Online Activation

[Simeon Ivanov]

It has recently come to my attention that more and more games require and online internet connection to be activated (mainly Steam). Why is that? This why do games require internet connections? This sucks for smaller counties. For example, there other day I bought a copy of Red Faction Armageddon and it told me that "this purchase is not available in your country" Where the fuck am I from, Narnia??? I should be able to play games wherever I'm at you stupid corporate assholes!

So, what do you think about the whole "Internet connection required for activation" thing

 

[Aris Khandr]

It doesn't bother me at all, especially with Steam. Steam is awesome. Piracy is a problem, and companies have to try to fight it. Internet activation is a pretty harmless way of doing it, from my perspective. If they're telling you the game isn't available in your country, that means someone else probably has the rights to it there. This is rather common in situations where the developer is not the publisher.

 

[Pandaman1911]

It prevents piracy, and piracy is bad. And if it prevents bad things, it's good. Ergo... good. Not much more I can say.

 

[Rad Party God]

I'm not worried at all. Yes, there was a time when the games from 2K Games weren't available in my country, including Rockstar games and even Ubisoft didn't have games available in my country, but in january of this year, they opened up and almost every single game in Steam is available in my country, except for some minor ones, wich I don't care much. Still, I'm very, very happy with Steam. And GOG.

As for other games with, say, SecuROM, yes, it's quite annoying that you need an active internet connection to install the game and I generally avoid them like the bubonic plague. After Crysis Warhead, I learned my lesson the hard way.

As a side note, if you want a game that isn't available in your country, just ask a friend to buy the game for you, I did exactly that to buy Civilization IV before it opened up in my country 3 weeks later.

 

[CheesyGrin1992]

I had this recently with Portal 2. I bought a disc copy from the shop thinking I wouldn't need an internet connection, since I didn't have one at the time, only to get back to my flat and find it needed to connect to Steam. Fair enough, it needs activating, so I walked into the university library to connect and activate, only for it to download the entire game from Steam, regardless of the disc I had purchased. If I had been at home at the time, I would not have had any access at all. The game would have sat there, useless and lifeless, until such a time as I could return to the university or to an internet hotspot. This I find ridiculous. I have paid extra money for a hard copy, only to find it doesn't use it anyway? It's stupidity. If I have the hard copy, it should use the hard copy. Like the good old days when activation stayed on the disc. I do so miss those days. Much more friendly when you don't have the internet...

 

[Goldeneye103X2]

Yeah, that is pretty annoying.

When my steam account got hacked, I wasn't allowed to play half life 2. That was quite painful.
If we're not careful, this could get out of hand. Like, seriously out of hand. I'm talking probably having to pay for online activation, but you cam only activate during a certain time of day, after having set up an account for that game, but then as you click"build account", the servers shut down, so your account is stuck in limbo, and you can't play your game.

Which you legitimately bought.
With your hard earned money.

Bullshit.

 

[megapenguinx]

Hasn't affected me yet. Though I am bothered when I can't play games offline....
You know, in case your internet goes down and you need something to do while waiting for them to come out and fix it.

 

[Akytalusia]

as with any sort of law or security measure or rule or equivalent; they only hurt legitimate users who bow to them. law-breakers break laws. it's what they do.

 

[Aris Khandr]

I had this recently with Portal 2. I bought a disc copy from the shop thinking I wouldn't need an internet connection, since I didn't have one at the time, only to get back to my flat and find it needed to connect to Steam. Fair enough, it needs activating, so I walked into the university library to connect and activate, only for it to download the entire game from Steam, regardless of the disc I had purchased. If I had been at home at the time, I would not have had any access at all. The game would have sat there, useless and lifeless, until such a time as I could return to the university or to an internet hotspot. This I find ridiculous. I have paid extra money for a hard copy, only to find it doesn't use it anyway? It's stupidity. If I have the hard copy, it should use the hard copy. Like the good old days when activation stayed on the disc. I do so miss those days. Much more friendly when you don't have the internet...

It does use the disc. I installed Empire and Shogun 2 from the Total War series off of the CD that came with the retail purchase. But if you activate the game on your Steam account without having installed it already, yes, it will try to download the game for you. That's just Steam being helpful. I lost my Oblivion CD when I moved last, so I can't play Oblivion on my PC anymore. With Steam, that can never happen. No CD? We'll just let you download the game. Problem solved, everyone wins.

 

[]DustArma[]

IMO all games should use Battlefield Bad Company 2's activation method minus the installation limit, as it asks you at installation time whether you want to use online or disc-based activations.

a)Online activation limited to 10 installs, requires no disc check.
b)Disc-check, no install limit, requires disc in drive.

Of course, no activation/disc-check would be preferable but that's unlikely to happen.

 

[FuktLogik]

It prevents piracy, and piracy is bad. And if it prevents bad things, it's good. Ergo... good. Not much more I can say.

