the Gears of War PC certification expiration problem - in short, I could not play a game I had paid for for about a month due the developers goofing up.
Recall your worst DRM related problem
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Get Dawn of War II Retribution. All Online/Multiplayer is on Steam and is much faster/efficient to set up (basically all you need to do is install the game and click "Find Game") =)StBishop said:I made an exeption for Dawn of War 2, which made me waste about 3 hours fucking around with Games for Windows Live. Yaaaaay.
So yeah, not a fan.
Removed this because of accidental double-post
Edit: So now I've got a quadruple post.....Someone help me please!
Edit: So now I've got a quadruple post.....Someone help me please!
The command and conquer 4 DRM yes i was an idoit to think it would be any good.But to the point it had always on DRM but even thou i have a number of programs showing my connection to the net it would randomly tell me i was offline and that it would not save any data from that point.Pretty much tell me that anything i do in this mission is pointless as you will be kicked back to "when you went offline" really helpful in a rts when every split second decision can change the battle.
also combo breaker on the out of control posts
also combo breaker on the out of control posts
Spore.
When I bought it, I had a flaky dial-up connection. This meant that whenever I tried to install the game, it failed. I could not install and play the game I legally bought because the game thought it was a pirated copy.
Such fucking stupidity has no words to truly describe it. And there were no words to describe my rage.
And throughout this pain in the ass of trying to install, apparently I "used up" my "install credits". And therefore couldn't install the game anymore. And to get it to install, I apparently had to buy another copy of the game. Oh, and throughout this, it managed to install Securom on my PC without my knowledge and/or consent.
[HEADING=1]THERE IS NO MIDDLE FINGER BIG ENOUGH[/HEADING]
It is at this point most(well, all) people tell me to just download the pirated copy. My response to them is to ask if they've ever tried downloading anything on a flaky dial-up connection. It's a massive pain to get even the tiniest files, it's just fucking impossible to get a multi-gigabyte game.
Eventually a friend of mine just gave me a disk with the pirated version on it, so I could finally play the game I fucking bought. The game itself was alright.
But still. Fuck you EA, you fucking dumbass fucks who thought it would be a good and/or smart idea to make the legit copy think it's pirated. WHO THE FUCK WOULD EVER THINK THAT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA?!
And now, instead of being remembered as "the game that's basically the poster child for shitty, useless, and needlessly hostile DRM", it's known as "that boring game".
Because the hatred of DRM fell off after about a couple weeks, I guess publishers thought it wasn't really the DRM's fault so many people hated the game.
The whole situation just pisses me the fuck off. And it's caused by stupidity so great, words do not begin to describe it.
FUCK you EA.
That's another fucking point for how shitty DRM is. The people most affected by it are the people who are the least likely to fucking pirate in the first place. Just... GAH! PUBLISHERS! WHY U SO FUCKING STOOPID?!
When I bought it, I had a flaky dial-up connection. This meant that whenever I tried to install the game, it failed. I could not install and play the game I legally bought because the game thought it was a pirated copy.
Such fucking stupidity has no words to truly describe it. And there were no words to describe my rage.
And throughout this pain in the ass of trying to install, apparently I "used up" my "install credits". And therefore couldn't install the game anymore. And to get it to install, I apparently had to buy another copy of the game. Oh, and throughout this, it managed to install Securom on my PC without my knowledge and/or consent.
[HEADING=1]THERE IS NO MIDDLE FINGER BIG ENOUGH[/HEADING]
It is at this point most(well, all) people tell me to just download the pirated copy. My response to them is to ask if they've ever tried downloading anything on a flaky dial-up connection. It's a massive pain to get even the tiniest files, it's just fucking impossible to get a multi-gigabyte game.
Eventually a friend of mine just gave me a disk with the pirated version on it, so I could finally play the game I fucking bought. The game itself was alright.
But still. Fuck you EA, you fucking dumbass fucks who thought it would be a good and/or smart idea to make the legit copy think it's pirated. WHO THE FUCK WOULD EVER THINK THAT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA?!
