car that will only work as long as Ford lets you use it, and only for as long as Ford is in business.

Steam, while less annoying than a lot of the DRM, is still more of the same. Valve goes under, your Steam games are going to be unusable. Yes, I know they stated they will release an activation patch to allow Steam games to work without Steam should they shut down, but let's face reality! A comany that is going bankrupt is going to have other problems, and may not even have the ability to keep such a promise. In this economy, any company, anywhere, can end up gone at any moment. This kind of activation is NOT to be trusted. Steam is exactly like the other kinds, it just has a better PR department.

Except the people who develop those services are real people, at least some of whom play steam games, or have kids who do. They have a personal interest in making sure it works, and large companies really don't disappear overnight like you make it seem. They may resturcture, go private, and lay off 75% of their workforce, but rarely do they become completely nonexistant.

Why the hell can console owners sell there games? It's completely unfair. DRM has gotten way outta hand.

I could buy better games if I could sell the **** ones...

[QUOTE="Royas"][QUOTE="sotired"]

I didn't vote because there is no option applicable to me. I hate--and I mean utterly DESPISE "limited installation" but am generally OK with online authentication. Don't misundestand; I totally despise the whole idea of online authentication as well, but I accept it because it helps reduce piracy, and piracy hurts us all (well, those of us who don't pirate).

I agree with the other user, though. I'd be happy if Steam was all I ever needed.

fourier404

Unfotunately, online authentication doesn't even slow piracy down one jot. Even Steam games are available in working, pirated form, so online activations just add to the annoyance factor to me. It's one more thing that can go wrong. Servers can be down, the company can go out of business, the company can just shut the servers down (no legal way to force them to stay up, after all), or it can be bugged and just flat out not work. It's not a good risk, it's like buying a car that will only work as long as Ford lets you use it, and only for as long as Ford is in business.

Steam, while less annoying than a lot of the DRM, is still more of the same. Valve goes under, your Steam games are going to be unusable. Yes, I know they stated they will release an activation patch to allow Steam games to work without Steam should they shut down, but let's face reality! A comany that is going bankrupt is going to have other problems, and may not even have the ability to keep such a promise. In this economy, any company, anywhere, can end up gone at any moment. This kind of activation is NOT to be trusted. Steam is exactly like the other kinds, it just has a better PR department.

Except the people who develop those services are real people, at least some of whom play steam games, or have kids who do. They have a personal interest in making sure it works, and large companies really don't disappear overnight like you make it seem. They may resturcture, go private, and lay off 75% of their workforce, but rarely do they become completely nonexistant.

I'm not sure what your point is about the people being real. Of course they are real, but that doesn't mean they are going to do a good job. The folks who ported GTA IV to the PC were real people. They had a personal interest in making sure it worked well. Didn't keep it from NOT working well. The people who made Starforce were real people, with a (presumedly) personal interest in making sure it worked well. A quick search with Google will show you just how poorly Starforce worked. Every program made is made by real people, many of whom are gamers, who have an interest in making things work. And every program has bugs, some of which are never fixed. If you look at services instead of product, my cell phone company is run by real people. Yet somehow, they constantly fail when trying to get something as simple as billing done. It's a simple fact of engineering, the more features you have, the more likely it is that something is going to break. You can't get around that with any amount of desire. Good intentions count for exactly nothing in the real world, actions are what speak.

And while big companies may not often disappear overnight, it can happen very quickly. Or the decline can be slower, and the patches still not get released because nobody really realized they were about to go under. Even if a company is going down over a period of 6 months, the people in charge aren't going to be thinking "oh, let's patch this now so that when we go, our customers can play". They aren't gonna give a damn, they are going to be too busy figuring out how to stay afloat. If making and releasing that patch costs them money they need to run, they won't make it. If they are in bankruptcy, the court may not even allow them to make and release it. Lots of things can happen, and they can happen pretty quickly

I stand by my position, limited activations are not an appropriate, or effective, solution to piracy. They are only being used in an attempt to quash the secondary, used games market. In other words, they are being used in an attempt to limit consumer rights out of greed. Nothing to do with piracy.

Never had an issue with limited installs. If people are changing their hardware or formatting their drives enough that having to make a phone call to up the number matters; they shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a computer in the first place. weirjf

Never had an issue with limited installs. If people are changing their hardware or formatting their drives enough that having to make a phone call to up the number matters; they shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a computer in the first place. weirjf

When moving to Windows Vista from XP people would have lost an activation in their games, should they have decided they didn't like the OS and went back to XP that is another activation. When Windows 7 comes out and people move to that they are all going to lose another activation, this is a perfectly reasonable scenario were someone can use up almost all their activations.

This is of course not including upgrading your hardware, formats because of OS problems and other perfectly legitimate activities expected from a PC user. Even if someone is not computer savy and never changes anything, over the years of computer changes and problems they will inevitably run out of activations at some point.

No matter which way you look at it the end result is running out of activations, all that is different between users is how long it takes.