Bullshit. It doesn't prevent piracy in the slightest. What it does do is push legitimate users to piracy because of the DRM constraints. I've seen numerous instances where people who actually bought the game had to go crack hunting just so they could play the game they legally acquired. This is one of the main reasons I don't game on my PC.

DRM doesn't fix the problem, it makes it worse.

 

[CheesyGrin1992]

I had this recently with Portal 2. I bought a disc copy from the shop thinking I wouldn't need an internet connection, since I didn't have one at the time, only to get back to my flat and find it needed to connect to Steam. Fair enough, it needs activating, so I walked into the university library to connect and activate, only for it to download the entire game from Steam, regardless of the disc I had purchased. If I had been at home at the time, I would not have had any access at all. The game would have sat there, useless and lifeless, until such a time as I could return to the university or to an internet hotspot. This I find ridiculous. I have paid extra money for a hard copy, only to find it doesn't use it anyway? It's stupidity. If I have the hard copy, it should use the hard copy. Like the good old days when activation stayed on the disc. I do so miss those days. Much more friendly when you don't have the internet...

It does use the disc. I installed Empire and Shogun 2 from the Total War series off of the CD that came with the retail purchase. But if you activate the game on your Steam account without having installed it already, yes, it will try to download the game for you. That's just Steam being helpful. I lost my Oblivion CD when I moved last, so I can't play Oblivion on my PC anymore. With Steam, that can never happen. No CD? We'll just let you download the game. Problem solved, everyone wins.

This particular game used the disc to acknowledge that I'd bought it, then proceeded to download the entire game from Steam. Which wasn't being helpful for me on limited internet access. As it downloaded I grew thankful for 24 hour opening at the library. When I tried to stop it and make it use the disc it told me I had to use Steam, which wasn't particularly useful. As I said before, if I had been at home it would have been impossible for me to receive the game. Which is why I am against using internet for anything more than activation, if that. Internet activation is made under the assumption that everybody has it, which just isn't true.

 

[Waaghpowa]

It has recently come to my attention that more and more games require and online internet connection to be activated (mainly Steam). Why is that? This why do games require internet connections? This sucks for smaller counties. For example, there other day I bought a copy of Red Faction Armageddon and it told me that "this purchase is not available in your country" Where the fuck am I from, Narnia??? I should be able to play games wherever I'm at you stupid corporate assholes!

So, what do you think about the whole "Internet connection required for activation" thing

Bear in mind, that although Steam requires online activation, it generally only requires the one online activation then the game can be played offline. The only true online DRM is from Ubisoft, which is stupid because they put it on single player games where only half of the content needs to be accessed online. What's even more stupid is that people end up cracking the game, so that the pirated version is vastly superior to the retail one.

Anyway, the reason for online activation is supposedly for piracy, but we all know how that ends up working right?

 

[Waaghpowa]

Hasn't affected me yet. Though I am bothered when I can't play games offline....
You know, in case your internet goes down and you need something to do while waiting for them to come out and fix it.

Like I said in my above post, the only true instance of "Always online" DRM is Ubisoft, and they suck major ass.

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

How does it prevent piracy? I can´t think of a single game that hasn't been cracked.

 

[Valiance]

Bought DNF a week and a half ago.

Game proceeded to install Steam, two versions of Microsoft Visual C++ Libraries, Direct X, all before it installed the game.

I was hoping to install it on two machines so my dad can play it too, but...Looks like I can't do that, since it's "bound" to my steam account...

 

[Scabadus]

How does it prevent piracy? I can´t think of a single game that hasn't been cracked.

That may be true now, but remember that a huge amount of a game's profits come on its release day. Take an upcomming title for an example: Skyrim. Everyone's going to be wanting to play Skyrim on the 11th, putting in a simple online activation for the game (I'm not saying Skyrim will have this by the way, just an example) will mean that some pirate groups might not crack it until the 20th. If pirates want to play the same game as all their friends are playing, they'll need to lay down some cash.

To be honest, this was works out pretty good for legitimate customers as well; after the games are eventually cracked, if you loose your CDs you can still play it... perhaps not legally, depending on your country, but at least morally.

 

[Waaghpowa]

How does it prevent piracy? I can´t think of a single game that hasn't been cracked.

Nobody said it works...

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

If it doesn't work why are they still using it? -.-

How does it prevent piracy? I can´t think of a single game that hasn't been cracked.

Nobody said it works...

Well ... why are they still using it then?

 

[]DustArma[]

Bought DNF a week and a half ago.

Game proceeded to install Steam, two versions of Microsoft Visual C++ Libraries, Direct X, all before it installed the game.

I was hoping to install it on two machines so my dad can play it too, but...Looks like I can't do that, since it's "bound" to my steam account...

You technically can, just install the game on his PC using your account then set the game to offline mode, it should in theory run fin as long as you don't tell steam to go online again.

Of course that is a breach of the SSA AFAIK and could very well lead to repercussions for you, so use at your own risk