And to complement the story on Far Cry 2's DRM, a quick trawl through the Interweb has revealed that there is good news for the fans of Fallout 3. Bethesda Softworks will be using a simple, non-intrusive DRM (which will probably be a simple disc-check).
10 posts about DRM in the past 2 months. (That is over 16%!)
ReplyDeleteSeems like a lot when the average gamer doesn't care or may not even know what DRM is.
Perhaps there has been no gaming news as of recent?
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI admit there's been quite a few stories on DRM recently - I'll try and find some more stuff on pure gaming but frankly there hasn't been anything terribly interesting - that or all media outlets are jumping on the DRM bandwagon for news coverage :).
I think DRM is important when it comes to the longevity of games and if they're particularly intrusive, they can even spoil the experience (Mass Effect was one of them, at least on Vista :)). However, provided it's not so bad (like a simple DVD-check) as you say, not many gamers are really going to care one way or the other.
Also, certain DRM (SecuROM) has been reported to do some serious damage to computers, since it's a seperate program that is automatically installed onto your computer when you install a game that uses this security measure.
ReplyDeleteIt basically installs and runs from the kernal, therefore has total access to your computer, and has even the highest rights, higher than even you the administrator.
So far, the only solutions out there to remove the DRM from you computer, other than straight format and reinstall the operating system (which you lose one of your install count) is a very long tedious process, which often results in damage anyways, which means "format, reinstall".
The biggest issue is that it can change your settings, registry even your authorisation level without your knowledge or consent. Doesn't that sound familiar? Isn't that the malware we're all trying to avoid? And like all software, they could go wrong, and when it goes wrong at the kernal level, BSOD is the nicest thing that could happen rather massive data corruption.
It has been a focus point lately, partially because most gamers either don't really care until it affects them, or don't really understand in the first place the potention danger they put their computers through. By being informed, we, as gamers, can choose whether we believe this is an acceptable method to be used on us, their customers, in their war against piracy.
The kernel modifying/possible corrupting/near impossible to remove thing does seem quite an issue to those unlucky enough to be effected.
ReplyDeleteI guess I have been lucky and Bioshock installed just fine for me with its rootkit (although it did conflict with the demo, but that was a different issue)
Keep up the good work Mark and Choona!