EA of course has demonstrated on numerous occasions that they think gaming products have a lifespan, two examples of this is shutting down game servers after a number of years and placing download time limits on their digital game purchases. Sooner or later the EA game activation servers will go down, when that happens people won't be able to go back and play their classics like they used to.

[QUOTE="Doom_HellKnight"]Yes, developers should get rid of limited installs and DRM, and use Steam instead.Stoner-Pimp

[QUOTE="fourier404"][QUOTE="Royas"]

Unfotunately, online authentication doesn't even slow piracy down one jot. Even Steam games are available in working, pirated form, so online activations just add to the annoyance factor to me. It's one more thing that can go wrong. Servers can be down, the company can go out of business, the company can just shut the servers down (no legal way to force them to stay up, after all), or it can be bugged and just flat out not work. It's not a good risk, it's like buying a car that will only work as long as Ford lets you use it, and only for as long as Ford is in business.

Steam, while less annoying than a lot of the DRM, is still more of the same. Valve goes under, your Steam games are going to be unusable. Yes, I know they stated they will release an activation patch to allow Steam games to work without Steam should they shut down, but let's face reality! A comany that is going bankrupt is going to have other problems, and may not even have the ability to keep such a promise. In this economy, any company, anywhere, can end up gone at any moment. This kind of activation is NOT to be trusted. Steam is exactly like the other kinds, it just has a better PR department.

Royas

Except the people who develop those services are real people, at least some of whom play steam games, or have kids who do. They have a personal interest in making sure it works, and large companies really don't disappear overnight like you make it seem. They may resturcture, go private, and lay off 75% of their workforce, but rarely do they become completely nonexistant.

I'm not sure what your point is about the people being real. Of course they are real, but that doesn't mean they are going to do a good job. The folks who ported GTA IV to the PC were real people. They had a personal interest in making sure it worked well. Didn't keep it from NOT working well. The people who made Starforce were real people, with a (presumedly) personal interest in making sure it worked well. A quick search with Google will show you just how poorly Starforce worked. Every program made is made by real people, many of whom are gamers, who have an interest in making things work. And every program has bugs, some of which are never fixed. If you look at services instead of product, my cell phone company is run by real people. Yet somehow, they constantly fail when trying to get something as simple as billing done. It's a simple fact of engineering, the more features you have, the more likely it is that something is going to break. You can't get around that with any amount of desire. Good intentions count for exactly nothing in the real world, actions are what speak.

And while big companies may not often disappear overnight, it can happen very quickly. Or the decline can be slower, and the patches still not get released because nobody really realized they were about to go under. Even if a company is going down over a period of 6 months, the people in charge aren't going to be thinking "oh, let's patch this now so that when we go, our customers can play". They aren't gonna give a damn, they are going to be too busy figuring out how to stay afloat. If making and releasing that patch costs them money they need to run, they won't make it. If they are in bankruptcy, the court may not even allow them to make and release it. Lots of things can happen, and they can happen pretty quickly

I stand by my position, limited activations are not an appropriate, or effective, solution to piracy. They are only being used in an attempt to quash the secondary, used games market. In other words, they are being used in an attempt to limit consumer rights out of greed. Nothing to do with piracy.

Yup , I agree with you.Working on a patch needs money and when they go bankrupt , will they continue producing a patch for us to play our game without online authentication?Or they will try to protect their money and think "Oh customers , who cares?We don't want to waste our last money on making just a patch for them."?An offline game shouldn't have online authentication in it.

Unfotunately, online authentication doesn't even slow piracy down one jot. Even Steam games are available in working, pirated form, so online activations just add to the annoyance factor to me. It's one more thing that can go wrong. Servers can be down, the company can go out of business, the company can just shut the servers down (no legal way to force them to stay up, after all), or it can be bugged and just flat out not work. It's not a good risk, it's like buying a car that will only work as long as Ford lets you use it, and only for as long as Ford is in business.

Steam, while less annoying than a lot of the DRM, is still more of the same. Valve goes under, your Steam games are going to be unusable. Yes, I know they stated they will release an activation patch to allow Steam games to work without Steam should they shut down, but let's face reality! A comany that is going bankrupt is going to have other problems, and may not even have the ability to keep such a promise. In this economy, any company, anywhere, can end up gone at any moment. This kind of activation is NOT to be trusted. Steam is exactly like the other kinds, it just has a better PR department.Royas

Royas, this post is one of the most articulate and honest posts I have ever seen about DRM in PC games. Bravo and well said, my friend.

these **** companies try to cheat us by limiting our installs and it's not fair to the customer. If someone buys the product it should last as long as it wants if the customer wants to, not by limiting installs so that the customer has to fork out more cash to get another one. DRM and limited installation is ridiculous, it isn't helping in the fight against piracy.

One of the only few game companies i can trust left are Valve and Blizzard. Both companies protect their interests the smart way, you have to agree on that.