More Mass Effect DRM Madness
Thought it was over? Think again! I remember getting my first personal copy of Mark of the Unicorn’s Performer software in 1986 at the dawn of the MIDI revolution. The software (based on 3.5″ disks, of course) had an interesting ‘authorization’ system that would copy a hidden file to your hard disk that would allow you to run the program. Your license came with two ‘authorizations’, which meant you could either use the second to run another copy of the program or as a backup. If you got a new computer or larger hard disk (this was the days of 20-40MB storage), you would simply run the program to de-authorize your hard disk, then when you were done with whatever upgrades you were doing you would re-authorize again. For many years I used that system without a problem. My understanding was that was pretty much how Mass Effect was supposed to work. My understanding was wrong.
As noted before, this is only an issue if you are a legal owner of the game, since it was hacked and cracked and has been piracy-ready since pretty much the day it was released to the public.
The general assumption with the Mass Effect DRM (once the 10-day ‘phone home’ factor was removed) was that when you installed the game and did the online authentication, you would ‘use up’ an activation. And while people weren’t happy being tied into a potentially limited system that could go away for any number of reasons, we figured we would at least be safe in the short term. Unfortunately, uninstalling the game does nothing to your activations – once installed three times on either different machines or after a hardware or OS change, you will be out of activations according to this.
EA’s answer to this problem – BUY MORE GAMES!!! No seriously, that was what they said – when you are out of activations you are out of luck.
I mean, we figured it would be just like Bioshock after 2k relented on the activation limit and …um …
Oh, wait, what ABOUT Bioshock? What would happen if you were to uninstall your retail box version of Bioshock? Nothing – you wouldn’t get any activations back. Remember the uproar last year about this? Perhaps not, as the gaming media is no different than the mainstream media in that it has the short-term memory of a three month old puppy. 2k Games released a ‘Revoke Tool’ that would allow you to remove the activation from a given computer … something that was supposed to happen automatically as it did with the Steam version.
So people have started calling for EA / Bioware to release something similar for Mass Effect. And I sure hope they do, because as it stands they have sunk to a new low in terms of user-hostile behavior. People are asking questions and getting pointed towards ‘no activation cracks’ – and who can blame them? I have Mass Effect installed on a Windows XP system that I plan to upgrade to Vista very soon – but I have no desire to lose my second activation yet. So what should I do – wait or grab a crack? For me it is a rhetorical question, as I oppose this sort of crack and refuse to support this community. But for others …
The console vs. PC question always comes up regarding DRM and piracy, which got me thinking: I personally know more than a couple of people who have gone through three or more XBOX360’s due to the system having quality standards worse than a Yugo the sporadic and isolated hardware failures typical of this sort of advanced technology and caused mostly by user error. Anyway, imagine that you had bought Mass Effect for the XBOX360 and played some before you got the RROD. Then you played at a friend’s house while MS worked on yours, then you played more on your returned system. Then you have a group of friends meeting up at someone’s house who also has an X360 and you figured ‘great opportunity to share this game’. Sorry – you start it up and find you can no longer play the game as you’ve used up your activations. That is the same nonsense that PC gamers are dealing with now.
I hope that EA / Bioware does release some sort of ‘revoke tool’, but even if they do it will still be susceptible to hard disk failures just like Bioshock. The bigger issue is that the software doesn’t refund an activation as many consumers believe – and as Bioshock was supposed to. It isn’t clear that Mass Effect was ever supposed to refund activations, and if not that is an even scarier prospect. This isn’t a ‘GoPhone’ that I want to worry about refilling. I could easily use all three installs today – I have one install now, I could upgrade to Vista and use a second, and I could create a new user profile on my PC and install it there for the third. Then when I uninstalled all of these and wanted to put it on my other gaming laptop I’d be out of luck.
Buy another copy! EA would tell me.
Not likely, I say.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Unless I’ve missed a recent update, the original crack for ME was flawed and the warez kiddies couldn’t save their games. (Insert maniacal laughter here.) It was funny watching the GFAQs forum filling up with “I can’t save my game!” comments, with the inevitable “Go buy a copy, ya’ cheapskate” replies.
Good times…
June 20th, 2008 at 2:33 am
Mass Effect is a great game. Probably the best in recent years – I actually plan to finish this one. I just wish it wasn’t so buggy.