And now, instead of being remembered as "the game that's basically the poster child for shitty, useless, and needlessly hostile DRM", it's known as "that boring game".
Because the hatred of DRM fell off after about a couple weeks, I guess publishers thought it wasn't really the DRM's fault so many people hated the game.
The whole situation just pisses me the fuck off. And it's caused by stupidity so great, words do not begin to describe it.
FUCK you EA.
That's another fucking point for how shitty DRM is. The people most affected by it are the people who are the least likely to fucking pirate in the first place. Just... GAH! PUBLISHERS! WHY U SO FUCKING STOOPID?!
No one's against them making money, they're against them doing it in a retarded way, which is what DRM is.setting_son said:My biggest issue with DRM is that whenever a big game is released with DRM software packaged, the message boards flood with angry gamers who are surprised that businesses out to make money are trying to protect their profits.
Yes, DRM is a pain but I think we're stuck with it now.
OT: I had that thing with GfWL where it kept saying it needed to update, would simply stop loading after a certain point, blah blah blah. Took hours to get round the piece of shit.
Oblivion on Steam wouldn't work at all. Now, despite the fact I bought the bastard off steam, I have to completely bypass steam to play it. Worst part is I bought off steam for the specific reason that I wanted to play it that day. Took about 5 days in the end for a fully functional workaround. I could have amazoned it by then.
The more I think about this topic, the more I realise that short of a boycott that people fucking stick to for a change (why yes, I have seen the Jimquisition), there's not much that can be done.
Because after several hundred hours of different character builds and doing most quests, one can get bored of any game. Especially one like Oblivion, where everyone looks like they opened the Ark of the Covenant and talks like they only needed the money for smack.LordDarkPhantom said:
When it realizes that the disc isnt actually in the driv- I mean DRM is annoying when trying to play games I bought with real money.
I had a problem like this with one of the Mass Effect games. Can't remember which. Bought it new, installed it, went to play it. It asked me to register it online. Told it to do it, tried to register, wouldn't do it. Lots and lots and lots of times it tried to register for me and failed. Eventually I had to crack it to play a game I had legitimately bought. Fortunately I haven't had this problem with any other game, but it really is annoying when things the game company have put in place actually prevent you from using their products.
My worst experience with DRM is a close call between Assassins Creed and Assassins Creed 2.
With the first Assassins Creed, because of that issue where the call home DRM kept hammering on the internet connection nearly constantly my internet connection became unstable all the time and everybody else in the house hated it whenever I was playing it.
With Assassins Creed 2, the server went down all the time just after launch, both due to Ubisoft underestimating server load and to the DDOS attacks after that. I had to redo so many sections.
With the first Assassins Creed, because of that issue where the call home DRM kept hammering on the internet connection nearly constantly my internet connection became unstable all the time and everybody else in the house hated it whenever I was playing it.
With Assassins Creed 2, the server went down all the time just after launch, both due to Ubisoft underestimating server load and to the DDOS attacks after that. I had to redo so many sections.
Woodsey said:No one's against them making money, they're against them doing it in a retarded way, which is what DRM is.setting_son said:My biggest issue with DRM is that whenever a big game is released with DRM software packaged, the message boards flood with angry gamers who are surprised that businesses out to make money are trying to protect their profits.
Yes, DRM is a pain but I think we're stuck with it now.
OT: I had that thing with GfWL where it kept saying it needed to update, would simply stop loading after a certain point, blah blah blah. Took hours to get round the piece of shit.
DRM is often implemented badly; When it's so draconian and over the top that the customer feels punished for buying the legit product or when it interferes with/breaks the game. And yeah, in those instances we can all cry foul.
But DRM wasn't introduced for the hell of it - it's one of the very few tools a publisher has at their disposal to ensure they get paid fairly for their work.
If there wasn't any piracy then there wouldn't be a need for DRM in the first place - you cannot blame publishers for trying to protect profits. Like it or not, we're stuck in an arms race with publishers developing pirate-resistant DRM and then pirates cracking it.
