Honest Consumer Get Bit By DRM – Goes to Piracy
Revisions:
4-6-10: Initial Release.
Today I was doing some reading on the Internet, and I came across the article below. I ask you to read it and come back here, it is a short read.
http://consumerist.com/2010/04/insane-pc-game-drm-drove-me-to-piracy.html
In summary, the gamer had purchased a copy of Red Faction Guerrilla. Installed the game, and played it for awhile before the hard drive died on him. He got a new hard drive, reinstalled the game, and because of the DRM protection, he was unable to play this game. After duking it out with customer support and getting absolutely no where, he ended up downloading a pirated copy, which in fact ran better and allowed him to play online!
In these situations, is it legal or illegal? The user did buy the game, but due to DRM, it forced him to attend to other means. What is even more interesting is that some game studios (Ubisoft, EA Games) where in order to play a single player game, you have to be connected to the Internet.
To the poor gamer who can’t afford online access, he just bought himself a new paperweight. The funny part is that Ubisoft came out with Assassin Creed II for PC (which has 24/7 DRM protection), and let’s just say that the game got cracked almost instantly. What is even more ridiculous is that over the course of several weekends, there were Denial of Service attacks on Ubisoft server’s, thus rendering the games of legitimate players useless while the pirates played hardcore in their basements laughing.
Is DRM necessary? Yes and no. The problem with it all is that it punishes the legitimate players because the illegitimate ones are engaging in the rampant piracy. Why else do you think we are seeing more and more PC games with the LAN feature missing? >_>
So what would you do if your DRM game forced you to go buy another copy? Would you do it? This is why if you have to be a smart STD. Research your games, and make sure you get games without DRM. Either that, or go get an executable to remove the DRM for you.
Posted on April 6, 2010, in Computers and tagged DRM, Ethics. Bookmark the permalink. 5 Comments.
Welcome to the Underground. 
It’s quite ironic to see that the very thing meant to prevent piracy is what drove our honest-to-goodness gamer to resort to pirated materials.
2 years ago, a friend of mine, bought the legit copy of the AOE3 game. When he installed it, the game asked for the serial key. So, he typed in the serial as seen on the back of the case. But, it constantly gave him an error message, that the key was not valid or something. He tried to contact Microsoft, Windows help center, everywhere. Then he kind of turned to torrents to download a working copy.
What’s even funny is.. He told me that it was his first legit game, and since then he has never bought another, and he swore that he never will… lol
I can relate to this, I recently bought the game Bioshock, which uses securom. So I installed the game, and well it didn’t work at all, wouldn’t even start. It was some error with securom…idk. I was talking with a friend of mine here at the school that I go to, and he… well pirated the game, installed it, and guess what… it worked with no problem at all. Securom, DRM, all they do is screw over the honest consumer.
Haha, first off I loved what they did to the Assassin’s Creed website; it said, “Crack coming soon.” Had me in a laugh like you said! And to your question whether it is legal or not to download a pirated copy, well yes it is. You see, each game comes with it’s own specific code, kind of like an isbn number. So if you have a copy with an isbn that you did not purchase then it is not yours. Morally I would agree that it’s right, because the guy got ripped off, but legally it is not. Not legal, but I do agree with what he is doing. The gaming industry makes so much money off of the customers that they can’t complain. So go ahead and pirate away everyone, be a rebel, don’t give in to those thieves. Anarchy rules!
I dont’t believe this is an act of ARGGGG……= piracy ,to obtain the booty =the game .He did what he needed to do to play the game .I would of done the same thing . THE companies should be glad we don’t completely pursue every means of obtaining or getting the game for free , I recently purchased “Dirt 2” installed it and it runs great on my older machine AMD single core 3200mhz .once installed you can race one race , BUT TO GO ON AND SAVE your gaming progress you must install WINDOWS LIVE ,well upon starting the install it advises WIN LIVE needs an update so after waiting over an hour and half for update of WIN LIVE ,to be informed update didnt work …I have a great connection .tried this several times ,well after little time it seemed to work i guess im able to log on WIN LIVE ….after first race same spot it freezes …. I believe this has to do with WIN LIVE .After cussing out Codemasters for implementing WINDOWS LIVE into there games .I pretty much have a codemasters frisbee….So I will have no problem batting down the hatches , putting on my PATCH for my eye , And setting sail for the the meanest piracy adventure known to mankind .Not for profit mearly for my own personnal BOOTY!!!sorry didnt mean to rant ….And I know this is not the proper thread but reading the kids problem i felt i needed to vent …………so do wat you need to do to get that game!!!!!!!!