First it wouldn’t even run and the error log indicated my Realtek Audi as the fault. The final solution was uninstalling AVG 7.5 and installing AVG 8. Now I can play but only for 30 -45 minutes and then it would freeze my PC. I suspect a memory leak.
June 20th, 2008 at 6:34 am
I haven’t hit a single bug – installed smoothly, runs wonderfully with all details maxed out. I haven’t had a crash, freeze, or anything negative while playing. But my systems tend to be fairly ‘clean’ and I have heard nothing but bad things about AVG and games. I haven’t been on the official site forums much – have you seen reports of similar problems there?
June 20th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Well lets add this to the list of things that really piss of us pc kats. Then again they also put “includes new content” on the box,No new content & No DLC 4 us folks till they r ready.Tnx EA ,BioWare- keep lieing we`ll get the picture soon enough.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I’ve been a gamer for many many years. Many. To give you an idea I played Ultima III on an Apple IIse. In those years I have seen all kinds of DRM schemes come out and I can tell you this: Every single one does nothing more than hurt the legitimate consumer. There has not been a single DRM scheme that I have seen that stops the pirates. Not one.
If people like the game they will buy it, end of discussion. People who download it and play it and never buy it are the same people who, if they bought it, would have complained and bad mouthed every bit they didn’t like. Companies are better off without that kind of publicity to be honest.
As for Mass Effect, I bought it, played it, loved it. Which didn’t surprise me since there has yet to be a Bioware game I didn’t love. I didn’t have any issues with bugs other than I thought it was to easy. I do tend to think the draconian DRM is more EA than Bioware to be honest. But that is just a hunch based upon what I know of the company and the founders. I do wish us PC gamers would get the DLC though, it would be nice.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Unfortunately, my “workaround” for this was to just buy the 360 version — it was on sale this week at Gamefly for 20 bucks, so I couldn’t pass it up. Guess I’ll miss out on the improvements in the PC version… well, that’s life in the era of DRM. GFY EA.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:38 am
@ Mike – Yes I found the solution on the forums where lots of users were experiencing the same problem. Unfortunately official responses were not available. Like I said luckily one guy figured it out. Now my system is not the most up to date system as I try and keep the whole family’s computers fairly up to date but can’t afford the latest stuff. But I am running on Windows XP with 1gig ram and 3.2 GHz P4 with a 8600GT card, which is an pretty average spec I would imagine. I use a utility called EndItAll before I play now to make sure nothing else is running. It seems to help a bit as I was able to play for an hour and a half the other night.
June 22nd, 2008 at 8:56 am
I agree on the whole MEPC’s drm copy protection scheme and things. A man made locked can be beaten by creative and ingenous men. I won’t be using the crack or the hack. I, too, was amused an baffled by the people who couldn’t a) save the game or b) get the galaxy map to work. Some of them might have bought legit copies. I also think MEPC first got a working hack or crack 14-21 days of its initial release. (as said; I won’t be using one nor will I ever encoruage anyone to use one).
Anyway, on the whole re-purchase thing, here’s message from Chris Priestly:
http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=636299&forum=127
He basically explains that the whole ‘repurchase another registration’ was an error.
On the whole drm, EA and Bioware, here’s funny post from one the drm threads:
http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=636239&forum=22&sp=120
(scroll down a bit to read craigdolphin’s post? I think it explains well what might have happened…)
The worst thing of it all seems to be that we can’t get a straight answer from either Bioware, EA nor Securom as to what hardware changes will use an activation. Right after that comes the ‘there’s no loading bar when the game activates’ problem making it impossible to keep track of how many activations we have left.
I also have a problem with a game that due to copy protection being used in said game instructs you to shut off your firewall, power down your anti-virus protection – before activating said game through the internet. I don’t have the game yet as my PC is way too old to handle this game, but I have been following the complaints of many many people on the ME forums at the Bioware site. And many, many people have had to do what I just described to get the game to activate.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I’m a long time gamer myself (Zork, anyone?) and I have to agree, the DRM’s that companies have used are largely a waste of money. They don’t stop people from cracking the game, so why spend hundreds of thousands on something that is little better then a speed bump to pirates, particularly when versions shipped to certain countries don’t have any DRM to them at all.