skuld1

Well, maybe it gets better... but it shouldn't take away from the fact that he does good writing for games. I've heard that writing for video games and writing novels are two completely different beasts.

? Wargaming is one example of a computer gaming niche that has been around for decades. Vogel's games (Avernum, etc) are another good example.

I found it quite interesting that they did this. Looking at it from one perspective, Ubisoft basically called the bluff of many pirates ("We only pirate because of the eeeeevil DRM")... and judging from a few torrent tracker sites I looked at, the pirates were basically proven to be full of sh*t.

Motocross Madness 2 is great fun in a LAN environment.

Yes, Dogmeat will just hang out at the house.

Perhaps they wanted to keep that old Fallout flavor... <player makes targeted shot to eyes> <BANG> <A slaver was hit in the eyes for no damage> ...

Add QA to that list.

File name says "frontm4" so I'd assume Front Mission 4. Yep, its Front Mission 4.

You'd think that this is a reasonable stance... but there's no shortage of outrage when various industry groups or companies bring lawsuits against individual violators.

Darque's post is full of great games. I would add: RPG: Suikoden II Scrolling Shooter: Strikers 1945

If this were the case, long running 'successful' MMOs like EVE (and pretty much every MMO not named WoW) would have gone out of business years ago. Heck, the original EQ is still running to this day and it's not pulling anything remotely close to a million subs.

Older versions of SecuROM also have the same key (or a very similarly worded key). Dunno if you can open or remove it, never tried.

Heh, she actually has a fight tonight (May 31) that will be aired on CBS (in the USA).

Piracy has been on the consoles for awhile, but several things make it much more of a hassle. I think most people know the various reasons; not sure if it's appropriate to bring them up here.

It seems that, according to some on this board and others on various gaming boards: -SecuROM = BAD -Online activation = BAD -Limiting installs per key to x different hardware configurations = BAD -Apparently, even making widespread busts of pirates seems to = BAD Apparently, the only thing some folks will accept is the laughably-easy-to-defeat CD-KEY. Anything beyond that and the bitching and moaning ensues, with laughable stories about how copy protection scheme y destroyed their rigs (yeah, sure... AFAIK, no one collected on Starforce's $1000 challenge to prove that their software breaks hardware, and Starforce is probably the most intrusive scheme out there). No one should be surprised if PC gaming really dries up in the next few years. We are sending a loud and clear message to developers: "We do not accept your attempts at curbing illegal use." For now, they listen and tone down the protection. Eventually, they will likely just abandon the PC market (exceptions for MMOs and casual titles) and go over to consoles, where piracy is less of an issue.

They looked worse than in the games? I still remember LMAO at how ridiculous the Kilrathi looked in the games.

Doubtful. I don't know exactly how Bioware/EA 's EULA is written right now, but they can modify it to restrict sales. Novell (and I believe a few other companies) have had eBay pull down auctions of their second-hand software for years and years without being sued.

I think in one of the threads on the Bioboards it was said that re-installs on the same PC don't count against your limit.

What, no Uwe Boll?

I definitely agree with this. I know the DRM folks won't reveal the exact workings of their system (that would just basically tell the pirates how to defeat it) but they need to be as open as possible regarding what gets transmitted, etc.

Why not? If winning is eliminating ALL piracy, yeah, they cannot win, but I think they'd be satisfied with cutting down on 'casual' piracy. Yes, no one has a problem with CD key checks, especially the pirates. Download an .nfo file for any pirate release and it handily contains a CD-key for the downloaders to use. I'm not at all shocked that companies are trying new techniques and at the moment I don't have anything against this new DRM (I don't believe that every worst case scenario outlined in the thread is going to happen...) What I was trying to get at with my examples is that all sorts of activities require you to 'authenticate'. There are plenty of folks on the net (like kirottu in this thread) who equate software DRM to treating customers like criminals. I was curious if kirottu et al. were equally outraged when asked for identification when voting or purchasing liquor. In the same way that I think that poll workers aren't accusing me of being a criminal when they ask for my credentials, I don't feel that game companies are calling me a criminal with DRM, but that's just me.

I'd bet that Bioware would remove the authentication via patch within 2-3 years (by then, lost sales to piracy would be negligible and probably not worth maintaining the auth server). Also, I highly doubt that EA is going out of business in 3 years. Now a few light-hearted questions to some folks in the thread Do you get furiously angry when you go to buy alcohol and the cashier or store owner asks you for ID? Or how about when you are randomly selected for a thorough search at an airport? Angered that, when voting, the poll workers ask you for your voting ID/voter registration/do a signature check/etc. ? When any of the above happen, do you take it as an affront to your integrity? Some posts in this thread suggest that MEPC phones home, they are suggesting that you (a legitimate purchaser) are a pirate. When the poll worker makes his or her checks, are they suggesting that you are attempting to commit voter fraud?

I must have missed the part in that article where Brad Wardell explicitly states that only a statistically insignificant amount of pirates would pay for games. I have a hard time believing that >95% of pirates have a software collection fetish and download games just to expand their hoard. Why would anyone pirate a game that they have absolutely no interest in?