But I don't agree that DRM is 'retarded' - at least not all of it and not all the time. It's a logical response to piracy. Pirates aren't freedom fighting anarchists who are out to save us all from the big bad publishers, they're thieves and games developers are free to protect their intellectual property as they see fit.
That might involve DRM and if all DRM offends you so much - don't buy games that have it.
For me it was Starforce, a DRM system that noticably affected my computer worse than any virus I'd ever gotten.
It got so bad that eventually the game companies stopped using it as protection, but that was an annoying couple of years.
It got so bad that eventually the game companies stopped using it as protection, but that was an annoying couple of years.
The indie euroshmup Zeit2 PC on steam, It has Ubi's (who are publisher partners) TAGES DRM with only 3 (or is it 5?) installs allowed and unlike most other TAGES games there is no way of getting back any installs. Once youve used up your 3 install thats it, which considering the game is on steam meaning games are reinstalled all the time with PC maintainece or just wanting to play it on a different PC its really the worst DRM ive ever seen imo.
Whats worse is that you are left with a dead steam game icon in your games libary with no option to rebuy the game if you wished (not that I would as the game sucks anyway)
Whats worse is that you are left with a dead steam game icon in your games libary with no option to rebuy the game if you wished (not that I would as the game sucks anyway)
The only time DRM has annoyed me was when I bought Mass Effect 2 (New, from Play.com). The CD-Key issue has plagued many buyers and, despite several workarounds that worked for other people, I was left with a game I paid good money for but WOULD-NOT-RUN!
In the end I had to download a 3rd party "No-DVD" hack just to play the game and I had to re-install this hack every time I added some of the DLC. Now I normally don't condone hacks but it was provided with the proviso that it was to be only used by "legitimate owners" (as if that would stop a pirate using it) and, as I said, I'd damn well paid for the game and I wanted to play it.
I have been onto EA repeatedly about this issue and all I got were several emails that read: "We apologise for blah-di-blah-di-blah, we are aware of your complaint and la-di-dah-di-dah and will endeavour to resolve this problem as soon as possible."
Well it's been almost a year and I am still waiting, EA.
Oh and I told them that I had to download the hack but refrained (just!) from being snarky about it.
Wardy
In the end I had to download a 3rd party "No-DVD" hack just to play the game and I had to re-install this hack every time I added some of the DLC. Now I normally don't condone hacks but it was provided with the proviso that it was to be only used by "legitimate owners" (as if that would stop a pirate using it) and, as I said, I'd damn well paid for the game and I wanted to play it.
I have been onto EA repeatedly about this issue and all I got were several emails that read: "We apologise for blah-di-blah-di-blah, we are aware of your complaint and la-di-dah-di-dah and will endeavour to resolve this problem as soon as possible."
Well it's been almost a year and I am still waiting, EA.
Oh and I told them that I had to download the hack but refrained (just!) from being snarky about it.
Wardy
GTA IV probably. I couldn't play it for a month or so until they patched out the always online requirement.
It used the annoying "Games for Windows" system that kept insisting it needed to be patched, but then failed trying to patch itself. Getting error codes saying "#4567767768" didn't exactly help, especially since there were no way of copy/pasting those numbers. In the end the numbers simply translated to "Network error", or "General fault", not exactly helpful.
And yeah those DRMs that refuse to work when Daemon Tools is installed. I hate those.
It used the annoying "Games for Windows" system that kept insisting it needed to be patched, but then failed trying to patch itself. Getting error codes saying "#4567767768" didn't exactly help, especially since there were no way of copy/pasting those numbers. In the end the numbers simply translated to "Network error", or "General fault", not exactly helpful.
And yeah those DRMs that refuse to work when Daemon Tools is installed. I hate those.
Starcraft 2. I had to swap BB providers so my Internet was off for a month. Believing Blizzard's lies I got SC2 anyway because I should still have been able to play it. Of course this was justa huge lie, day 2 game goes offline - completely unplayable. By the time I gained access I was so far behind everyone else it was impossible to catch up or play it again.